Ringo Solo Activity Thread
 

I figured I'd start this thread because as much as Ringo likes to pretend it's all about Jihen, you know she just can't resist making solo appearances and participating in various non-jihen projects, so I figured I'd start a thread where we could discuss any recent non-jihen ringo activity. right now there isn't much planned outside of jihen in her future, so I'd figure we could speculate.

so, how long do you think it will be before we get some new solo Ringo? Part of me really feels we are going to get another solo Ringo album before we get the follow up to Sports. Either that, or Ringo is going to continue to write for every pop-star and their mother, like she has been for Puffy/tokio etc. She had 2 songs on Sports and I'm guessing 90 percent of SG was written and left lying around her back catalogue, so I have a feeling once the Sports era starts to die down a little she is going to get bored and start to focus on her own projects again.

that being said, what do you guys think? Will we get a 5th solo Ringo album or a 5th Jihen album first?

2011 new album of the goddess ^ _ ^

I've got a sense that Ringo has really been disturbed lately. I mean, I know that KSK was written at a difficult point in her life ("Kuki" having some allusions to her 9/11 nightmares), but in the last few years I've really gotten a sense that she's genuinely unhappy with her life. A lot of the interviews surrounding "Sports" dealt with her personal struggles as well as the frustrations she had concerning her band. I loved the recent interviews but they made me a little concerned for poor Hata as well. :(
Some people believe that Ringo has been slacking off in recent years, but I don't think it's so much that she's lazy as much as it is she's distracted. I adore SR's work in and out of Jihen, but if she needs to take a break she should. Right now I'm wondering if that's what she wants/needs to do. I try to keep a healthy distance from Ringo's personal life as it's not any of my business, but maybe something's going on behind the scenes she needs to attend to.
Speaking of which, I enjoy her recent work, but it seems kind of emotionally distant to me. Maybe as a 20 Y.O. male I'm having difficulty relating to her as a 31 Y.O. mother and established pop icon. Or maybe it's something going on with her. I don't know. I look forward to more compositions by Ringo, but I want it to happen when she's ready...

I think it all depends on what she feels at the end of Ultra C. It might push her to focus on solo or push her further into Tokyo Jihen

I'm not gonna speculate about her private life -- I saw that picture someone posted of Ringo and her baby at a family event and I felt disturbed by it. Too much information. It's strange, considering I'm so used to celebs whoring out their private lives here in the UK.

I will say that in terms of future projects, I think Ringo is versatile enough to become a kind of Japanese Damon Albarn. I think it's crazy that she would restrict herself to Tokyo Jihen, and that she isn't working on anime/movie soundtracks, or a full-fledged theatre production. Didn't she want to get into stage design? Didn't she also say that if she didn't make it as a musician, she'd use her connections to make it in some other field?
If anything, the Sanmon Gossip era is a glimpse of how far she could be spreading herself.

I think it will be next year sometime, maybe not for a couple years. I really think Shiina Ringo should just ditch Tokyo Jihen. I want her to make an album thats up there with KZK, SS, and MM! Sanmon Gossip made me dissapointed becuase it sounded a lot like other Ringo songs, I could connect each song to one that she'd already recorded. I think that she should explore the depths of her creativity and make another album like KZK, even though there is little chance in that happening.

The bot necroing this thread aside, I'd like to point out that things really haven't changed in a year-and-a-half, have they?

The amount of spam threads on emf is lulzy. I kind of dislike dai hakken now. There isn't any replay value.

To be fair to Tokyo Jihen, if you combine the best songs from Variety, Sports and Dai Hakken, you get a pretty decent album. None of the songs sound out of place either.

That's not great praise.
"If you condense the last three albums worth of material, its homogenous enough to work!" :P

I was actually going to make a thread titled 'Combine the last three Jihen albums!' It would be fun.