New Jihen album: Dai Hakken [2011.06.29]

[jackmanca]

Originally Posted by TurtleFu

Actually, Ayumi DIDN'T write her own music (ESPECIALLY in the beginning), and CONTINUES to not write most of her own music. That's a fact.

I just wanted to say that writting the songs doesn't necessarily makes her a bad/good artist. Here in Brazil we have some AWESOME singers that never wrote a single lyric. Not even one. And they were so fucking GOOD in what they did (they're Elis Regina and Cassia Eller), so I just wanted to say that I think there's room for everyone, lyricists or not.

And about the simmetry, I loved! I loved the titles with the same number of kanjis!

Oh, and about the lyrics to Brand New Civilization, I really thought (and prefer) this part was like this: "All I ever taste I wanna spit it out, but you know, I'm really dying for a little LIFE" (instead of a little LIGHT). I love the contrast of "dying for a little life". Now I'll have to wait to see the official lyrics on the album...
Still more 26 days...

Oh, and I wanted to quote myself about the j-pop thing:

Originally Posted by jackmanca

I think she doesn't like the therm, not the kind of music (like no one says madonna is us-pop, or shakira is c-pop), being or not pop ('cause it's really bizarre to put, for example, soil & pimp sessions and morning musume under the same category: j-pop.). It's really strange, if you stop to think about it. But it's the old problem of needing to put a label in everything.

[Nimh]

Totally off-topic, sort of, but I just picked up this book from Amazon Japan: Shiina Ringo vs. J-POP by the cultural critic Abe Kashou. Abe also wrote a book on Kitano Takeshi called Kitano Takeshi vs. Beat Takeshi, which was a study of Kitano's dual persona as serious actor/director and wacky TV persona/comedian. The Ringo book is along the same lines: she is J-pop, but she is also not J-pop, and when you put those two things together you get contradictions but also a weird kind of symbiosis. Anyway, I'm assuming some folks here already heard about it since it came out in 2004.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E6%A4%8E%E5...143359&sr=1-23

Amazon Japan is my new lover, by the way. Probably everything I'm saving price-wise by shopping here, I will make up for when shipping things back to the States.

[Glathannus]

Here's the thing about bringing more luggage personally close with you during a flight - there isn't a spread-thin network of airline employees who have to actively supervise so many checkpoints in any process of transport for your belongings. So I would imagine that personally importing the stuff certainly couldn't be more expensive than sitting around in the States and placing online orders for the stuff to be shipped from Japan 'straight' to you. Our federal government employs Customs official to check out our imported shipment, which goes through a grand queue, and could get held up for an extra 1-4 days. Then they've we've got a public/private postal service (worst of both worlds) or UPS or DHL or FedEx with their vast network of trucks, with more unionized bellies to feed for each step along the way.

Even if the airlines are starting to be extra-douchebaggy about luggage in recent years, it's probably still cheaper (and faster) to import the goods personally, especially since it's the United States, and they couldn't care less about the kind of stuff you're thinking of bringing along.

[Mr Sands]

Originally Posted by Nimh

Totally off-topic, sort of, but I just picked up this book from Amazon Japan: Shiina Ringo vs. J-POP by the cultural critic Abe Kashou.

I randomly picked this up at a Recofan some time ago. As my level of Japanese is not good enough to read it yet it's remained kind of untouched. At least I know what it actually is now.

[deadgrandma]

The main thing about Japanese pop-pop is that it seems to take western music and amplify it. Goodbye subtlety!

EDIT: And by pop-pop i mean full on poppity-pop-pop-pop like AKB48. This kind of music is scarier than the doomiest of doom metal to me.

[Nimh]

Originally Posted by Glathannus

So I would imagine that personally importing the stuff certainly couldn't be more expensive than sitting around in the States and placing online orders for the stuff to be shipped from Japan 'straight' to you.

My girlfriend recommends just buying another suitcase and yeah, personally importing. Right now the number of books I have here isn't too over the top, between 20-30 paperbacks. That number is likely to go up, though. I could put half of them in a box and ship them out 3rd class (which could take a long time---EMS is more reliable but frightfully expensive), or buy another suitcase. Or just use the suitcases I have and dump some of the underwear, etc. that I can replace cheaply in the States.

[justriiingo]

since this thread has gone completely off topic anyway, here's my little contribution.

Gil Scott-Heron - Home is where the hatred is

[kuro_neko]

yeah, because topping oricon charts with your debut album for five weeks straight and selling over a million copies isn't success....

Loveppears also topped Oricon and sold over 3 million, but by then Ayumi had already built a fan base around her earlier work.

as for the music vs lyric debate, would you claim acapella is not music? Or how about a song like Bonsai Hada, which is pretty much just Ringo singing alongside meager accompaniment that she probably let him improvise half of. LYRICS ARE MUSIC, its not just writing words, its creating a melody that coincides with the harmonies and composed music. The human voice is an instrument and can be used in many ways and Ayumi did a lot more than just scribble words on paper, she played a large part in shaping the total sound of her music by composing her own lyrics, DESPITE not composing the songs themselves. This is a stupid and pointless argument because if that is your honest opinion you must not give Ringo any credit for most of Variety or Sports because she really only wrote lyrics for most of those two albums.

"genre" a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, or the like: the genre of epic poetry; the genre of symphonic music.

grouping songs by country of origin when your dealing with international music DOES constitute genre. Walk into american record stores and you'll see pop/rap/country/soundtrack, go into one in japan and you'll jpop, western pop, classical, soundtrack, etc. Within there are many types of music but separating by cultural origin does fall in line with the definition of what a genre is, as the particular content or form in question is grouped by country of origin.

this is the last I'm going to bother dealing with this, you clearly need to get your head out of your ass, I would put money on you being a typical japanese major with little experience in anything other than forum trolling.

[TurtleFu]

Do you not understand how writing lyrics works? The composer writes the song, and maybe a rough outline of lyrics. They give it to the singer, and then the singer writes lyrics to go with the ALREADY COMPOSED melody. Or, in reverse, like how Bernie Taupin WRITES LYRICS and then Elton John COMPOSES THE SONG (Melody).
When you write lyrics YOU DO NOT COMPOSE MELODIES. Those are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. At most, if the lyrics are composed before the melody, then there is an inherent rhythm in the way the words are said, but that is not what happens with Ayumi. When Shiina or Ayumi write lyrics, they don't have ANYTHING to do with the melody, the melody is GIVEN to them.
Just because a song has a sparse arrangement doesn't mean it doesn't have a melody. A Capella songs and Bonsai Hada still have melodies separate from the lyrics! Melody is the music played, and lyric is the WORDS sung.
Listen to the song "Ah" by Superfly. The LYRIC is the word "Ah" repeated over and over. The MELODY are the NOTES SUNG.

You CLEARLY have no idea how SONGWRITING works, let alone you don't even know what the words MELODY and LYRIC actually MEAN.

I'm an Art major.

EDIT: Oh, and another word you seem to have no knowledge of what it actually means: trolling. Just because I disagree with you doesn't mean I'm trolling.

[W3iHong]

Bach stole Toccata & Fugue.