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Old 2009.12.21, 01:14 AM   #101
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Originally Posted by kuro_neko View Post
I was very interested in the 2ch rumors saying she was quiting jihen for a mummy-d, nakayama, songs style band formation. the problem with ringo is she gets bored of one thing after a while and as a solo artist is able to change it up easily, but with jihen the band holds her back in that regards. she might want to do something completely different but shes pretty much shackled to a 5 piece band in a way..
This is true, which is why Phase 1 was great, I suppose -- Hirama was able to keep up with her. Don't want to start that, though...I do wonder if Ringo deciding to 'train the band' (I don't know how literally she meant that) is anything to do with a new style she wants to pursue in Sports.

As I'm sure so cold said earlier, it's funny that through all the bands she's worked with -- and let's face it, Ringo loves to get around -- she ends up being stuck with the one that's least compatible with her. I DO like Phase 2 a bit now compared to a while ago, but bits of SG show me that she has plenty of other tricks up her sleeve (Beyond the SS/KSK kind of music) and I wonder if we'll ever see that through Phase 2.

I do think that there's a smidgen of a chance of Sports surprising me (I'm sure I'll enjoy the album, but I'd like a surprise). It better, because we may not be hearing from SR for a while after
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Old 2009.12.21, 04:38 PM   #102
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the majority of all rock and pop is made with guitar/bass/drum/keys. sometimes with no keys at all. one band from the states only has drums and guitar, and the drummer isnt even good, but they still rock.

Tokyo Jihen is only limited by thier imaginaaaatiooons.

and ditch the church organ and get a 21st century synth, Mr. Izawa.
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Old 2009.12.22, 08:59 AM   #103
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White Stripes?
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Old 2009.12.22, 08:24 PM   #104
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yeah but look at what jack has down outside the stripes.

then you have amanda palmer versus dresden dolls. dresden dolls is keyboard and drums or keyboard and guitar, and they manage to do a lot with just that, but Amanda went and released a full fledged solo album with strings guitar drums piano full chorus, the whole nine years, and the critics and fans went nuts. having a 5 piece set up (including voice) is much less limiting than having a 3 or a 2 piece, but it doesn't compare to have the freedom to do whatever you want on any track and have any collaboration you want. in ringo's case, it is almost like she doesn't remember how to work without someone to bounce her ideas off of. When she made SG it almost feels like rather than carry the burden (and probably because of time constraints) she just invited a bunch of her friends, gave each a song or two, and the end result was SG.
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Old 2009.12.22, 10:18 PM   #105
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yeah, i think that's what happened with SG but that's also why i think it was subpar by her standards. they say necessity is the mother of all creation, and so there was no need for her to push certain instruments to do more if she could just add different ones. i think the white stripes are so impressive because mr. white has to do so much more with the guitar than he would if he just got another dude to play rhythm so he could focus on straight lead. it pushes you to be more creative when you have less--i'd say it's more impressive to see a very good drawing in microsoft paint than in photoshop. i love albums with a lot of complex sounds, but i think it's good to add that once you have a strong core rather than start off knowing all the different things you're going to use because it limits your creation from the start. so with SG, i get the feeling that a lot of times the hook or the raison d'etre for the songs is the collaboration more than her original composition.

for me personally, i prefer band sounds than otherwise, KSK is a rare exception, but even with the beatles' sgt. peppers, i love it and all but i don't listen to it as much because sometimes i just want something raw that simple instruments will give you, something you can do live without extraneous sounds being played over the speakers or a huge band.

also, you mentioned time constraints, and i guess that might have been a reason, but i don't think it's worth putting something out because of that kind of reason and maybe it shows how her mindset has changed a little. though for a musician with a contract, it's hard to be critical of her in that sense since i don't know her financial situation and whether or not she could endure a fine (i guess that's what they do if you take too long on something with a deadline?).
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Old 2009.12.23, 12:08 AM   #106
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she had time constraints because fans were asking for new music at EXPO in November, in December she met with Jihen and discussed the new album/theme, and then knew she literally had a three month window to record and release an album, then get to work on Jihen again. She did it strictly for the fans and she did it in such a short period you have to kind of be in awe at it a bit. I assume the material was mostly lying around and she didn't pen it all on the fly, but still, in retrospect I would have liked her to have taken more time to arrange the music herself rather than spread it out over various artists to meet a time schedule.

music depends on the artist and not on the band set up. I like my music to have a bit more oomph than just the typical 5 piece band, or a more intense focus on one or two instruments, so usually 5 is the number I stay away from (most traditional rock bands and pop rock bands usually stick to 5, it can be a bit boring). I like artists who throw in extra instruments, like harp, or take them away. its kind of like cooking, adding spice or focusing on a few select flavors, but if you stay the standard it comes out bland.
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Old 2009.12.23, 03:03 AM   #107
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Originally Posted by HEDOfloe View Post
yeah, i think that's what happened with SG but that's also why i think it was subpar by her standards. they say necessity is the mother of all creation, and so there was no need for her to push certain instruments to do more if she could just add different ones. i think the white stripes are so impressive because mr. white has to do so much more with the guitar than he would if he just got another dude to play rhythm so he could focus on straight lead. it pushes you to be more creative when you have less--i'd say it's more impressive to see a very good drawing in microsoft paint than in photoshop. i love albums with a lot of complex sounds, but i think it's good to add that once you have a strong core rather than start off knowing all the different things you're going to use because it limits your creation from the start. so with SG, i get the feeling that a lot of times the hook or the raison d'etre for the songs is the collaboration more than her original composition.

for me personally, i prefer band sounds than otherwise, KSK is a rare exception, but even with the beatles' sgt. peppers, i love it and all but i don't listen to it as much because sometimes i just want something raw that simple instruments will give you, something you can do live without extraneous sounds being played over the speakers or a huge band.

also, you mentioned time constraints, and i guess that might have been a reason, but i don't think it's worth putting something out because of that kind of reason and maybe it shows how her mindset has changed a little. though for a musician with a contract, it's hard to be critical of her in that sense since i don't know her financial situation and whether or not she could endure a fine (i guess that's what they do if you take too long on something with a deadline?).


She said that doing it under time constraints meant that it allowed her not to think too much. I know this because of those quick fire Sanmon Gossip interviews (The one where she made the infamous 'I wish I had a penis' comment). Using that as justification for 'oh noes Ringo has gone downhill' is kind of silly, because apparently, it's a challenge she imposed on herself. SG wasn't even 'out of character' with the Ringo-and-friends element because as I said, she loves to get around. The 'let everyone else arrange the music' appears to be the experiment she wanted to carry out, not 'oh woe, I cannot make music by myself anymore!'

Cynics will take this as 'Oh, gawd, what a deluded fanboy,' but it's really just another way of looking at the situation. I'm sure she'll release another solo album all music: Ringo arrangement: Ringo/Bakeneko Killer someday, especially at the rate she's going.
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Old 2009.12.23, 06:00 AM   #108
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Originally Posted by fluffiethesock View Post
White Stripes?
Sleater-Kinney? (although their drummer was good)
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Old 2009.12.23, 08:15 PM   #109
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A while ago neko said something about how most of us are trying to compare new ringo releases with the feeling we got after first hearing Ringo, sounded something like the concept of 'chasing the initial high'. There's one thing that keeps me from agreeing with you though, ADULT. I was still kind of new to Ringo when kyouiku came out but I was smiling while listening to ADULT saying 'Will she ever stop being amazing!?', all the way through almost. Since then I've felt that with certain songs (hatsukoi, senkou shoujou, mayokashi, togatta, sakuran (maybe), kaban no nakami...I think the list ends there.) but I think its just the fact that a solid album.

I'm also just starting to explore Ringo's covers (I ignored the cover album at first) and I'm amazed as I was by ADULT. Kurumayasan and shiroi kobota are sooooo tight.

I wonder what SG would have looked like if it sat in the oven for another 6 months. Thats what I wanted to see, I would have waited years for it. I wish she spent those 3 months WORKING on it, not COMPLETING it.

Originally Posted by Scribble R View Post
I'm sure she'll release another solo album all music: Ringo arrangement: Ringo/Bakeneko Killer someday, especially at the rate she's going.
OR that. Arrangements and vocal melody are basically all I care about.
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Old 2009.12.23, 09:16 PM   #110
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Originally Posted by Scribble R View Post


She said that doing it under time constraints meant that it allowed her not to think too much. I know this because of those quick fire Sanmon Gossip interviews (The one where she made the infamous 'I wish I had a penis' comment). Using that as justification for 'oh noes Ringo has gone downhill' is kind of silly, because apparently, it's a challenge she imposed on herself. SG wasn't even 'out of character' with the Ringo-and-friends element because as I said, she loves to get around. The 'let everyone else arrange the music' appears to be the experiment she wanted to carry out, not 'oh woe, I cannot make music by myself anymore!'

Cynics will take this as 'Oh, gawd, what a deluded fanboy,' but it's really just another way of looking at the situation. I'm sure she'll release another solo album all music: Ringo arrangement: Ringo/Bakeneko Killer someday, especially at the rate she's going.
i don't think you're deluded and i agree with most of what you're saying. she does like to collaborate and i guess if it's a challenge she put on herself, that's fine. but from what kuroneko says, it wasn't as much a challenge as it was a thought to please the fans. and that's what i meant in the part of my post that you emboldened. i meant her mindset changed because before she seemed to be out only to please herself and if we were pleased, then great. but when you go actively trying to please people, in this case cutting the time you have to work for them, it's never going to be as good. that's all i'm saying. i don't doubt she can still crank out a great tune but you have to question her actions a bit when she's not really giving herself room to work. she may be spreading herself too thin because i think it's also been said that she's going straight into the TJ recording so i don't know how much time she's going to have to write those songs.

i am not going "'oh woe, [she] cannot make music by [herself] anymore!' ", far from it. i just wish she'd give herself the chance to write some badass songs before going to the collaborations. to (hopefully*) clarify my post about the "raison d'etre" for these songs being different, here are what i think the two thought processes were for her older writing and her recent writing.

older writing: "oh hey, i got this inspiration, let my try to turn it into a song"
newer writing: "i want to write a song with a rapper: *goes and does it*

now the difference is that the older writing had an inspiration that was the sole reason for the song. it was something that had to come out of her. the newer writing seems to be with a goal to write a very specific song in mind, and while there had to be some inspiration for it, the fact that it was written because she wanted to write in a certain style or utilize somebody else in the song, i think the quality of the actual song goes down. and in this case, some songs were actually probably rushed too because of the time constraint. so, in some ways, it will be forced.

now, maybe you knew exactly what i meant and you just didn't agree, but this is just my speculation on it. if anything, i'm being an even bigger fanboy than you are, and i'm trying to delude myself into thinking that there are these excuses for her, when in reality, she probably really has had a sharp decline in songwriting talent. who knows? but this is the impression i get. when you make any piece of art simply because you want to try something, it can be good if you're good, but it's hard for it to be great if it wasn't a full inspiration or need to make it that caused it. and that's not to say that you can't enjoy it or have to enjoy it any less, i still like SG, it's just that it's not the same quality of melody-making and i don't think that can be argued, really. it's effect from person-to-person will be very different (even within the album, you said bonsai no hada was a throwaway and i thought it was probably the greatest thing there), and some might experience it as they experienced any other great music, but haven't and, as objectively as i possibly can, i don't think it is great, at least not by the standards she set before.

Originally Posted by kuro_neko View Post
music depends on the artist and not on the band set up. I like my music to have a bit more oomph than just the typical 5 piece band, or a more intense focus on one or two instruments, so usually 5 is the number I stay away from (most traditional rock bands and pop rock bands usually stick to 5, it can be a bit boring). I like artists who throw in extra instruments, like harp, or take them away. its kind of like cooking, adding spice or focusing on a few select flavors, but if you stay the standard it comes out bland.
i agree with you, man. i love music that's filled to the brim with different instruments. though i do sometimes prefer the raw 4-5 piece band, my main point was that i think the core was weak for SG and that's why the other sounds seem superfluous. the melodies in KZK were so tight that everything else she added just fell into place purposely. for me, in SG it seems like there's just too much going on and it's not because of the amount, but because the melody isn't strong enough to carry it all on its back. this is a feeling i had with variety before, too, but i couldn't really place it. though i loved their sounds, it seemed like overload and i think it's for the same reason: the melodies just weren't strong enough. so, everything else seems like arbitrary niceties and quirky sounds that don't go anywhere. not that they can't be pleasing, but they can't make a song great. they can only make a sub-par song decent or good.
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