[TJ] 2007.09.26 - Variety (CD) [Album]

[Maou]

Originally Posted by so_cold

The only other I can think of on the TJ scale is the Black Eyed Peas.

I had to read that multiple times. Got the wrong impression while skimming. Thank goodness you didn't mean what I thought you meant at first.

[justriiingo]

TurtleFu - You see. I, on the other hand, really adore In Rainbows. It's a very energetic album but certain parts are also very tender... intimate. It's really cool.

[frecklegirl]

Originally Posted by TurtleFu

Listen, I had not listened to Variety until AFTER I started lurking on this forum.
I kept on reading about how everyone treated Variety like it was the single worst album EVAR, and so my expectations were really low.

Yet, I ended up liking it a lot. [...]

Everyone's expectations of the album, as disillusioned Shiina fans, thought "Well, Shiina isn't writing it, so it must be shit". But Uki and Izawa are just as much musicians as Shiina is, and they are both talented songwriters.

It's not about expectations and bad reputation. I had no expectations going into Variety; I was a blank slate. I even purchased the first-press edition of the album, that's how convinced I was that it was going to be yet another solid Jihen release.

I don't think anyone thought "Ringo's not writing it, so it's going to suck" going into it. We were just sort of suspicious, but willing to give it a shot. I don't think you've ever been here on this forum during the time leading up to an album release. Excitement reaches a fever pitch. Overall, cynicism takes a back seat and positive anticipation is contagious. Everyone is more "I hope this is the best thing I've ever heard!!!" than "Eh. This will probably suck" especially at that time when there was only Kyouiku and Adult so far, so we weren't so jaded. But it disappointed on almost every level. I mostly hated it, personally.

Sure, some songs are good, some songs are tolerable, but it's just not GREAT. That's why it gets so much hate. In a way, Ringo and Jihen's back catalogue has spoiled us. We're used to GREAT, we're used to AMAZING, PERFECT, I LOVE THIS, and we got... average. Compared to prior releases, it just doesn't measure up. I've given it tons of chances, but I still just can't get into it.

It has nothing to do with expecting to get crap. No one was expecting this.

And you really can't say "Ringo doesn't have a bad album" as if it's an indisputable fact. Bad/good is subjective.

Here's a challenge for you. Listen exclusively to all of the Ringo/Jihen releases prior to Variety and its singles for a few weeks (I would even draw the line prior to Adult, but that's up to you). Marinate in them, soak them in, fall in love with them.

Then go listen to Variety.

Notice a difference? I wonder if you will.

[TurtleFu]

Fair enough, but I still see people here giving the album crap when it completely better than most of the REAL crap that is being put out as "music" these days. Somebody refered to OSCA as "sonic waste"; whenever I turn on the radio all I hear is REAL "sonic waste".

So a "bad" Shiina album is still better than... pretty much everything else.

[deadgrandma]

Originally Posted by TurtleFu

Fair enough, but I still see people here giving the album crap when it completely better than most of the REAL crap that is being put out as "music" these days. Somebody refered to OSCA as "sonic waste"; whenever I turn on the radio all I hear is REAL "sonic waste".

So a "bad" Shiina album is still better than... pretty much everything else.

Didn't you get the memo, you aren't a true fan if you like Variety

[D.K.Liu]

Originally Posted by frecklegirl

It's not about expectations and bad reputation. I had no expectations going into Variety; I was a blank slate. I even purchased the first-press edition of the album, that's how convinced I was that it was going to be yet another solid Jihen release.

Even a blank slate is something rather than nothing. I think it has 'everything' to do with expectations (your description of pre-release anticipation illustrates this point), but TurtleFu got the cause and effect reversed. It is high expectation that caused the disappointment, rather than low expectation that caused the disdain. If people thought the album was going to be bad before they heard it, they might even look at it favourably, which is probably what happened to TurtleFu.

I started listening to SR/TJ when Variety was chosen as the album of the year on a Chinese blog about J-Pop. So I never experienced it as a drop in *quality*. It was just part of the canon. SSAW sounds boring? Move on, listen to KZK.

'Sports' for me was different. It wasn't bad; there are songs it there that I really like. But each new release after you become a fan is something that you have waited years to experience. You don't get opportunities to hear new work very often, so it's easy to feel let down if it didn't bring back the thrill when you first discovered her work.

TurtleFu << There's no need to denigrade the 'other' music out there, while defending the things you like. Think of the world of music as an ecosystem, there are all sorts of organisms inhabiting it. One person might like mammals, another, insects. Some species are greater in number than another. But as long as there is biodiversity, new interest life forms will continue to emerge.

[Tokyo Jihad]

Originally Posted by frecklegirl

Here's a challenge for you. Listen exclusively to all of the Ringo/Jihen releases prior to Variety and its singles for a few weeks (I would even draw the line prior to Adult, but that's up to you). Marinate in them, soak them in, fall in love with them.

Then go listen to Variety.

Notice a difference? I wonder if you will.

This is what makes Variety so hard to discuss, unbiased.This is how I feel so hard towards the album. I'd love to sit in the mind of someone that listens to the official Variety cd, start to end, and enjoys it. Maybe I'll find that thing that's wrong with me when it comes to Variety. I realize very, very few people that have stood up for Variety have said its better than any number of previous albums. These argued that if it wasn't better than the rest, it was still a good album.

I just cannot hear that.

In my head, there's a pool of albums that I think are good, even if they're not particularly great in the grand scheme and for that artist. Gish, Super Extra Gravity, honeycreeper, At War with the Mystics, Magical Mystery Tour; to pick at random. Hell, lets throw Kyouiku into the mix, because that's where that album belongs too! I cannot get through Variety and seriously think it belongs in that company.

There is something that Variety just misses artistically. It sounds like a parody of artistry, or a parrot-ry. Not even in a super meta, James Murphy kinda way (maybe that's what they were going for? I just don't know.) In an actual sophomoric way. Sure, it may not be Shiina writing, but through Appa and Petrolz we can clearly see this can't be pinned on Uki or Izawa as easy targets as they may be.

I don't have any answers more than you can find in the myriad of other threads that degenerate into a Variety discussion. On some level Variety IS this forums favorite album on the merit that we all obsessively remark on it.

This is just my opinion, of course, hence why I'd love to hear this album through the ears of someone that likes it, thinks its better than "pretty much anything else," or thought it was Japan's best album in 2007. For all the discussion around this album, I'd love to comprehend this opinion reflecting the Frecklegirl quote way at the top of this post.

[deadgrandma]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Jihad

This is what makes Variety so hard to discuss, unbiased.This is how I feel so hard towards the album. I'd love to sit in the mind of someone that listens to the official Variety cd, start to end, and enjoys it. Maybe I'll find that thing that's wrong with me when it comes to Variety. I realize very, very few people that have stood up for Variety have said its better than any number of previous albums. These argued that if it wasn't better than the rest, it was still a good album.

I just cannot hear that.

In my head, there's a pool of albums that I think are good, even if they're not particularly great in the grand scheme and for that artist. Gish, Super Extra Gravity, honeycreeper, At War with the Mystics, Magical Mystery Tour; to pick at random. Hell, lets throw Kyouiku into the mix, because that's where that album belongs too! I cannot get through Variety and seriously think it belongs in that company.

There is something that Variety just misses artistically. It sounds like a parody of artistry, or a parrot-ry. Not even in a super meta, James Murphy kinda way (maybe that's what they were going for? I just don't know.) In an actual sophomoric way. Sure, it may not be Shiina writing, but through Appa and Petrolz we can clearly see this can't be pinned on Uki or Izawa as easy targets as they may be.

I don't have any answers more than you can find in the myriad of other threads that degenerate into a Variety discussion. On some level Variety IS this forums favorite album on the merit that we all obsessively remark on it.

This is just my opinion, of course, hence why I'd love to hear this album through the ears of someone that likes it, thinks its better than "pretty much anything else," or thought it was Japan's best album in 2007. For all the discussion around this album, I'd love to comprehend this opinion reflecting the Frecklegirl quote way at the top of this post.

Variety is their Kid A, totally divides fans. I dunno, I have listened to it more than the other TJ releases and enjoy it. I kinda think all the TJ albums are equal, SR albums are the ones I REALLY care about. I guess the only problem I have with Variety is that some of the b-sides are stronger than the actual album (Pinnochio comes to mind instantly).

There is also the people who are scared of music being poppy, which doesn't help when it comes to anything post KZK. Sure, she might not be "experimenting" as much but it's not necessarily a bad thing. And I'm sure if she went back and made KZK 2, lots of people would complain about that too... (I refer to this as a "Death Magnetic" situation. Metallica decided to change styles, much to the fan's dismay, so then they went back and released essentially what was like their first 5 albums -and then were flamed for releasing an album 'made for fans'). There's just no pleasing some people.

So that's why its up to the user to make up their mind and not give a fuck about other peoples opinions.

[Nimh]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Jihad

There is something that Variety just misses artistically. It sounds like a parody of artistry, or a parrot-ry.

For what it's worth, when I think about Variety, I draw a blank on the overall shape of it....this is something I would not say about any other TJ or even SR album. Track order, track standouts, general concept....I just can't recall it. I'd have to listen to it again and refresh.

I'd like to say that this was all intentional on the part of TJ (the album's not called "Uniformity," after all) but even I'm not that big of a fanboy.

[Scribble R]

I only 'love' two songs on In Rainbows: Skin and Reckoner. The rest of the album is good but nothing amazing to me.

frecklegirl's comment about 'listening to all of SR/TJ then Variety' captures my own experience of listening to her works for the first time. Variety stood out like a sore thumb. I had only just become a fan of her at the time though, so I wasn't angry or disappointed -- I simply chose not to listen to it.

I doubt that SR was trying to be ambitious with this album, though. It was the 'introduce Ukizawa and kill my ego' album for the sake of the band's future.