Third album: Variety [News]

[Jesse]

Originally Posted by Inaudible-Whisper

He already said why it matters...

Well, is there much anyone can do about it? It's better than nothing.

[imkookoo]

Originally Posted by Inaudible-Whisper

He is a fan of Shiina. Not Ukigumo. If he, or anybody else wants to hate on Ukigumo and the songs he is writing, they have to criticise Shiina for not only choosing him, but giving him shared reigns over Variety's song writing. Thus, if Variety is underwhelming you can't just blame the writer or genre, but the person that chose that writer and direction and the person you expected to take it all on herself i.e Shiina. Think of any major solo artist that travels with a band. If they handed over song writing duties to the band itself, of course fans are going to be disappointed when the songs don't live up to standard, and it makes sense to thus be critical of the solo artist for handing that capability over.

The only part I disagree with is placing the blame on Shiina. It's a lot more complex than people realize. Being in a band is job. Assuming Shiina is the "manager/director" of this job -- which may or may not be the case, she has to ensure that everybody in the workplace is satisfied. Imagine if your manager at your work was always calling the shots and telling you what to do. Not a very pleasant working environment, is it?

Now, we can take it to why she chose him to be in the band at all. Auditions are hard. You have plenty of talented artists, and you get a very small glimpse of the person at a relatively short period of time. That's why there are idiots in the professional world -- you don't really get to assess their abilities until they are actually in the real-world and working.

Why doesn't she just drop him? There's two dimensions here. One, she probably has a good personal relationship with the guy. Most people aren't cold-hearted bitches. The second dimension goes back to the workplace metaphor. If you make a mistake at your job, why doesn't your boss just fire you? They ultimately can, but if they do, what they risk is the loss of support and the passion from the other co-workers. Do you want to work in an environment where you fear your job security because of your mistakes? When it comes to creative "mistakes", it's all very subjective so it becomes much harder to make those reasons to boot someone out.

Also, you have to consider external factors. The production of this album happened during the time SR was working on being a music director for Sakuran.

People are way too quick in pointing fingers and judging people based on superficial attributes.

EDIT:
Back to the first point.. it's a possibility that her tight control was the cause of Hirama's and HZM's departure. We don't know that for sure, but she wasn't doing a good job of being a director/manager at the start of TJ. If a manager caused 40% of their workforce to quit because of their tight control, I'm sure HIS/HER superior will then look at the manager to question their managing capabilities. In this case, Shiina's superior would be Toshiba.

[Tsuchiya]

Originally Posted by imkookoo

Why doesn't she just drop him? There's two dimensions here. One, she probably has a good personal relationship with the guy. Most people aren't cold-hearted bitches. The second dimension goes back to the workplace metaphor. If you make a mistake at your job, why doesn't your boss just fire you? They ultimately can, but if they do, what they risk is the loss of support and the passion from the other co-workers. Do you want to work in an environment where you fear your job security because of your mistakes? When it comes to creative "mistakes", it's all very subjective so it becomes much harder to make those reasons to boot someone out.

OR MAYBE SHIINA ACTUALLY LIKES UKI.

Didn't Uki actually play on some of Shiina's solo album (pre-HF)? It's not like she just hired him blindly.

I think Uki's a pretty amazing studio musician. I'm not in love with his live work (it's not easy to play such detailed guitar lines flawlessly)...and perhaps she couldn't have predicted that...but as a guitar player on record, he's excellent. It's really not hard to understand why he's in the band.

[Tokyo Jihad]

Uki played on Ichijiku no Hana, one of my top three fav songs of Shiina. This is the rare instance where his style is working for the song (an i think it helps hes playing acoustic which Shiina doesn't do enough.)

Is "she was working on Sakuran" going to be the third car in the excuse train? The reply is simple: if yer too busy to record an album -- don't. And at that, Sakuran was likely in the can when they went into the studio.

True as a director/manager you want your affiliates to feel comfortable enough to do there thing and make mistakes. Howevva, you don't do it to the point where it's effecting product. Is it? Look at this thread (even withholding my posts.)

And theres EVERY REASON to point at Shiina. Its not like anything happens without her. She and Kameda are the leaders of the act, if something goes wrong, the blame falls on the leader. Its not like Uki and Izawa had her at gun point to make the record (tho some of us may prefer the thought.)

[haruhi-suzumiya]

Originally Posted by frecklegirl

Hah, I just noticed Kameda's pose. Super gay XD

Can't you tell? He's trying to look FABULOUS

[frecklegirl]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Jihad

Is "she was working on Sakuran" going to be the third car in the excuse train? The reply is simple: if yer too busy to record an album -- don't.

Yeah. I don't they even begun working on Variety until all the Sakuran stuff was done and over with. So let's just nip that excuse in the bud, no one gets to use it.

[ShadyNook]

Ukigumo's first appearance on a recording was playing a tele on Ishiki and Meisai. He played really great during the KSK session.

I like his playing, but there are times when I don't (Toumei Ningen).

maybe he's better off playing KSK material? Or the guy behind the mixing board was the mastermind behind him sounding great on that record.

[imkookoo]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Jihad

Is "she was working on Sakuran" going to be the third car in the excuse train? The reply is simple: if yer too busy to record an album -- don't. And at that, Sakuran was likely in the can when they went into the studio.

Maybe the Sakuran example wasn't a good one, but I wouldn't count that out as having been done before the recording/arranging of this album. They had the Dynamite Out and Just Can't Help It tours after Adult was released. They probably started planning for Variety after JCHI, and SR probably started working on Sakuran around that point as well (afterall, I'm sure the music direction happened after the movie was fully shot).

But anyways, it still stands that SR needed to give the reigns to the band. That is essentially what a band is about -- otherwise it's just "Shiina Ringo" again, not "Tokyo Jihen". And taking on external projects might have been a good way to do so.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Jihad

True as a director/manager you want your affiliates to feel comfortable enough to do there thing and make mistakes. Howevva, you don't do it to the point where it's effecting product. Is it? Look at this thread (even withholding my posts.)

Again, that's why I said it's much harder in this scenario to discern what would be a "mistake" since it's a very subjective area. If her intention was to give the reigns to the band, then she really can't do too much about it except to give little nudges here and there.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Jihad

And theres EVERY REASON to point at Shiina. Its not like anything happens without her. She and Kameda are the leaders of the act, if something goes wrong, the blame falls on the leader. Its not like Uki and Izawa had her at gun point to make the record (tho some of us may prefer the thought.)

It's nice to know that you have appointed her and Kameda to be the leader of the act. But do you know that for sure? It's true that without SR, TJ is nothing... But how do you know it's not management in Toshiba that governs what songs they should/could release? Maybe they were the ones who wanted SR to step back so that no more members drop? It's not a very far-fetched thought.

This is a complex issue that can't be solved by simple answers.

The real answer is that nobody CAN be blamed at this point, cause nobody knows who did what. You say "the blame falls on the leader" as if it's a rule. But that's just the lazy man's way of settling anything. She's human for godsakes. Yes, she can be a cold-hearted bitch who will micromanage everything so that everything goes her way or to perfection. But wow, she'd have the damnest luck trying to find anybody who would want to work with her.

[Tokyo Jihad]

Originally Posted by imkookoo

It's nice to know that you have appointed her and Kameda to be the leader of the act. But do you know that for sure? It's true that without SR, TJ is nothing... But how do you know it's not management in Toshiba that governs what songs they should/could release? Maybe they were the ones who wanted SR to step back so that no more members drop? It's not a very far-fetched thought.

Is it a far-fetched thought? No. Is it really likely? No. Its rare when an actual exec comes in and says "oh you best know this tracks going on the album." Really its the producer, the producer is the surrogate agent of the exec and of the artist. The producer often has a big say in the album/tracklist as with the band leader. And who is the band leader and who is the band producer??

Now then, as to the "she's not the leader, giving reigns to the band." I was always on board with giving the band room to shine, at least in the Dynamite Out days. But even then, you cannot deny that Shiina is THE creative force and direction of the band. Even if it was Hirama and Hzm penning tunes on Variety (oh how my heart aches at writing that, and I dont even like Hzm) its still penned to suit Shiina. If Shiina said "we're not playing that shit" (in a nicer way) you better believe that shit wasn't to be played. When the Variety press release came, what was the gist of it? "Shiina rummaged through Uki/Izawa songs and decided which would be played." -- Said so straight from the top. Shiina.

Originally Posted by imkookoo

You say "the blame falls on the leader" as if it's a rule.

IT IS a rule. =P
Thats the job of a leader. To make sure shit gets done, and comes out sterling. When a sports team or an army underperforms, who gets the blame? Leadership, coach, Colonel, whatever. If theres a scandal or money problems in a business, who takes the heat? The head, CEO, for letting it happen under his watch.

RETO EDIT: Oh Hedo. Ok, see it this way. Maybe one day I really want to post, but for whatever strange and bizarre reason, I get Maou or Justin to write my post for me. They show me what they write and I say "yes, post that under my name." Now lets say one of my two compadres had a brain fart and made a post that was shit (anyone makes the obvious joke here gets banned.) and I seemingly didnt pay enough attention to catch it. So, the post is under my name, I get all the heat for it, and I rightly should. No, I didnt write it, but I let it past my gate. I said "this is worthy to be under my flag."
Now, if I went and sold Maou and Justin out, "They wrote it, not Me! Bitch at them!" -- Then I'd be a horrible friend. Just as if Shiina said "hey, its not my fault Uki/Izawa wrote shitty tracks" -- then she'd be a horrible leader. She wont ever do that tho. Moreso, Shiina didn't HAVE to ok the songs anyway. If she didn't think they were good enough to ok, then wait on a third album til you got the goods

[Maou]

Shiina Ringo would kick the ass of any record exec that tried to dictate her musical direction.