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Old 2012.01.28, 07:39 AM   #91
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Originally Posted by TurtleFu View Post
EDIT:
Okay, I'm going to rant now.

It really annoys me that you guys continue to say "showtunes" as if it is 1) a genre of music and 2) somehow an inherently bad genre of music.
Way back in the golden age of Broadway (1930's to 1950's), the songs written were meant to follow the current musical tradition. Most of what you say is "showtunes" are just SWING OR BIG BAND MUSIC (which are based off jazz). Why would you derisively call "Onna no..." a "showtune" but not "The Lady Is a Tramp"? FACT: "The Lady Is a Tramp" is an ACTUAL SHOWTUNE (as in, a song written for a Broadway musical) and "Onna no..." isn't.
It's just ridiculous to use "showtune" as a way of dismissing a song, because "showtune" is not a genre ("showtunes" can differ between jazz, swing, big band, basically ANY GENRE that was popular in the 30's to 50's) and guess what? What we consider "big band" and "traditional pop" classics are mostly SHOWTUNES.
So stop using "showtune" as a way of saying something is bad, and stop acting like something being a "showtune" automatically makes it bad.
I think you're missing the irony / humour behind Scribble's post. She once made edgy punk sounding stuff*, but then she made showtunes... lol? I laughed anyway.

I don't think anyone's said that they hate all showtunes ever made by anybody. If you like any vintage of SR you like multiple genres. It's more that arguably her old music was much more multifaceted, you really didn't know what you were going to get - not just you didn't know what genre you're going to get.

Songs were very different to each other, while her HF- and HF-style stuff while it might have its merits is much more straight down the line and samey sounding. And it's like going from many dimensions to just one, "showtuney" just happens to describe that commonality of sound. I actually think this about Lady is the Tramp / Dynamite as well, they're fun, but they're kind of why I was never into even the Kyoiku or Adult eras as much as her solo material, it's less according to her own musical logic but progressively more like other music out there. Or 8-bar blues, you know what the tune is going to do next because you've heard a lot of things like it before.

You're going to disagree with me though.

[* actually to me SR is about as punk as Lana del Rey is a real gangster's moll, but she made good music all the same]
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Old 2012.01.28, 09:17 AM   #92
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Originally Posted by TurtleFu View Post
So stop using "showtune" as a way of saying something is bad, and stop acting like something being a "showtune" automatically makes it bad.
Who does that? I want names.
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Old 2012.01.28, 09:53 AM   #93
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Ya, I wasn't dismissing anything. It's just funny what you can do once you have your fans in your grasp, and where you can take them (even if she still doesn't have all those fans anymore).

It's not even necessarily about her music declining in quality -- with the showtune stuff and diva-osity, she dragged her fans to what you'd think is the nemesis of her earlier 'edgy' image.

If you do look at the music though, Konoyo...Kagiri, etc. lack her her 'throw everything into a blender' approach (it would still be a problem if say, all her newer solo stuff sounded like, say, Sora Ga Natteiru. It just wouldn't be as amusing). That's why I can like most of SRs solo stuff, because once you take that approach, genre doesn't even matter really.

It's as if she was inspired by the showtune stuff and wanted to make stuff EXACTLY like it (everyone must have experienced this at some point), but she just had to 'make do' with her own style until now.

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Old 2012.02.02, 11:42 PM   #94
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Originally Posted by TurtleFu View Post
That performance was so stiff. Ringo, put some feeling into it. I know you can do way better than that. Gunjou Biyori from Ultra C had passion. What is up with this band? It got a little better at the end.
The audio in live DVDs can be retouched before release
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Old 2012.02.07, 08:54 AM   #95
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Didn't notice this until now: Japan Times' review of Color Bars.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fm20120202l1.html

Reviewer slams Kameda, Izawa, and especially Hata, but considers Ukigumo's Sa_i_ta "an early contender for Japanese song of the year and a reminder of why Tokyo Jihen mattered so much."
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Old 2012.02.07, 05:13 PM   #96
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Back from my holiday, stuck the CD in a GOOD sound system, and it sounds all the better for it. This one is actually produced pretty well, especially in the quieter moments. Kameda's song is a good example.
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Old 2012.02.08, 07:56 AM   #97
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The only thing that bothers me in Time Capsule is that sometimes you can hear the Telecaster twang from Ukigumo. I don't usually mind twang, but it clashes a bit with the mood of the song here.
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Old 2012.02.09, 06:54 AM   #98
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Originally Posted by Nimh View Post
Didn't notice this until now: Japan Times' review of Color Bars.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fm20120202l1.html

Reviewer slams Kameda, Izawa, and especially Hata, but considers Ukigumo's Sa_i_ta "an early contender for Japanese song of the year and a reminder of why Tokyo Jihen mattered so much."
Nobody touches Hata.
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Old 2012.02.14, 01:39 PM   #99
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I don't know anything about any japanese critics that critique japanese music, but it sounds like someone that specializes in jpop records, so I'm glad he disliked the best tracks.
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Old 2012.02.14, 04:36 PM   #100
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The same reviewer loved Variety and thought Sanmon Gossip was horrible.

So...?

(He actually rarely reviews J-Pop stuff, mostly obscure Japanese bands. Probably the most "well-known" record he ever reviewed was Kimura Kaela's Circle)
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