Tony! Toni! Toné! -- SR's no.1 influence. Shiina'n'B

[Scribble R]

I've only ever been a casual fan of Tony! Toni! Tone! And I've never listened to an entire album (Which I should probably get to). In the nineties, I was a huuuuge fan of the short-lasting Lucy Pearl, a band formed from Raphael Saadiq, Ali Shaheed Muhammed (From A Tribe Called Quest, one of the greatest hip hop groups), and Dawn Robinson (From En Vogue, all female RnB group who make Destiny's Child look like the Spice girls)...I'm going a bit off topic but I'm surprised that Shiina cited Tony!... as her number one influence.

Yeah, we all knew that quite a lot of her songs seep RnB influence, but I was surprised to read that -- if we take it at face value -- that their Sons of Soul album is her number one influence. So that said, I'm surprised that we didn't see more of that on Heisei Fusoku, or that we haven't had more of a more traditional '90s style ' RnB album.

I think it's inevitable though. Especially as both Ukigumo and Junpei are African-Americanophile. Yokoshima Phase 2?

What do you think? One side of me is repulsed due to the sheer number of cringeworthy. Could SR do any better? Not sure, because

- SR/Junpei's Onion Song cover is atrocious in all its forms. I thought Georgy Porgy was pretty bad, too. I'm used to the Eric Benet/Faith Evans version!
- Ukigumo uses far too many RnB cliches in his music. "No hesitation just sweet sensations" uuuuuugrh. He also doesn't know that his voice is not suited to RnB (Let alone anything else)

That being said, MaruSad Expo was an impressive effort (Especially on Uki's part), even though it was borderline cheesy (A new waaay to flaaaa). I wouldn't mind and album with that kind of approach (As opposed to the Karada approach)

EDIT: Oh, also intertwine your RnB-listening experiences with your replies if u want

[Entry№1]

Considering the fact that Jazz, Rock, Funk, and R&B all have been greatly contributed to (and/or created) by black people, it's not really that bizarre to think of Ringo loving "black culture". I mean, I think to a certain degree, we're all "African American"-ophiles here. Remember, Junpei and Ringo's father was a serious jazz album connesieur, too...
Where did you read this, by the way? I've been wanting to see where some of Wikipedia's "Western Influences" section got their names from, since they cite very few of their sources.

[bromithia]

http://www.towerrecords.co.jp/sitema...commentId=4641

http://sadisticgossip.blogspot.com/2...r-records.html

[Scribble R]

Yeah, I got them from that blog. I think papidae did the translations.

Question #18
Q: You have written various artists' names into your lyrics so far. What method you use to write them into your lyrics? Please tell us if you have any.
A: I don't think I "wrote them into the lyrics".

lol?

But yeah, it isn't so much that Ringo's 'into black music' that surprises me. It's that Sons of Soul is her main influence. Pleasant surprise, but surprise nonetheless.

[Glathannus]

Originally Posted by bromithia

[Link to Tower Records]

[Link to Fan Blog]

You probably mean well (or you're just a messenger boy), and I'm not continuing some anti-Shinji crusade here (not in this paragraph at least), but I thought I should point out that his blog goes absolutely out of the way to avoid citing or crediting EMF for anything that has ever been brought to his attention about Shiina Ringo - as if we're not already obscure enough from a Google standpoint for fans who have never heard of EMF before. I don't think it's fair to link to him and give him that attention from people, if he really really doesn't want to have anything to do with EMF. If he still wants any further attention from EMF members, he should post such links here himself - which I wouldn't be quite so much against even if his blog continued to not link back to here.

Just a thought.
I'm not imposing anything here.

Now to give other credit where it is due, I think he has become a glorified audio/video redistributor and news relayer ("re" folks don't bring anything new to the internet - they just repackage or regurgitate it from other online sources) scoring short-term coolness points, but at least he's not distributing any studio material. That restraint takes some integrity, or a healthy level of fear - in his case I'm not sure which one prevailed.

[bromithia]

I don't think it's really necessary to start an entire discussion on Shinji just because I posted a link to his blog, the only place (as far as I know) where the entire English translation is.

It's like there always needs to be drama on this board..

[Scribble R]

I didn't know it was Shinji's blog. All the things that goes on behind the scenes in this place lol

[Glathannus]

Originally Posted by bromithia

I don't think it's really necessary

You would think so, but we also avoid linking to the blog of a guy named Brad who scammed a dozen Ringo Jihen members out of hundreds of dollars each. While that is phenomenally worse than anything Shinji ever did, the same principle applies. If you lie to the community repeatedly about the same thing (like "I'm shipping the goods out next month" or "i found a leak on azn p2p"), that's a great way to get excommunicated - especially if you never own up to the lie even after you leave.

Originally Posted by bromithia

to start an entire discussion on Shinji just because I posted a link to his blog, the only place (as far as I know) where the entire English translation is.

Well at least you didn't do unattributed quoting. That would have been wrong in a different way.

Originally Posted by bromithia

It's like there always needs to be drama on this board.

No, there just always needs to be drama surrounding most people who have the maturity to feel comfortable with Last.fm shouts.

[frecklegirl]

Originally Posted by Scribble R

Question #18
Q: You have written various artists' names into your lyrics so far. What method you use to write them into your lyrics? Please tell us if you have any.
A: I don't think I "wrote them into the lyrics".

Not to hate, papi, I just want to clarify things here since Scribble called it out... but I don't think that was really a good translation of the actual interchange:

これまで歌詞にさまざまなアーティストが出てくることがありましたが、 こんな人を歌詞に入れてみたいという方はいますか？居たら教えて下さい。
◎“入れてみたい”とは考えない。

My take:

Q: Various artists have appeared in your lyrics up until now, but is there anyone like that who you want to try inserting into your lyrics? If there is, please tell us.
A: I'm not thinking about "wanting to try inserting."

I didn't know this interview existed but now that I see it, I think I'll make my own translation of it sometime hopefully soon.

Lol at this blog. Can we block Shinji's IP from the forums and watch the blog never get updated again? Hahaha, I'm kidding, but come on now. This is just shameless.

Oh yeah:

As found on the Nostalgic Lavender website (thanks for the info Mat!)

l o l~

[papilionidae]

Originally Posted by frecklegirl

Not to hate, papi, I just want to clarify things here since Scribble called it out... (deleted)

why you say so? why? why you assume me hate you (or anybody) for an alternative translation? i'm not that irritable.

okay, now listen, the thing is like this:
Shinji told me he wanted to translate this interview, and asked me if i could help him with his translation. So he did the translation, and i revised it, that's all. to me it's just doing a favor to a firend (not helpful enough i know). I don't own the translation so i didn't post them here (though i helped). no stories behind the scene. see, there are countless countless fan blogs exist, each with more or less some mistakes, it's kinda unfair to aim at shinji, or me, or anyone. just focus on the mistakes or drawbacks, not the authors, would you?

i'm just doing what i can. i'm not a native speaker of japanese or english. though i passed jlpt level2 i still can't translate them in a perfect way. however if any non-native speakers ask my help, i will tell him/her that i'm not good enough in translation, still want my help? if the answer is yes, i will do as i did for shinji. i know, exactly, anyone who is proficient at japanese or english can do much better than me, yet not everyone has access to these people. so, why not just make your own translation, if you can translate them better? why can't we just discuss shiina ringo and her band?

come on, guys.