Keshou Naoshi Cover
 

so this is pretty random but I was looking at Ringo's iTunes music store and I noticed a couple new covers.

there is one by Satoko Nishikawa of Honnou, it is kind of a very slow acoustic guitar honnou, which is kind of interesting. I'd like to hear the whole thing but I can't find it anywhere.

then there is another really horrible one of Honnou by All That Jazz ;;cringe;; its completely horrible

but then I saw a cover I recognized and I was like hey, I know that album! there is a cover of keshou naoshi by hayato kaori. I know her because in shin egota where I used to live there was a tiny bar called Orange County that I went to several times a week with my roommates. we became extremely close with the owners and the other patrons and in the bahtroom there was a poster of a cute girl saying "don't worry, I won't peak!" in japanese on it. that girl is hayato kaori, she used to live in the area and hung out in the bar. so she would come back and visit (she lives in chiba now so it is a bit far). Anyways, so she came back a few times and we hung out. So when I saw her cd I was like HOLY CRAP I never realized she covered Tokyo Jihen. That is crazy. It is actually a pretty faithful cover. anyways, I'd just thought I'd share. you guys should just log onto the itunes store and hear the clips. interesting stuff

Some of us know about this cover already. I think pariscombo linked to it somewhere before - like on YouTube.

Also, iTunes is not the most natural thing in the world, as if we all have it or we all want it (though if you have a very deep-seeded relationship with Apple products then it's very easy to think that way). Some of us avoid it even more than you avoid Windows.

I believe it's not possible to buy from iTunes stores outside our country, right?

glanth, is listening to a streaming clip on itunes so evil? XDD

I am not deeply connected to Apple, although I DID interview there a few days ago. We shall see if I legally become contracted to them and then I start singing a new song. As of right now, I personally enjoy my Mac and my PC.

@shinji-you need a billing address in Japan, so japanese credit card of what not. I used to buy iTunes gift cards and I would use that. my boyfriend is going in a month he will bring back some. iTunes is DRM-free now, its all being charged and worked around again, so technically anything you buy is not-protection. rather than being labeled "protected AAC file" it says "purchased AAC file" so you have no limit to how you want to use it, share it, burn it, etc. as of last month the entire store went DRM free. part of the upgrade was also changing the music to be at 256kps (it used to be 128)

Cool, finally they realize DRM is bullcrap.

I remember hearing that cover... very nice. I will never really love that song, though.
With that voice and face you would think she's be more famous in Japan, where every mildly good looking halfie gets a record contract *cough*Leah Dizon*cough*

Hayato Kaori Keshou Naoshi

^^ That is a really enjoyable cover. I like that they've kept the 3:30-3:57 bit in because actually that bit of Keshou Naoshi reminds me of a bossa nova Ishiki. It's one reason why I really like Keshou Naoshi and it's the one TJ song I can think of that has a KSK-like effect (re the thread on that subject).

Intrigued by Satoko Nishikawa's Honnou cover, is slow and jazzy?

I hate DRM/format wars. It's actually one reason why my love of music went dormant for a few years cos if I wanted to download an individual track and not a whole album I'd have to choose between AAC or WMA. Money grabbing bastards.

she is moderately famous. I mean not Liz Dizon famous, but still, she does well for herself. this album was just coming out around the time I met her. We all chipped in and bought her cake and then she ended up not even eating it, which was nice because then it was me buying myself cake and have an actual reason to eat it. I was actually thankful.

Not if I already have iTunes installed (I don't).
You think streaming clips are a compelling enough reason for me to install iTunes, when I don't consider the software to be best-of-its-kind at anything else it does? foobar2000 is the best player, Exact Audio Copy is the best ripper, and then various online music stores are more lossless-oriented than iTunes and have more rational of pricing structures.

Even without DRM, I don't agree with what they give you versus what you pay for. It's not even that I'm a cheap person about buying music, it's that paying for lossy music without DRM is worse for me than buying lossless music with breakable DRM. Then if DRM was unbreakable, I wouldn't pay for it at all - in any sound quality.

I think iTunes should sell everything in lossless, and at a rate of $1 USD per 5 minutes of CD quality music. Nothing else like artist or popularity or record label or production values should factor into the price. One 60-minute album with 10 tracks of 6 minutes each, should cost the same as another 60-minute album of with 6 tracks of 10 minutes each. If Apple did this with breakable DRM or no DRM at all, then I would take them more seriously.

Meanwhile I feel more responsible, self-empowered, and liberated from having the CDs and ripping them myself - outside of iTunes and its inSecure ripping methods and its inability to support nonApple Lossless (a format which has no rational reason to exist) or touch the soundcard more directly (bypassing the bullshit mixer of an OS) during playback.

iTunes in most of its claim-to-fame features, is not for technologically responsible people who actually want to put maximum thought into their setup for maximum longterm reward. It's part of a branding and aspiring one-stop-shop movement of mostly-overrated hardware/software that I'd be ashamed to be identified with. I allow myself to be identified with Windows (which has its own set of problems I won't deny) only because I have the highly unusual Horse Whisperer-like ability to get it under control and keep it under control in the wonderful world of worms and memory leaks.

Haha, yeah, Japan does like its haffu performing artists, although Leah Dizon is 100% American (she's got some Filipino as part of her ancestry but that's it in terms of Asian-ness).