[SR] 2002.05.27 - Utaite Myouri ~Sono Ichi~ (CD) [Album]
 

森パクトディスク (Mori-pact Disc):
01. 君を愛す (Kimi o Aisu)
02. Jazz a go go
03. 枯葉 (Kareha)
04. I won't last a day without you
05. 黒いオルフェ (Kuroi Orufe)
06. Mr. Wonderful
07. 玉葱のハッピーソング (Tamanegi no Happy Song)
08. Starting Over
09. 子守唄 (Komoriuta)
Total Playtime: 34:56

亀パクトディスク (Kame-pact Disc):
01. 灰色の瞳 (Haiiro no Hitomi)
02. More
03. 小さな木の実 (Chiisa na Konomi)
04. I wanna be loved by you
05. 白い小鳩 (Shiroi Kobato)
06. Love Is Blind
07. 木綿のハンカチーフ (Momen no Handkerchief)
08. Yer Blues
09. 野薔薇 (Nobara)
Total Playtime: 32:54

Retail Availability: Amazon.co.jp, CD Japan, HMV Japan, YesAsia

Loire, you know there are quite a few errors in your descriptions for the background of each song. I corrected them for the thread but you should consider making those changes on the website as well (you can find the information on my site).

Translations of some of the blurbs about each song that were once found on Ringo's old site (gone now):

Nobara [Heidenroslein] (found here)
Kimi o Aisu [Ich Liebe Dich]
My favorite part of Utaite Myouri is that it's pretty much her biography. Sooo much is revealed about her early years and her parents' taste in music through this album.

Her mother's influence: Classic Japanese pop songs like "Momen no Handkerchief," "Shiroi Kobato"
Her father's influence: Jazz songs like "Jazz a go go," "The Onion Song" (and later with Tokyo Jihen "The Lady is a Tramp")
Influence from her classical ballet training: Classical music like Chopin's Op.34 No.2
Influence from songs she had to learn in school: Heidenroslein
etc...

It's all in that unauthorized biography thing of hers. Just fascinating! Everything lines up!!

I was suprised to see the classic "Autumn leaves" on this album. It's one of my favourite songs ever and the first song I played when starting to play Jazz improvisations. So it's kind of special to me and I love to hear her sing the french, as well as the english version.

Although the mori-pact disc doesn't excite me quite as much as the kame-pact disc, I still see this is a really solid compilation. There's way too many tracks here for me to do a breakdown of the release and why I like it, but I will say that my favorites are the classic J-Pop songs and "I Wanna Be Loved By You".

I adore Momen no Handkerchief.
Of course, I'm keen on Yer Blues and Starting Over.
Also like Mr. Wonderful and Autumn Leaves.

I'd have liked to have heard a more laid back cover of "UFO"
It was a staple of her then most recent tour, cept it was too "punky" for the song, i thought.

Actually those descriptions were written by Sakura for the website..I jut copied and pasted them :p Thanks for correcting anyway!

I know they're Sakura's ;) I said "your" as in "the site's."

Since this is Utaite Myouri ~Vol. I~, I hope we can expect a Vol. II soon ^_^

Yeah right XD

Hahah, now that I think about it, I'm much more excited for her next solo album :D

What is it about this album? It will put me in the mood for a Ringo music binge like no other. I've been listening to a variety of other artists for about a month, with the occasional SR/TJ song popping up randomly. But this morning I decided to play one or two songs from this album and as each successive song came up I became more and more hooked. I've been binging on Ringo tunes all day as a result. There's just something about her vocals on this collection that just captivate me. I know she doesn't even consider this one of "her albums", but she sure does have a way of making each and every song hers, despite never really straying far at all from the song she's covering. Maybe it's my wonder at how's she's able to do that that draws me in.

In case someone else was interested in the original, here's Kimi wo Aisu on youtube. http://youtube.com/watch?v=0hDvYGIJamc

Listening to it really makes me appreciate Ringo's arrangement; the ambience elicited by the two versions are so different.

I wonder if there's a listening order?
Mori-pact then Kame-pact?

I would expect many westerners to play Kame-pact first, commonly because they'll have Romanized foldernames - and K comes before M in the alphabet.

If you keep in mind that each CD had a different producer when all of the content could have just as easily fit onto one CD, maybe the play-order isn't supposed to matter. Shiina Ringo was pregnant, she wasn't writing her own songs, and two different guys were producing for her - so I wouldn't exactly call the collection a "unified vision".

I've always had the ritual of playing Mori-pact first. That's really all it is. A ritual is any habit you uphold, without a completely rational/researched/provable reasoning. I could be right for the wrong reasons, no reason at all, or I could just be wrong. I'm not going to pontificate Mori-pact as 'first', and act like that is totally canon.

Considering that Kronekodow.com lists out Mori-pact before Kame-pact (despite the serial numbers), yeah, I think Mori-pact comes first - if anything comes 'first'.

If anyone has concrete research/sources, I would actually like to know what the "proper" play-order is, if there even is one. But until then, Mori-pact being first - is my best guess.

Yes...

Hmm, that's an interesting question, Shinji. I never listen to them back to back, though. She just has so much good work that I'd usually just pick a song or two from this collection and throw it into a playlist. "Yer Blues" and "Starting Over" are definitely my favs. I also really love "Love is blind" and I always wonder if I'd understand her english in it if I wasnt a fan and already familiar with her accent...

Shinji,

If you have a dissatisfaction with anything I say - you choosing to disregard (other) related sentences in the same post while you rep or quote me, isn't exactly the fairest way to respond.

By conveniently excluding other sentences, and trailing off on the "Yes...", you make it sound as if my post has left you exactly where you already were - at Point A on your journey of discovery to Point Z, as if there weren't 24 other letters in-between.

I understand that Kronekodow.com isn't everything, but it's something.
Try not to act like it's absolutely nothing.

When you aren't going to rationalize your dissatisfaction in a way that other members can connect with, there are two options you had, that would have been better than "Yes..." (which might as well have been kthxbye because it was very unconstructively dismissive). One option is to put me on Ignore, and another option is to say nothing at all.

Lol, what you said previously to what I quoted, left me exactly were I was, yes... That's why I quoted your last sentence, because it represents exactly what I was going to reply, if you hadn't written it. Because I wasn't asking for speculation that I may make as well, I was asking if there's an official order. Maybe I should have been more specific about that, I agree. I guess it was bad communication...

I checked kronekodow as well, before asking the question here, but I wasn't sure if it was any help, since japanese read from "right to left", so the order isn't necessarily clear through there. I hoped that someone with the original discs might have some information. Or at least, when you open cd-case, what's the first disc?

From a packaging standpoint, there is no clearly-defined 'first' disc. Each jewelcase is separate. When they are bundled together in the factory wrap, the cover art on each one faces the outside. Each jewelcase has their own CD booklet, too (so it's not like the pages of one producer or tracklist come before the other). The 'obi' is the only remotely helpful thing, if you could even call it an obi. It's kind of like a sticker (rather than cardboard) that you don't apply onto anything else - as if it were a disposable aspect of the shrinkwrap. It's not solid and it doesn't fold very well. This particular 'obi' feels like has no place to go, and many people don't hang onto it. Once you've lost that, a nonfan going through a used Shiina Ringo collection isn't going to understand what's going on.

Dozens of times, I've seen people sell the used discs individually on Yahoo! Japan Auctions - if that gives you any idea of how independent/individualistic the packaging is. I pretty much never see other set-packaged Shiina Ringo discs get broken up into separate auctions (like Baishou Ecstasy, Ringo no Uta, Adult Pour Homme, or MoRA). Most of the people selling off Utaite Myoli discs separately, aren't Shiina Ringo fans - they are just resellers like pawnshops, and there is nothing with or about the packaging (once unwrapped) to indicate that the discs belong together.

I thought about right-to-left, and there is one problem with that. If you 'unfold' the cases in the physical arrangement they were originally clustered in, it's difficult to say if right-to-left applies to the packaging from the side of the cover art, or the side of the discs. If you pretend that the separate jewelcases are two sides of one digipack, then on the 'inside' you see the discs (face-up through the jewelcases), and on the 'outside' (the side of the obi) you see the CoverArt/CdBooklets of both. You can only open the cases from the cover art side, but then the discs are face-down (in your perspective) when you do open the cases.

See how I'm so incredibly confused that I try to find meaning from Kronekodow.com? The more you examine the physical packaging - the more lost you feel.

Here's the numbers I found on the shiny side of each CD...

Mori-Pact - TOCT-24781 1 C1
Kame-Pact - TOCT-24780 1 A4 ← EDIT: I guess this is the first one then?

Seeing as there is no real way to tell which disc is meant to be the first in play order, I thought that with these numbers you could somehow discern which one should be first in your own way?

I always saw them as a Heads & Tails kinda thing you know? both parts of the same thing rather than as separates.

I find the shiny side of a CD to be informative sometimes. I mostly check it nowadays so I can keep a little notepad entry of which pressing I own. I'm at work at-the-moment, and my bedroom computer (which I would normally remote-desktop to) has crashed, but I keep extra copies of most of my Shiina Ringo rips at work, including any human/software logs I made when I did the rips. According to my notepad entries that I'm insane enough to keep around...

My Mori-pact is
And
my Kame-pact is
Probably means your copies were somehow manufactured earlier than mine, even though I bought mine from the same vendor (CD Japan) before you bought yours. I think the obi also mentions the base TOCT (Toshibi-EMI CD) numbers. Everything beyond the 80 and the 81, are purely pressing-related. Maybe not dramatically different enough of a pressing that you should start calling things "first-press" and "second-press", but it just means they had to produce a new/different CD mold at one point (they lost or retired the previous mold) for basically the same digital master.

MD5s/CRCs are usually different between pressings even if the digital master is the same, because audio CDs are messy like that. But if you have two people with "TOCT-24781 1 C4"s, ripping both of them with the same CD/DVD drive model, or different drive models but with the appropriate Offset Correction, they will end up with the same MD5s/CRCs as each other.

Sometimes when things are officially called "first" and "second" press, they mechanically ARE the same press (with matching MD5s/CRCs), and are different for packaging/marketing purposes only. If we ever start comparing rips (with Offset Correction and checksums), we'd better damn well be clear about the manufacturing mold, rather than focusing on the packaging. Otherwise you have people who are new to Offset Correction, who are thinking that their rip might be wrong, when in fact their rip could be correct for the pressing they happen to own, but it simply isn't a 100% match of a rip for a different pressing owned by someone else.

I hate audio CDs sometimes. They have too many technical flaws that aren't even involved with the sound quality (and some flaws that are involved with the sound quality). Microsoft (given the chance) couldn't have screwed up Redbook much more than Sony/Phillips did.

Thanks for the explanation Glath and Bingo. I didn't really know the package was so complicated xD
It seems she didn't care much about the track order (unlike SS and KZK). Well, it seems completely optional then... But, somehow, I prefer to listen to Kimi wo Aisu as the "opening track"... Altough Komori Uta as "ending track" also works perfectly...
Meh, since they were sold together, I really thought there should/could be an official order.

Even if it's surely not a real album, I think Utaite Myoli is more interesting than we would can to understand.

I don't remember where I read this information, about a compilation of the Ringo's favourites songs. But this helped me to realize that this album is a perfect example about her musical influences. Surely they are not all [favourites songs], 18 song is - so far - not enough, but it's already a little something.

Maybe this twice-album is the best tool to understand how Ringo can create music.

And if I adore Shiroi Kobato and Chiisana Hitomi, the song wich gaves me shivers is Komori uta.

Haaha, it still cracks me up how she took the phrase "compact disc" and made it "Mori-pact disc" and "Kame-pact disc."

Is it bad that I still really dislike this? I like a handful of songs, but like...I could never sit through the whole thing at once.=/

Besides 'Chiisa na konomi', 'Kuroi Orufe' & 'Mr. Wonderful' I don't tend to bother with the others so much.

I think that's understandable, it's not like SR wrote these songs. But it's not as alien a sound to me as Variety. I'm posting really early on with this one, since I've only had it for a fortnight and have had other things going on, but my very vague impression is "I really like it". This is the faintest, vaguest review ever.

I love Kuroi Orufe (especially), the Onion Song and all of Mori-pact, it just has a really nice feeling to play it though. I Won't Last a Day Without You has Utada on it and is therefore good, they should duet again. This is great if you like duets (I love it when two singers of contrasting tonal qualities sing together). I like the "vinyl crackle" on that one as well. I heard Love is Blind early on in my fandom last year and it was a key track for understanding what SR was about.

In an odd way I wondered if Kareha influenced Meisai (the intro I mean) and Aisaika no Choushoku. Actually all of Mori-pact reminds me of Aisaika no Choushoku (looks up the arranger of that song while typing - see I wasn't talking out of my backside! :lol:)

I've always enjoyed this one particularly because I love Ringo's takes on all the different covers. It isn't essential but I think it's a nice treat. It's really neat hearing all of her influences in her own personal style.

I never understood what the deal was with this album. I did not recognize the songs so I figured they were original compositions until I read this thread. So they are covers?

This is I think my least favorite album, because I only liked the first song of one of the CDs, the one where she signs with the Spitz singer.

I was always very grateful for this album however since it helped me discover Spitz itself! If you do not know that band, I highly recommend them. The voice will either be intriguing or off-putting at first but all songs have a catchy, beautiful melody and grow on you. You can guess how you'll like Spitz's singer from his voice in the Utaite Miyouri song. But his songs and his voice grow on you so much!

Also Spitz is very prolific so you will have about 10 to 15 albums to listen to. I've listened to about 10 many many times and I really love them.

With that said, perhaps I will give this album another chance. I always have trouble when she sings in English or French though... and I remember there were many such songs here. Anyway I will give this a couple more listenings.

Momen no Handkerchief is the best pop song Shiina has recorded

damn right. Shiroi Kobato is up there for me too.

Shiroi Kobato is gorgeous.

I love this double album for some reason. It's better than -guess what?- Variety, IMO.

Momen no Handkerchief is dreamy and bubbly and airy

I love this album, too. it's much better than Variety, if you ask me. the way she reimagines these classics is great. turning More into a futuristic cabaret and shredding the shit out of Yer Blues? fuck yes. even when she spits out German over a metallic marching beat or does her best Marilyn Monroe impression she makes it work.

the second disc loses steam, though: Kimi wo Aisu is a boring opener, the two duets are pretty cringe-worthy (especially the one with her brother) and I don't think I can quite get behind her cover of (Just Like) Starting Over. I love Kareha, Kuroi Orufe and Komori Uta, though.

why are we comparing this to Variety? this is a double-album of covers and Variety is a Jihen album of original music...

because EMF is obsessed with that album =p

you're right. we really shouldn't be comparing them because this album is good and Variety is...um...well...Variety.

EDIT: I'll get in trouble if I just leave it at that. the two albums are classified completely differently but a. Variety is like the red-headed frecklefaced stepchild who gets no love in this community and is easy to pick on and b. my point was that I'd rather listen to an uneven album of covers than Variety, which is an uneven album of original songs that are either great, terrible or belong on reruns of Match Game '75.

We should be comparing the two albums on the basis that none of the songs were written by Shiina Ringo. Another parallel is that this album has two distinct producers for different sub-sections, while Variety has two distinct composers responsible for MOST of the tracks. Plus one of the two producers of UM (Kameda) was the producer for Variety.

The main 'advantage' that Variety has over UM, is that Shiina Ringo got to write lyrics for most/all of the songs. If you're a gaijin, then whoop-dee-fuckin-do. The music is either good or it isn't. I don't need an expert on the Japanese language telling me that Shiina Ringo's own lyrics are "better enough" to offset Ukigumo and Izawa not being as good of songwriters as Shiina Ringo's own inspirations...

The point is, if Shiina Ringo is going to be singing along to a lot of music she didn't write, concentrated all into one release, then UM is the golden example of how it's done.

hey, I'm a ginger, so watch out~

truth in told, I prefer UM to Variety as well, mostly because it is as close as we will ever get to an official cover of UFO right now. Also, Hairo no Hitomi is purely orgasmic. gets me every time. I don't necessarily want to listen to a lot of the covers on this album, but I enjoy them.

I agree about Momen no Handerchief, that song is quite possibly one of the best pop songs Ringo has ever released, although I think some of that goes to the strength of the original (although Ringo's production here is amazing).

Also, Happy Onion Song is AWESOME. People really hate it but is so stupid and over the top I can't help but enjoy it. It was definitely a high light at EXPO.

The original Momen is a a classic kayoukoku, a popular japanese song. In my feeling, the original song have already this melancholic touch, but it's more like: cute woman singing a melancholic tale about the lover that got lost in city lights.
The strength in Shiina Ringo take is that the modernization isn't just a mere arrangement thing, or better saying, the new arrangement changes the mood and focus of the tale. The girl in this "new" history is way more pathetic than cute. The distance between the couple keeps increasing and she refuses to notice and when he, finally, break-up, she just asks for a last gift without a complain. I think that this is a kind of woman that some man (traditional) would consider a role model...
It's interesting that Shiina sings the male part, like focusing more in the urban cinism than in rural naiveness, leveling up the melancholy of the song.

I highly recommend Nao Matsuzaki stuff!

I dunno, I disagree. The lyrics don't change so how can the meaning behind them? Plus, when she asks for the cotton handkerchief, it is very much a dig at him. "Hey, I know you said you wanted to get me a gift, and now you're leaving me--so here's what I want, a cotton handkerchief to wipe my tears, JERK." She isn't complaining outright but she is very much making her feelings clear that she is annoyed about this (especially when she calls it "a last selfishness [from me]"--like, "oh, soooo sorry to inconvenience you as your long-distance girlfriend you're supposed to CARE ABOUT"); it's almost passive-aggressive.

please, there's no point at all. on this album she sang songs by john lennon for goodness sakes! most of the songs she covered are very good songs to begin with; that this is a good album doesn't say anything against variety in terms of how an album not written by her should sound. the only thing i can really get from what you said is that she shouldn't sing songs by anyone else unless it's a cover of a famous song, in which case it still has nothing to do with variety.

really? I don't get that vibe. this song is quite sad to me. then again, most traditional Japanese songs, even pop, contain a melancholy story usually focusing on leaving a loved one or love lost or sake or what have you. I think the Japanese woman in this song is quite traditional, hence when she says "my last selfishness" I don't think she is being passive aggressive, I think she is just being uber polite, the same way when you gift a gift you say something like "tsumaraimono desu kedo" "this is a quite uninteresting gift..." then you follow it with "but please enjoy it!" etc etc. It is just the Japanese trait of putting yourself down in order to be humble and raise your host. Especially with traditional marriages a wife normally puts herself down for her husband, so that is what I sense here. When she says she wants a cotton handerkercheif from him to cry into, I don't think she is taking a snip at him, I sense her as being quite sad and honestly asking this one last favor of him to remember him by. This strikes me as EXTREMELY Japanese. I've had conversations with my Japanese friends and family about this and they all agree. They usually ask when I sing it at karaoke "why would you sing such a sad song?" haha.

as for Ringo, I don't think she was pulling a Strange Little Girls here...She said her record label was being impatient about her lack of work during her pregnancy so she selected music that she was listening to quite a bit at that period and created a cover's album. I don't think she picked the music to put some female cynical commentary spin on them, most of these covers tend to remain pretty true to the spirit of the originals, just with a bit more modernized production. If anything, it reads like Ringo's love letter to her favorite songs.

kuro neko is sooo in insightful !!!!
I do love this cover album though.

-- sometimes songs are soo different when you know what they mean.
(thanks freklegirl.)

^ really? i always found it so lame. i like the concept, how they are back-to-back, but i don't like the actual design at all =/.

Hm. yea its pretty interesting. Its like a peak at pretty japanese behavior, really kind of sweet. but sounds like it should be a drama. I tend to enjoy story telling songs. So It can be that as well.

Well, I agree that it's sad, and that it appears traditional and self-effacing on the surface, but I definitely think there's some underlying true-feelings going on, which is what I talked about.

what do you mean by true-feelings? I think she means what she says. The way you wrote your interpretation and the comment about being passive aggressive didn't seem to fit to me. Don't take this wrong because I am an American as well, but that interpretation seems completely American. Besides, the song was written by a man to begin with, I can't imagine why a guy would write a passive-aggressive forward thinking song for women, especially at that time (this is an oldie)

*sigh* Kameda has never produced for Shiina Ringo. He's the arranger and the UM disks are named after the arrangers and not the producers. Uni Inoue is the man that produced just about all things Shiina Jihen. It just really bugs me when people give that much credit to Kameda.

I just think it's important not to take Japanese politeness at face value--there are lots of times where people are disguising how they truly feel with polite words. But, you're right, considering it was written by a man, my interpretation is probably wrong, and she is just being traditional and self-effacing.

no, I totally get your drift. I always think of this one time in tokyo my neighbor told me I had a lovely voice and when I looked puzzled they told me they could often hear me singing in the shower, which was their polite and roundabout way of telling me to shut the fuck up when they are trying to sleep (I'm a night owl). You can totally read that into this song too, but based on all the other things surrounding this song, the genre it fits into, the images the music and lyrics evoke, I can't help but just think of this as a quite tragic love song. If you look at a lot of traditionals from Europe, America, Asia, anywhere really, it is quite disturbing how many of them involve murder/love lost/suicide, sad themes. It is like during those periods song was the only way people could cope when society was repressing their outward display of emotions. This song is too recent to really fit that scenario, but still.

I'm with frecklegirl on this one. yes, the song's an oldie written by a man, but I get a sense that there's more to the lyrics that what we have at face value. the Japanese are known for their passive-aggressive biting politeness. my friend's grandmother told me I had very nice, straight teeth, and I found out later, when I left the table to use the bathroom, she said to my friend "does he ever close his mouth? that boy talks too fucking much." gotta love it.

This album has quite a few of my favorite SR songs on it (Haiiro, Shiroi Kobato, Yer Blues, Jazz A Go Go), but really I love this album because it introduced me to the hilarity that is Shiina scatting. doo-bee-doo-bee-doo!

Anyone else ready for Part 2? Just as long as she doesn't have Saito Neko arrange everything anyway.

heck yes! I wonder if her taste has changed at all...we might end up with Alfie, You, and all the other recent covers she has done....

as long as it contains UFO I'm good.

I listened to this again because I've only listened to it, like twice, and a half hearted listen at that. I just want to say that the retro game sounds in what started as ajazzsongfuckingawesomeshitdfsfdsfswf

(Kareha)

Oh, Shiina. I love you 4 ever. If I had listened to this in my early teens, I would have picked up a guitar by now.

^ It's not too late, Scribbs.

Don't get me over-inspired!

I can't afford anything now, anyway. I'm as broke as a cheap yoyo.

japanese wikipedia says the first limited edition came with a form to entry a lottery to win a karaoke box.. does anyone know about it??

Oh, that makes sense considering the karaoke room connected to the pages for this album on Ringo's old website.

This and this, maybe.

^ Was it a first press or a limited edition with its own catalog number? Did it have any bonuses other than that karaoke thing mentioned before?

There's only two catalog numbers - one for each of the discs.
From browsing through the Shiina Ringo auctions for years, I've seen papers related to the karaoke lottery/bonus, but I've never seen alternate packaging of Utaite Myouri itself. Maybe it's like Muzai Moratorium, where the first-press and second-press are identical except for a lottery postcard inside. I believe there is subtle indication of first-press on Muzai Moratorium's obi, but I'm not sure how they did (or even could) handle that for Utaite Myouri. It didn't exactly have a real obi. It had some kind of a sticker where an obi normally would be, to hold the two jewelcases together.

I find it strange that the Love Is Blind title was barely mentioned through this whole topic, while I find myself compulsively repeating the song and therefore intellectually whipping myself for having been ignoring it up to this day. Seriously, there is so much energy included in 3:33 minutes that I could even reach it at first listen, which is not the way new music usually works for me.

About "Love Is Blind"...this is a highlight of the Gekokujou Xstasy DVD concert. Her voice is so good, and her facial expressions so powerful (despite the heavy eye makeup) that it blew away anybody I showed it to in America.

^ That's exactly the reason why I gave it a listen: I wanted to take a look at that concert even though I felt really dissapointed with many of the songs in Zazen Extasy, leading me to literally hate that guitarist Yayoshi for ruining probably unrepeatable opportunities (like a proper live performance of Sakana) and not liking the bald keybordist at all.

But she's worth it anyway, your comment is proof of that and more importantly a motivation.

I like this cover album, probably my second favourite cover album I have heard. Garage Inc. by Metallica take the cake though. Laugh all you want :-p

Did she play the Chopin waltz herself in «子守唄»? At least it sounds so to me as I remember seeing some rehearsal footage in which she played it.

So get this... my school is having an 音楽会 later in the month, which is basically a big concert everyone in school has to participate in and it takes up a whole day. The teachers have to sing a song too, and we got the music this week... it's none other than "Chiisa na Konomi"!!! what uuuuppppp

Got a student to record a video of the performance! It's sort of charmingly shakily filmed, and you can hear the students chatting with each other throughout the song (towards the beginning the girl filming it, who adores me, says "Sara kawaii"), but I think it's a pretty cool thing to show you guys.

Teachers' Choir - 小さな木の実 (Chiisa na Konomi)

Nice! Thanks for sharing it.

I honestly didn't know Chiisa na Konomi was a traditional Japanese song.

Damn you! Wish I had that. We had to perform Pink Lady and SMAP.

Hahaha, really? That's great!

Even though it was in the program and not a surprise, all the kids got so excited and started cheering when the teachers lined up on stage to sing.

I just bought a used copy of this. The booklet for the Kamepakuto disc has an insert with the lyrics and credits for that disc on it, but the other booklet doesn't have one. There should be one, right??

If there was a Ringo release that was BEGGING for a proper luxury vinyl version then it was this. I can't fathom why it was never put out? These covers would be more welcome than RHYMESTER and the like... :(

I agree, so many people want the Spitz tribute LP just for Spica.
Can't imagine the things we'd do for Utaite Myori... -_-

Better yet, I'd love to see Utaite Myouri ~Sono Ni~, featuring an all-new set of covers by Ringo herself. Maybe she could even cover something (Rintenki?) by Togawa.

Current Ringo attempting Togawa!

"Counsel Please" PLZ! :hmph: That or "Teshigawara Mika no Hansei".

She can't Togawa anymore. She can only Bacharach