oh, Jigen. Jigen, Jigen,
Jigen. I admire the effort, and theres some who definitely agree with your hypothesis.
howevva
You have quite a number of factual missteps that totally nail you.
First off, Shiina was really more of a early 90's pop-RnB girl. Certainly there was Jazz influence in her life no doubt. But from the bio that you reference it puts the emphasis on the RnB factor (Shiina infamously proclaiming her desire to be Mariah Carey's back-up singer.)
Second: Theres no "Shiina" disc. Theres the Kame and Mori disc named after the producers of each disc.
Thirdly: I wouldnt say shes all that great at either instrument
, but she
less often plays keys/piano live. (And I don't think she plays either on record frequently)
For clarification on B-sides,theyre just songs that weren't good enough for the album or didnt "mesh" with the other album tracks (the latter reasoning, I often find totally bogus. Thats why you get great tracks like Pinnochio casted into obscurity.) So yeah thats where some songs that have influentially "expansive" ideas sometimes wind up, like "Memai."
Now then, lets ignore these addressed underminings and address your thesis. First off, your title is a total trap and you know it.
Yes Shiina's an artist, blah blah,different backgrounds, synergy, all that crap. But here's the big issue, if Shiina is allgung ho on this "nu-Shiina" shitick, why does she have
none of the heart, conviction,and emotion of her earlier works? KZK isn't often considered nu-Shiina,though it could be. My reasoning for it not being so is because there is that same passion behind it as her two previous works. And no ones going to argue that, I don't think.
Jihen on is where it gets hazy. Kyouiku was certainly mixed in fan reaction. It was missing "something." Then Dynamite Out came and everyone heard the album for the first time on that day. So kyouiku got the pass on DO's vouch to be regarded with the rest of Shiina's works. In DO for the first time we really saw Shiina ALIVE on stage, the band worked, it
sold everyone on the album we were mixed about. Then comes Adult and we're definitively in "nu-Shiina" territory. Some people hated it, some people loved it. Some people warmed up to it, some people grew cold to it. For the first time, I think we saw some kinda "half-assed" songs. "Yukiguni" was a self-cover from KZK practically. "Kenso Naoshi" for the first time it
felt like Shiina pre-premeditatedly sat downsaying "I'm gonna write a kinda bossa-nove style song" rather than doing her thing and "discovering" one.
However, Adult has plenty of quality Shiina tunes in there too. Even Yukiguniis widely liked, and its still a good song in its own right. But after Adult is exceedingly difficult to say Shiina has that same drive she had as late as '05. Shes written 4-5 songs since Adult that we know of? (excluding Tametabako) In the Spa&Treatment vid she looks like shed rather die on stage than be there and perform -- lets not forget, rehashes and Variety.
Not toomany people complain at their core "Oh its the style I dont like." It might tend to overlap that way, but ultimately no one complained about Rinne Highlight, or the Mayonaka single.What some of us complain about is the pervasive lifelessness Shiina has been exuding since the end of 05.
Maybe the reason Dynamite Out was so great was because Shiina performed her entire soul out there and henceforth has been bereft.