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2014.11.18, 05:41 PM | #11 | |
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Think about it, without the big stretch, there wouldn't even be Ringo's child in the first place.
"The world is busy; if someone wins, someone else has to lose". Classic Japanese fascism. |
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2014.11.18, 06:19 PM | #12 |
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The more I come here, the less and less I want to be a member anymore. Are we that desperate to get some value out of Ringo's new album that we resort to (admittedly somewhat interesting to begin with) threads like this, which deteriorate instantly anyway?
Fuck it. Im gonna do the unspeakable and give Sunny another try. That is what this thread has driven me to. Though, I'm still 100000000% certain there's no deeper meaning behing NIPPON apart from it being a soccer tie in.
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Disco! Life is dead Last edited by deadgrandma : 2014.11.18 at 06:36 PM. |
2014.11.18, 06:39 PM | #13 |
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I'm also pretty sure there's no deeper meaning to NIPPON but I enjoy it wholeheartedly. I can appreciate that it is a cool/trendy way to articulate feelings of nationalism (nippon-bare, plz); it's usually quite difficult to do that without coming across as cheesy, mawkish, old fashioned.
I -do- however think that there is value in thinking of SUNNY as an album -about- Japan. |
2014.11.18, 06:43 PM | #14 |
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DG, why not take advantage of your ignore list before considering something more drastic.
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2014.11.19, 01:03 AM | #15 |
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Don't ignore me
Gekokujo kind of touches on what I am trying to say. In the context of SUNNY , Nippon sounds more like a concept song in a sea of typically Ringo tracks. There IS value in the album even if you don't want to see it because you 're too busy being angry about it. I'm posting these threads because I want there to be actual discussion about the music. I was annoyed at the lack of new tracks, but I actually do thing they work together well, more than the tracks on Dai Hakken and maybe Sports Last edited by Scribble R : 2014.11.19 at 01:12 AM. |
2014.11.19, 01:50 AM | #16 |
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I'm not blocking anyone :-p
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2014.11.19, 02:17 AM | #17 |
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And I posted my comment before DG edited and expanded his post. I had guessed that he was getting exasperated by the incivility here.
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2014.11.20, 03:33 AM | #18 | |
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I think Ringo thinks and sings a lot about her identity. "Identity" on Shouso Strip is probably the best example of this theme from her early works. In the music video, she toyed with Eastern and Western cultural identities. Back then, it was interesting and subversive... and, ultimately, convenient for her now. These days, I feel like she's likely just pandering to Japanese nationalists and not exploring national identity critically. I mean, I'm not totally scandalized by this, but whatever. Sometimes you become a nationalist.
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2014.11.20, 11:39 AM | #19 |
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"Nationalism" and "team spirit" are basically the same emotion, and symbols that represent one could easily be applied to the other. NIPPON is meant to cheer on a national team in a competition against other nations, and by Ringo's own admission the song was written to spec for NHK. In this case the competition involves professional athletes playing soccer, but the same principles could be applied if the team were instead an army and the competition were for territory rather than bragging rights. I don't see how NIPPON could possibly be expected to be anything else.
The Ringo we know today is, as much as anything, a product of her ongoing analysis and questioning of her Japanese identity over the years. She understands both Western music and Japanese music extremely well - not just the construction of it but the underlying emotions - the soul, if you will. She can do this because she can identify with both. She can deconstruct Western and Japanese musical forms into their basic elements of meaning and emotion, and recombine them uniquely to create Western music that is distinctly Japanese and Japanese music that is distinctly Western. But she is not beholden to either, and she has demonstrated many times that she is perfectly capable of writing from virtually any point of view. IMHO, that's a big part of her appeal. All of which aside - in the end, she is Japanese, so why shouldn't she take some pride in Japanese culture? |
2014.11.20, 04:59 PM | #20 |
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I thought Ariamaru tomi was a pretty lovely critique of Japanese consumerism and excess (or just excess in general). I guess SR has always struck me as one of the most militant nationalists. Like, I think she and Mishima Yukio would be BFFs. So an album that's overtly about NIPPON-ness does not surprise me in the least.
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