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Old 2011.05.03, 04:53 PM   #231
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Originally Posted by day View Post
And the video Bentz posted was Senkou Shoujo... My reaction was "wtf this is Shiina Ringo. Talk about a let down"...
You are going to fit in so well here.
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Old 2011.05.08, 11:07 AM   #232
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One of my favourite singers did a rather shitty cover of Kabukichou no Joou during her live show, and I went searching for the original. It remains my most-loved Ringo song ever.
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Old 2011.05.08, 12:07 PM   #233
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Originally Posted by vielleicht View Post
One of my favourite singers did a rather shitty cover of Kabukichou no Joou during her live show, and I went searching for the original. It remains my most-loved Ringo song ever.
Who is that other singer?
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Old 2011.05.08, 05:02 PM   #234
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Originally Posted by a_grumble_cake View Post
Who is that other singer?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_Wang
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Old 2011.05.09, 06:49 AM   #235
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Joanna Wang is awesome! I've never seen that cover, but her music is fantastic. She is very similar to Shiina, they do a sort of jazzy-rock thing and she's very artistic with her music, while still down-to-earth.
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Old 2011.05.11, 11:22 AM   #236
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Well, I always loved manga, and at the time, I was reading Nana, and listening to anna tsuchiya and mika nakashima. I saw a photo from the movie Sakuran and thought: wow! what a magnific scenery, and the costumes, the colour... I really want to watch this movie. At the time, I couldn't find the movie, and i met a girl on the orkut community who had the movie and wanted the manga, and I had the manga. So we talked and decided to exchange our files. Meanwhile, she told me about the singer who made the soundtrack, and I asked for a video suggestion, to get to know the singer. She said she liked a song called kabuki-chou no joou, and so I watched the movie. I liked, specially 'cause she whistled on the song, and I love this little different stuff on music. But that wasn't enough to make me addicted to her. After hearing this song I listened to Muzai Moratorium, and when I played Tadashii Machi the first time, THAT'S when I thought: omg, I'm gonna be addicted, I can feel it. That happened in 2007, and till now I can't stop hearing her music. I wanted to hear all of her solo stuff before listening to Tokyo Jihen, 'cause it's a lot of songs to get to know at once. So, after I heard most of her solo songs, I started with Kyouiku and follow the order. And here I am today: addicted, happy, and excited for the new album next month...
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Old 2011.05.16, 05:11 AM   #237
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Since the new TJ album is called "Great Discovery," I decided to check out this thread again, and I cannot believe that I never posted anything in here....except to say hi to a new member.

So, I've got the time (actually putting off something), and I'm a bit homesick, so might as well indulge.

Look, I know my rep around here. Apart from admin/mod. I'm talking about the other "roles" I play. Apologist. Nu-Ringoloid. TJ Phase 2 muffdiver.

By any reasonable, objective standards, much of what Shiina has been a part of the last few years has not been all that great. The last thing she did that really affected me emotionally, was Ariamaru Tomi. With TJ, it was the Ultra C version of Kimaru. I can, and have, shared those things with people who don't know anything about Japanese music, certainly nothing about Shiina or TJ, and the unanimous response is this:

"I don't know what she's saying, but that's a beautiful voice."

Okay. Flashback, 2001. I'm living in Boston, my own apartment, job, girlfriend, nice safe single life. I'm getting into anime because I'm a movie freak and that section of the video store started looking more and more interesting. I pick up this show at random, Cowboy Bebop, volume 1 DVD. Opening credits, "Tank!" by Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts. Couldn't believe my ears. 2 hours later, I'm trolling the internet for info (this was in the days of dial-up). Who is this Yoko Kanno and what other music has she done? (*Footnote: one year later I got to meet Yoko Kanno in New York, but that's off-topic.)

My dial-up internet gets me scant info on Yoko, but I find a site that lists her stuff and "related artists"--meaning, other contemporary Japanese music. Back then, "Japan" was enough to put musical artists in a specific category of rock that people in America were just finding out about.

One of those "related artists" was Shiina Ringo, and according to the guy who made the website, Shiina was awesome but "she can be a little scary." Well, that's all I needed to hear. Scary Japanese rock star named Ringo. Got it. Easy to remember.

Near Boston there is a working-class neighborhood called Allston that has a large student population and lots of little independent stores. One of those stores was a Korean video place that rented out movies from Hong Kong, which was another interest of mine. One day I'm browsing through the videos and nearby I see a rack of CDs. They were not bootlegs, which surprised me, and I spun the rack around a bit to see what was there.

Among the Faye Wongs and Anita Muis, I saw this thick pink and white box: Zecchoushuu by "shena ringo." I remembered the description of her from that website: "awesome, but a little scary." The pink and white box was very expensive, but I bought it.

The way home from Allston to my apartment in Boston (actually Malden, just north of Boston) by train, takes about 45 minutes on a good day, sometimes an hour. I had my CD player with me. On the train, I opened the big pink and white box, and immediately felt like I'd been ripped off. Look at those tiny CDs! What a waste of money! Oh well, I just dropped $40 on it, it'll take an hour to get home, I'll just give it a listen and never blind buy another CD, ever.

I put the little Disc 1 of Zecchoushuu in the player, got comfortable (still a little annoyed at paying $40 for three dinky little discs) in my train seat, and pressed "play."

The song was Yattsuke Shigoto. If you've seen Seiteki Healing 3 you've heard the audio of the Zecchoushuu version of the song, but not all of the audio. On Zecchoushuu, first you hear the sound of an amplifier, mixed with the sound of applause (it was a live recording), then a pause, then this......voice.

"Mainichi shuurai suru kyouteki denwa no beru..."

I can type that out by heart now, but the first time I heard it, on the train heading home through Boston, I didn't know exactly what I was hearing. It was definitely "awesome, and a little scary," but it was more than that.

The title of this thread is "How did we first discover...," but I don't think we "discover" the things we really love. I think they discover us.

I didn't get "lost" in her music on that train. I didn't feel lost. I felt as if I was found.

After that, the Gekokujyou Xstasy concert DVD sealed the deal. The Zecchoushuu version of Yattsuke Shigoto came out of that tour, so I guess I'll always have a special connection to that part of her discography.

In those early days, I had the same reaction to everything she did that my friends now have to the stuff I play for them: "I don't know what she's saying, but that's a beautiful voice." After a while the "I don't know what she's saying" part started nagging at me, because even though she sung in English sometimes, I knew she was saying something in her own language that it would do me well to find out. You could say I wouldn't be where I am now without Shiina Ringo.

Her voice finds me every time. Randomly popping up on the mp3 player, or anywhere in Japan where some store, or school, or person is playing her music loud enough for me to hear. It cuts through the normal and everyday.

That's why I put up with some of the stuff she does that's....not exactly 2001-era material (I'm putting it mildly). It's the same reason I put up with most of Greta Garbo's crappy movies (and most of them were crap). There's Garbo, with her photographically perfect face, stretching her head back and exposing her neck, tragic love personified---not even the best scenarists in Hollywood could figure out what to do with her, she was so beyond convention---and around her, everything looked conventional. She had that face, and the image carried you through hours and hours of formulaic melodrama. Shiina's voice is enough to carry me through the Dopamint!s and Services.

Ten years later, I still get a whiff of the Zecchoushuu Track 1 Shiina Ringo EVERY TIME she sings. Sometimes in a really lame song I barely hear it, but it's there (or maybe my imagination conjures it up), and sometimes it's all the way through like with Ariamaru Tomi and I feel like I'm back on that subway train, replaying that little Zecchoushuu Disc 1 over and over and over again and feeling like whatever this is, I can't do anything else in the moment but listen.

So, that's my story. Sorry to go on so long.
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Old 2011.05.16, 11:16 AM   #238
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Originally Posted by Nimh View Post
The title of this thread is "How did we first discover...," but I don't think we "discover" the things we really love. I think they discover us.

I didn't get "lost" in her music on that train. I didn't feel lost. I felt as if I was found.
Man, that was touching!
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Old 2011.05.16, 01:13 PM   #239
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I agree. Great post Nimh. It's making me re-analyze my interests and how they've been life changing.
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Old 2011.05.16, 02:04 PM   #240
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Originally Posted by Nimh View Post
Among the Faye Wongs...
That was a great story but don't you use Faye as a common noun! I'm biting you hard for this and I hope you feel it grrr.
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