the Shiina Ringo thread

amazing how similar the japanse phonetic word for semen is to its english equivalent!

I've never really thought about it, oddly enough. I assume it's a borrowing.

Am listening to Muzai Moratorium for the first time in a while and it's sounding really good. Funny how it sounds like the sort of album everybody obviously would know about it--except it's not. Flew right under the radar outside Japan (and maybe a couple other Asian countries).

Except I'm not listening to Muzai Moratorium, I'm listening to Shouso Strip, and I've done this before haven't I? I just woke up.

That's why it sounded good!

That's unfair. Muzai Moratorium is all right, I just don't forgive how butchered "Koufukuran" is on that record. Also I don't forgive "Koko de Kisu shite" for its inane existence.

I have to admit I cringe when "Koko de Kisu Shite" comes on.

Cringe and generally skip to the next track.

Maybe they should reissue that album with a bonus deletion.

I'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO GIVE UP ON YOU, SO NEVER SAY GOODBYE AND KISS ME ONCE AGAAAAIN.

I sort of find it fascinating because everyone I've ever talked to that song about has talked about her Alanis worship. Which is visible, it's just made much worse by its filtering through J-pop traditions of the time and those awful "Eastern"-approximating strings. And lyrically it's so much less tolerable than her Kurt and Courtney aside on "Gips." Which has a chorus that is a monster that has remnants of me in its teeth, so, you know, talk about Kurt and Courtney all you want Shiina Ringo, just break me down with your song.

I'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO GIVE UP ON YOU, SO NEVER SAY GOODBYE AND KISS ME ONCE AGAAAAIN.

Belt it, girl!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgVZ9a1R0QM

Just wanted to post the "Koufukuran" video, because it marked a shift for me, removed me from the pose of "I am fine with just Karuki Samen and Tokyo Jihen's Kyoiku because they are weird and beautiful and that is what I want from Shiina Ringo." I watched this out of curiosity toward her initial singles, and discovered that it isn't weird and beautiful, but it's an incredible pop song (I had to hold back from saying "perfect").

One week later I had secured every goddamn thing she had ever released to my iTunes library.

I like both versions of "Koufukuran," but thanks for reminding me of the video (EP?) version, because I hadn't heard it for a while. As for weirdness, the video is at least a bit weird. I'm pretty sure this was one of the huge batch of videos I watched back in the spring of 2006 that immediately hooked me in to Shiina Ringo and Tokyo Jihen.

Yeah, big ups to Youtube, without which I would not be a Ringo fan myself. Think I was searching Zazen Boys videos when Tokyo Jihen's "Himitsu" came up. I heard it and spoke only in "holy fuck"s for the next few days.

yeah the videos are key to the shiina love!

TS: Aozora (b-side) vs. Aozora (etsuraku hen, live)

Is there a DVD available of all the promos?

not all on one -- the Watashi No Hatsuden DVD has the PVs for all the singles, but it lacks a lot of my favorite clips like 'Tsumiki Asobi', 'Meisai', 'Identity', 'Sigma'. Each of her 4 albums' clips are compiled on the Sekitai Healing Vol 1-4 DVDs. But I'd say money's better spent on the live DVDs first, like 'Dynamite Out'. Endless blather about most of the DVDs upthread.

http://www.yesasia.com/global/watashi-no-hatsuden-hong-kong-version/1011222206-0-0-0-en/info.html

Official title : スポーツ (Sports)
Out February 24, 2010

・生きる to live ikiru
・電波通信 radio transmission denpa tsuushin
・シーズンサヨナラ sayonara season shiizon sayonara
・勝ち戦 victory kachiikusa
・F.O.U.L
・能動的三分間 an active 3min (official=3min) noudoutekisanpunkan
・F.A.I.R
・乗り気 eagerness noriki
・スイートスポット sweet spot suiito supotto
・閃光少女 flashing girl senkou shoujo
・極まる the end kiwamaru
ほか全13曲

translated by kuro_neko, from electric mole forums

Shiina Ringo became famous in the late 1990s as a relatively talented singer-songwriter, but for her third album, she self-produced what is absolutey the most avant-garde, most conceptual, most confrontational and most well-considered album that has ever been released under the J-Pop rubric. Unfortunately, however, her teenybopper fans did not understand the musical and lyrical complexity, and the indie scene refused to believe that such a mainstream singer could offer something truly innovative. The album ultimately fell through the pop cultural cracks but certainly marks the high-water mark for the entire enterprise of Japanese mass market music.

http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/play/6-most-underrated-japanese-albums-00s-702098#ixzz0afFFD6QS

nice! i always meant to listen to that shugo tokumaru album too

I was unfamiliar with this Macdonald Duck Eclair band, but that one track sounds prety interesting, so I'm checking through all the videos he links to. (I want to check out the related review of the best recent Thai bands.)

i had to laugh that the only video he could find was an Audiosurf playthrough

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/pictures/m/00/19/TOCT-26940.jpg

has leaked and is now quite easy to find.

thx d00d.

Don't want to influence anyone overly much, but I find this album really disappointing.

ha ha 'Sweet Spot' oh my goodness

I hope that means you agree that song is awful.

her most awkward english language song EVER

time will tell but there are way too many fantastic songs on this for me to feel disappointed

though yeah definitely ever closer to straight-up J-pop -- not even the passing token 'weird' production moments that felt thrown in on Superficial Gossip

two weeks ago on a long van trip my friend Martin did a really cruel but probably pitch accurate impression of me from a few years ago when we watched the Electric Mole DVD that he & D. had brought back for me from Japan: 'She's really weird! She's really really weird! Well ok this part's kinda normal but wait here comes the really weird part' (mimics utterly pedestrian kawaii vocals, then rolls his eyes)

I'm losing the faith rapidly.

ok i'll unbookmark this until i get a chance to listen

Sorry. I'm really getting bored with their sound, tired of indulging certain (uninteresting) quirks, etc.

There's some beautiful playing here and there, but I generally don't like the overall songs frameworks in which it occurs.

well as per usual with her stuff I'm totally confused to find myself listening to this kind of music but I like it

The band's songwriting is way too inferior to Shiina Ringo's songwriting (once upon a time anyway). I feel like I'm getting more of a handle on their sound, and it's becoming less interesting in the process. I almost think there were better songs on Variety but they just needed production and realization closer to what you get on this album. (Although I realize I am falling into the familiar western-fan pattern of: "Even the last one was better than this one. . .")

All of the interview talk about taking risks (my possibly over-optimistic paraphrase) on this new album and giving one another challenges and so on, seems like a lot of mumbo-jumbo.

Back to Sakir Oner Gunhan for me.

well when Shiina stopped writing music on the last album, they got away with all the multiple authors by making the album concept 'Variety'. but this time the concept & production is gunning for something seemingly more coherent and it only underlines that these are just a bunch of tunes. no problem with settling for being a simple & classy artesian J-pop band (if I were into more of the songs)

'3 Minutes' is amazing though, if you haven't played that on good speakers yet, get ready

at least now that it's 2010 it's easier to start safely saying that 'Karuki Zamen Kuri no Hana' was without question the most amazing pop album of the last decade, right?

& not to dismiss this new album outright which I have only heard three times in less than 24 hours, '3 Minutes' needed two weeks to grow on me

I'm not even going to buy a copy of this after all, I really think it's that lame. "3 min" is pretty good though.

I do agree about KZK, although considering how little actual current pop I listen to, how much does my opinion matter?

Do you think Tokyo Jihen will keep on going after this? I am kind of hoping they break up, but I think this will do well commercially.

The funny thing is, I was thinking of finally starting a dedicated Tokyo Jihen thread, but now I have lost all motivation.

Hi guys.

I kind of forgot this album was even on its way so my expectations may have been a bit modest. As such, it sounded good this morning but sort of serialized; another album from a band I admire a lot w/ some surprises, good & bad, but def. settled in a familiar groove. Try as I might to find a counter-angle to the consensus story (i.e. heart will never fully dislodge from early S. Ringo solo career - every album, a paradigm shift - etc.) I really am pleased w/ them in a more complacent sort of way. Just rolling along to some neat UFO FX & hooks, some crafty J-pop... like, it may be my dwindling investment, but if you put Shiina's last one & the four Jihen albums on shuffle, I doubt I'd feel too strongly about where the peaks & valleys were. Dynamic but static (Rudipherous OTM re:quirks, though I can't put them down), whereas a sharp volte-face could smack things into perspective a bit.

Has anyone made the obvious comparison between the intro. to Ikiru and Mr. Bungle's California (or one or two of the songs on that)? It's been a while since I've heard California though so I could be hearing a stronger similarity than actually exists.

I'm probably being too harsh about this album, and it probably does have to do with my own hopes and expectations. Overall, it probably is better than Variety. The songs where they are going for drive actually have a lot of drive (whereas somehow on Variety, they didn't have enough drive.) I still think it's all a bit unexciting. And then you hit this "No one knows how I live my life" crap and Shiina's tired growl. Who wrote this one? No more, please.

I'm probably being too harsh about this album

Nah, not by much. (Okay, sorry, I'll stay away from this thread unless I have something new to say.)

at least now that it's 2010 it's easier to start safely saying that 'Karuki Zamen Kuri no Hana' was without question the most amazing pop album of the last decade, right?

saying that, i wonder if it will be another decade before anyone else actually realises this

I'm listening to Muzai Moratorium at the moment, something I haven't heard for a while, and what a contrast between this incredible album and the last four SR (counting HF) and TJ albums.

And it's not that I think she should be doing stuff now that sounds exactly like this. I just wish she were doing things that sound as good as this.

Incidentally, you know what to do: ALL-NEW FREEFORM (SORTA) 1990s ALBUMS POLL: THE BANNS

Adult is such a great album. I'm not exactly feeling the need to convince anyone, just the need to say it.