the Shiina Ringo thread

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.

Bring back the Shiina Ringo dictatorship!

In case you missed it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/mar/25/japanese-pop-women

Having listened to Sports a few times now, I'm definitely in the contented camp - agree with Milton and xcixxorx. It's true that she and TJ seem to have basically settled on the same songwriting/production quirks, and this album is closer to jpop/anime OP standard than any of her recent work. I don't really have a big problem with this, tbh! If she keeps making music of this quality for the rest of her career, I can't really complain, it's still very enjoyable.

Maybe I'm just an optimist, but there isn't a single record in the SR/TJ discography I didn't eventually like, if not love outright. So much of it is stone cold motherfuckin' classic, even if she retired now she's given plenty to the world. But considering she's only 31 years old, I'm not too concerned about it - she's got a lot of songwriting ahead.

i think you're otm there; i'm totally happy with her settling into this groove (for the time being) but considering how much adventurousness she packed into the last 10+ years i am fully confident that she will be kicking open the trap door of my mind for years to come

it's also worth mentioning as it's barely come up on this thread, or in the english-speaking fan forums -- her last four releases slow turn towards formal j-pop that has so pissed off her english fan base have all been #1's in Japan and have pretty much reconsolidated her position as one of the most important pop figures in the history of j-pop. After the first two Jihen albums she was increasingly getting seen & covered as a fringe / cult figure who'd had one huge breakthrough album followed by a bunch of strangeness, so between Jihen delivering #1 hits and Ringo doing huge stadium tours of her hugest songs, the last four years has basically established her a mainstream career for life in Japan

some western fans want to read that as selling out or turning against her authentically weird roots but it seems like a long term move. the last four albums are way closer to j-pop than I ever would have gotten into cold, but yeah she took me with her, each of them have had at least 3 or 4 utterly addictive songs I can't stop playing so not only does it feel shallow to complain about her direction, it feels like missing the point.

that being said, picked up the CD for 'Sports', and for me those four songs are the opening track, '3 Minutes', 'Zettai Zetsumei', and the big closer. on the whole the album's more about the production than the songwriting, I missed most of the details with the mp3's -- Kameda's bassline on '3 Minutes', and the way the disco kicks in full tilt on 'Zettai Zetsumei', so satisfying

also, weirdly -- album version of the opening track 'Ikuru' tacks on a minute long instrumental coda that wasn't on the leaked mp3's, and it tracks directly into the opening of track #2. It's really over the top Vegas vamping, though -- not sure it's an improvement, but it's a major difference

This TJ Special on Music Japan has helped bring me around to Sports, it's worth a look.

http://sadisticgossip.blogspot.com/2010/03/tokyo-jihen-20100228-music-japan.html

longer Ikiru? Goddamnit.

(as in now I have to go hunt this down)

Also, is there a good source for the sales numbers of those albums? Only thing I saw was Wikipedia which said all four TJ albums made it to #1 or 2 on both Soundscan and Oricon, but I'd rather see more exact numbers. I'm just generally aware that her first few solo albums were million-sellers and pretty much everything TJ and after sold far less.

hard to gauge since everything's selling less -- these days you can hit #1 there with 150-200,000 apparently? I don't know of a compiled list, I just remember the posts to EM in the weeks after each album & the discussions from the posters who lived in Japan discussing the campaigns / media reception to each album