the blog of EVERYTHING JAPANESE!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YUI-SAN!

Today is the day when YUI turns 21! お目出屠う,　YUIさん！僕達、外国のファンは常に支えるよ。じゃ～．．．あなたとあなたの音楽は未来のよい運！

Yep, that’s the end of my wits when it comes to Japanese. Assuming that YUI might come on the internet to see if her foreign fans care, I wrote that very small message for her to read. I (tried to) say is: “Congratulations, YUI-san! Us, foreign fans will always support you. And well…wishing you and your music a good future!” Correct me if I’m wrong anywhere.

I really can’t believe she’s 21 already! She looks at least 3 years younger honestly. She started being interested in music by the age of 16 when she quit high-school and started going to a cram school to study music. With no professional vocal training, she made her Indies debut at the age of 17 in 2004 with It’s Happy Line. In 2005, her talent was recognised as she auditioned for Sony Music Records who were mesmerised by her heavenly voice. And now, she’s come so far… *sniff*

Anyway. In this moment of happiness, I bring you…

…her Happy Birthday to you you performance! From her Thank You My Teens DVD. (: Happy watching!

*HK drama music plays*

…or something.

I don’t know what it is, but I’ve come to notice this little dramatic change. At first I thought it was just a coincidence, but it’s not. Really. No coincidence comes across you more than once, and it has to have happened around 7 times now.

As some should know, WordPress went on a deleting spree of sorts a little more than a week ago. Lex’s blog Beyond The Sea was deleted and so was Psycho Butterfly without any notice whatsoever (which are both located here and here now, for the record). Two of my blog entries were also deleted, but the little clever prick that I am, I restored them once more.

I think, from that point onwards, the traffic for this blog dropped dramatically as well. I went from 400 page-view per day, to 40 page-views per day, and the number’s dropping gradually even still. At first, it didn’t bother me much because I thought it was an unfortunate coincidence. But around the third day of this happening, I became curious.

I went to Google and typed out my blog’s address, and surprise surprise!~ It didn’t show up. Not in the normal sense anyway. I mean, if I go type “http://everythingjapanese.wordpress.com/”, it’s bound to show up, but not otherwise if I search for an artiste or anything. How do I know that it was showing up before? Because I’d checked earlier. And it used to show up when you typed ‘kagrra core review’, or anything else related for that matter.

So, yeah, I conclude that I’ve been blacklisted or summat because there’s no other possible explanation. (Apart from that the whole world hates me, but let’s not go there.)

I don’t know what to do. I can continue blogging and pretend that I don’t care how many people read, but that’s not the truth because I want people to read my opinions. I’m not an attention whore or anything, but seriously what’s the point of expressing your opinions when no one’s reading it? That’s like singing in the bathroom - you might be good, but no one can hear you, can they? (silly example, but bear with me right now)

Or I can transfer my server to blogger.com and be merry, that’s another option. But then, I do not like blogger.com’s services too much and I might be happy with 0 pageviews than blog about anything there. I know LJ is another option, but I do not like LJ either.

Or third and most plausible to me is to… go and start another blog, save a few of the ‘better’ reviews on it, and blog like I always do (and perhaps, blog about more personal things there too because I can never just sit with ‘reviewing’ stuff). In fact, that’s something that I probably would do in near future, because I just want to have one blog to vent out all of my feelings onto. I don’t care if it’s going to look messy, it’s just how I roll.

But most important to me right now is my studies. I would be on hiatus anyway because my exams are coming up (in less than a month, I might add) and I need to study for them. I won’t be able to update too often regardless of whether or not I have a new blog. So, if you were free enough to have read this much of this pointless blog entry, I thank you, and apologize for taking much of your time with my rantings.

In the end, the point of this long-winded typography is:

• Google hates me.
• Going to change to a new blog soon.
• Exams coming up, long hiatus anyway so not complaining.

Haha, sometimes it’s like mother-nature wants you to study so everything sets itself up in such that you’d have no choice but to cram your syllabus into your head.

Anyway, bless you if you managed to get this far. rofl XD
Arsal.

(PS. I never got the chance to post this. I made this button of sorts two years ago right when I got into Hikki. It sucks, I know, but just wanted to post it here XD)

EDIT: Just want to add something to this post. I notice I received some better traffic last night, so I checked where it was coming from. And ah, serendipity, the guys from International Wota have actually written a bit about my ranting place. XD HI THERE INT WOTA PEOPLE! THANK YOU FOR VISITING!

And um… yeah.

Utada Hikaru - HEART STATION
Tracklist:
01. Fight The Blues
02. HEART STATION
03. Beautiful World
04. Flavor Of Life -Ballad Version-
05. Stay Gold
06. Kiss & Cry
07. Gentle Beast Interlude
08. Celebrate
09. Prisoner Of Love
10. Take 5
11. Boku wa Kuma
12. Nijiiro Bus

Bonus Track:
13. Flavor Of Life

Finally! The long anticipated album gets to see the light of the day! I was really excited to see what Hikki was going to do this time. Her last album followed a very futuristic/synth-y tune all around, and I was curious about what she would do this time. It’s seldom that I’m disappointed in any of her releases, she always makes such impressive music which is really pleasing to the ears.

HEART STATION is Utada Hikaru’s 5th original Japanese album and was released on 19th March, 2008 (a la, today) in Japan. The album will be released in Canada on 4th April, however. The album was leaked onto the internet a few days prior to the release, despite the record company’s greatest efforts.

Note: I won’t be reviewing single tracks in this review.

The first track on the album is Fight The Blues, a shockingly experimental track that caught me off-guard. Actually, I’m still quite surprised at its eccentricities. It’s an upbeat pop song with ethnic electronic sounds resonating as a backdrop. There’s also an Indian tabla used instead of drums, if I’m not mistaken, which is quite strangely intriguing in all.

Followed next are the single tracks jumbled together which almost everyone would skip just to get to the new tracks, something I did definitely.

Afterwards, is Gentle Beast Interlude, a 73 seconds long interlude (d’oh) which sounds rather recycled. It’s almost completely made up from sounds from her previous single tracks, and also Fight The Blues which is the first track on this album. But even then, it proves as a nice interlude anyhow.

Celebrate is really reminiscent of Hikki’s older work with a 90’s pop theme. Even then, however, this track seems to have the least effect over me off of the entire album. There’s just nothing that stands out in it majorly that could captivate my attention. It’s nice as background music, but nothing more.

After the sort-of boring track Celebrate, Prisoner of Love stands out exceptionally well with its R&B undertones. The magnificent introduction to this track makes up for an otherwise staler following. I love the chorus in this track and Hikki’s neverending cries of “Prisoner of Love!” This is, like the previous track, a comeback to Hikki’s older style of music but a much more efficient one at that.

Next is the ever-so-debated mystery track of the album, Take 5. The song has a surprise ending, which is apparently supposed to be artistic as the fans dub it. Of course, it could be the result of a bad radio-rip that was on the leaked version of the album, but anyway. Take 5 is a heavily synthetic track with strange ghost-like sounds in the background and whatnot. I would have liked this track if it were a bit more fine-tuned, because right now it sounds like it’s going all over the place with no particular direction

Following the strange deathwish that is Take 5, you get (drumroll…) an even more desperate deathwish, Boku wa Kuma! Hugely out-of-place and much more of a distraction than anything, but it’s not very long so thank heavens for that. Boku wa Kuma flows right into Nijiiro Bus, another children’s song which is twice as annoying as its predecessor. It starts out fine, but then drags on and on and becomes more of a nuisance than anything.

HEART STATION has had a tremendously negative response from fans, but I do not concur because I think HEART STATION is a really cool album. Having only 5 new tracks out of 13 is sort of sad though, but as a compilation of great single releases that were followed by this album, it’s really cool. Utada proves once more that she is a competent musician rather than only a celebrity, and while this album might not be her best ever, it’s a worthy addition to her discography.

Overall grade: A-

alan - Ashita e no Sanka
MUSIC JAPAN [23.11.2007]

I meant to post this ages ago, but kept forgetting. So, here it is finally, Alan singing Ashita e no Sanka live on MUSIC JAPAN. Of course, it’s not as good as the studio recorded version, but it’s pretty damn good anyway. Her wailing is a little off though, but it’s very slight and if you’re not a whip-strict person like me, you probably won’t notice.

What you will notice is Alan’s witch-like nails, and her horrible rag for a dress. You know what, I bet her hair looks so big because it’s full of evil secrets! DX

Download

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Ikimono Gakari - Akaneiro no Yakusoku
MUSIC JAPAN [27.10.2007]

Ah I love Ikimono Gakari’s live performances so much! They really look like they’re having fun while playing and singing and stuff, and their performances are quite ‘alive’ in my opinion. There’s so many singers out there who have no idea how to make a performance remotely interesting (a la, Utada Hikaru), but Ikimono Gakari make the whole stage burst with energy.

This is no exception as being a great performance, and Kiyoe sings so well. Gah.

Download

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YUI - Namidairo
MUSIC STATION [29.02.2008]

This is one of YUI’s better performances, but even then it’s quite mediocre. I mean, she sounds quite nice in the start, but then around the bridge her voice becomes all shaky and out-of-control, but that fine. What’s not fine is how she looks like she just got out of bed and turned up on the show without breakfast. I mean, come on! YUI is awesome and all, but she needs to bring a little more energy in her lives.

Download

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K - Only Human

I don’t quite recall how I came across this performance, but it’s pretty damn amazing anyway. K sings really well and also plays the piano in the performance himself. I love the original a lot, and this piano live version is just as good, if not more.

Download

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Salyu - iris ~Shiawase no Hako~
MUSIC FIGHTER [24.11.2007]

I don’t think Salyu appears in live performances a lot, I haven’t seen/heard her live much and neither has she released a live DVD yet - most artistes release one anyone at this point in their careers. Anyway, Salyu is an awesome singer who has a unique voice. I really can’t image her singing any other song other than her own songs because they’re all so… like her! It’s weird, lol. But when she does sing her own songs, she’s really good. And in this performance, she does sound amazing, even when the song is sort of boring.

What an absolutely glamorous costume though! XD Kudos to her unorthodox fashion sense.

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school food punishment - school food is good food
Tracklist:
01. close, down, back to
02. pool [audition version]
03. snap
04. set low, fine
05. Ukabi Agaru [audition version]
06. Tooku Kou no Naka

school food punishment is a super-indies band that hardly anyone is familiar with. Even in Japan, their popularity is very limited. Their style heavily relies on electronica and its many genres, a la, spacemusic, with a bit of pop sprinkled over for good measure. I recently discovered them because of my eternal love with electronic music, and I love their style. The lead vocalist has a really mesmerising voice with its own certain quality.

school food is good food is their first ever indies mini-album released on 4th April, 2007, even though they’d been active since 2004. Anywho, now onto the review!

The album starts out with an amazingly cool and absolutely epic track that never fails to please my ears each time I listen to it. close, down, back to might not be so heavy in the start, but as soon as the vocals sound up, it becomes ten times more awesome. It has strangely prominent drums in the background, and even a bit of piano (which is work of the keyboard, I’m guessing?) that all-the-more compliment the reminiscent mood of the track. The ending of the song is strangely quite breath-taking as Yumi ’sings’ a wordless and ethereal finale. Overall, quite a feast, this song is! A perfect introduction to a magnificent band.

pool could be described as really, very futuristic, or really, very retro. Either way, it sounds great just the way it is! The chorus is a major highlight in this track, though there’s one small detail that bothers me. The vocals in this track have been ‘echo-ed’, so they can sound a bit muffled at times. Incidentally, this also happens to be the first school food punishment song to get a PV. Beware though, their PVs are totally made of wtf.

I don’t really like the third track snap. It sounds much too clattery and abrupt, and none of the musical instruments have any harmony together. Everything stands out too much making for a grating sound that’s more irritating than interesting. By the end, it does pick up a bit though, but for the most part, it remains as irritating as ever.

Note: Wikipedia says that this type of music is usually known as Breakbeat. Hmmm, interesting… although clearly I’m not a huge fan of it lol.

Quickly followed is set low, fine, an ethereal, soft-rock ballad that I absolutely love (though rock isn’t an adequate term here). I feared that the band’s sound would end up in an absolute same-sounding, humdrum, but I love how they keep experimenting with different sounds. There’s even a bit of acoustic guitar in this track, if I’m not mistaken, and back-up vocals that haven’t surfaced up in any of the tracks so far. Yumi is at her very best in this track, she sounds really lovely overall.

Following a long prelude, Ukabi Agaru goes more down the ‘j-pop’ route than electronica, and I like that because it’s just another example of their versatility. I don’t like bridge in the song so much, the keyboard/piano is too much. A bit of pattern I’ve noticed in all of school food songs so far that their music tends to get more emotional and energetic as the song progresses, and culminates in an impressive manner in the end. Ukabi Agaru is no exception, and in fact, I think this might have the most energetic finale so far in this album.

Tooku Kou no Naka is by far the most unexpected track on this album. I could never have expected such a sad and tepid ballad to come from a band such as this! Even after you get over the initial surprise, it’s still a strange song in composition. It’s sort of divided into two parts. The first half is more serene and mellow, whereas the second half is a smich more rockier with less vocals. It’s an amazing song that I’ll pop out from time to time and will have on repeat. An excellent song to end an excellent album with.

school food punishment is awesome. Period. I love everything about them, their style, their attire, their music, they’re almost near-perfect in every way. This album is a very strong release that unfortunately didn’t go major, but that’s really unfair because it has all the elements to make it a hit! As the band gradually progresses to make itself popular, I hope they make their first major debut soon because they really deserve some more spotlight, and this album is where my argument comes from. If someone like Salyu can make herself relatively popular in the Japan, I’m sure school food punishment won’t have much of a problem.

Overall grade: A+