EIGHT

It took me a little while, but I finally got around to listening to Do As Infinity's new album. Interestingly, the record debuted at #4 on the Oricon charts, the band's highest position since their Need Your Love record hit #3 before their hiatus way back in 2005. They didn't move too many units as far as overall sales go, but they finished their first week at #6 before dropping out of the top 10



Not great, but a lot better than I expected.

5years

Listening to:
木村カエラ
5years

See, now that's how you do a proper compilation album. Disc 1: singles, Disc 2: rarities, B-sides, remixes. Hey, I love PV DVDs just as much as the next person, but the best way to get someone to buy an album of songs that he/she already owns, is to - gasp! - include a second disc full of songs he/she doesn't already own. What a concept! In all seriousness, I would have probably bought the thing anyway, but getting a clean recording of ミラクル☆BANZAI does my heart good. Too bad the catchy little tune that she did for that Hot Pepper commercial wasn't included.

Disc 1
1. You bet!! [新曲]
2. Butterfly
3. BANZAI
4. どこ
5. マスタッシュ
6. memories(original version)
7. Jasper
8. Yellow
9. Samantha
10. Snowdome
11. TREE CLIMBERS
12. Magic Music
13. You
14. BEAT
15. リルラリルハ
16. happiness!!!
17. Level 42

Disc 2
1. カメレオン2世 [未発表]
2. Hey! Hey! Alright (スチャダラパー+木村カエラ)
3. OH PRETTY WOMAN
4. 言葉はさんかくこころは四角
5. リリアン [未発表]
6. Cloudy
7. ミラクル☆BANZAI (木村カエラfeat.ILMARI)
8. Forbidden Fruits (feat.KAELA KIMURA / Curly Giraffe)
9. darling [未発表]
10. おどるポンポコリン
11. マシマロ
12. Happy?

J-Pop Thoughts/Rants

Maybe it's because I've been in Japan for over a year now, but I'm beginning to feel the same way towards Japanese music as I do towards American music. That is, 25% of it is pretty good, while the other 75% is pretty much rubbish. I watched Music Station on Friday night for the first time in ages because 東京事変 (Tokyo Jihen) was performing, and while they were incredible, I found myself hating the world whenever any of the other artists were on the screen. 東京事変 is just so much better than anyone else right now that it's actually sort of comical. And while we're at it, some other random J-pop musings:

-I still think GIRL NEXT DOOR is pretty decent as a group, but I kind of want to punch Chisa in the face. She's just so...what is the word? Dumb.

-Ding-dong, the witch is dead! Koharu Kusumi graduates from Morning Musume this month! That's the best MM news that we've had in years. Just kidding (but not really). That being said, I honestly thought that「気まぐれプリンセス」was a really good single. Kind of a whimsical throwback to the days when their songs were a little more goofy and fun.

-Kimura Kaela will be making her first appearance on this year's 紅白歌合戦, which means that I'll probably be tuning in.

-New DAI single,「君がいない未来」. They've been putting out a whole lot of material since reuniting. I think it's a pretty awesome song, but hey, of course I do.



Ban-chan is looking really good here.

A Couple Things I Need In My Life

Wale's Attention: Deficit and Copper Foams (via Wale's twitter).



Tower Records is a good 45 minute drive away, but I'm making the trip to get my copy of the album on 11/10.

木村カエラxILMARI

ミラクル☆BANZAI. Not bad. Having PES in there would have really put the song over the top, but I'm not one to nitpick.



It's almost as if Kaela is reading my mind and doing projects with all the artists that I'd been secretly wanting her to collaborate with.

ETERNAL FLAME

New album.





2009.9.30

生まれゆくものたちへ

Pretty kick-ass song. Digging the HUGE hook.



6/17/2009



Literally been waiting years for this single.

Oh Weekend, Where Art Thou?

Listening to:
Do As Infinity
Yesterday & Today

One of my kids decided to swipe some porn from a convenience store, so I ended up going with him to apologize to the store manager today. Which is fine. What isn't so fine is the fact that tomorrow is Sunday, and everyone has to go to school and teach observation classes for the PTA. I generally like to have a Saturday or a Sunday to not think about anything related to work, but I guess that it isn't happening this week.

I'm actually bummed because I had been planning on going to see ARIA ASIA play live tomorrow, but it turns out that I'm stuck working instead.



I think I'd get chills like crazy if I heard her play Yesterday & Today in person.

Do As Infinity ∞1

New single.



2009.6.17

Top Albums Of 2008

20) Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
19) Superfly - Superfly
18) The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
17) Fucked Up - The Chemistry Of Common Life
16) Fall Out Boy - Folie à Deux
15) GReeeeN - あっ、ども。おひさしぶりです。
14) Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
13) Murs - Murs For President
12) いきものがかり - ライフアルバム
11) Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III


10) Perfume - GAME

check out:
ポリリズム
plastic smile
チョコレイト・ディスコ

Since arriving in Japan, I’ve tried my hardest to hate Perfume. Their songs are featured on what seems to be every other commercial on television, they give the most deliberately ditzy interviews that I’ve ever witnessed, and they can neither particularly sing nor dance. One of my students brought me a picture of the trio and asked me which one of the three was my type, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I could barely tell them apart. All that being said, I still find myself constantly revisiting the album, and have to admit that songs like 「チョコレイト・ディスコ」 are mainstays on most of my playlists. Overall, Perfume's brand of electropop is really, really fun to listen to, and even if GAME isn’t exactly your thing, it’s an album that’s much easier to dismiss than actively hate. Personally? I love the album in spite of myself, and coming from me, that's quite the endorsement.


9) NaS - Untitled

check out:
Sly Fox
Black President
N.I.*.*.E.R.

Although the pre-release hype to the album centered largely around the record’s controversial prospective title and its eventual absence of one, the album itself turned out to be Nas’ best set since God’s Son. Nas is as explicitly political as he ever has been here, and though his views on the war on terror or Barack Obama aren’t quite unique, Nas still comes across as sharp, informed, and calculatedly fierce throughout the duration of the record. To be fair, Nas’ songs are never quite as controversial as the names of his albums might imply (Hip Hop is Dead), but he is still arguably the greatest active MC left in the business, and definitely the one that’s the hardest to imagine the game without.


8) YUI - I Loved Yesterday

check out:
Laugh away
LOVE & TRUTH
My Generation

It was never my intent to become a helpless fan of YUI, but I’ve quietly become so, even making it a point to get a copy of her B-sides album that came out a couple of months back. YUI certainly possesses the aura of a phenom; the quiet, unassuming songstress who unfailingly tops the charts, yet appears as if she’d rather be at home penning a new song than giving an interview on national television. There’s a thick sincerity to all of the songs on I LOVED YESTERDAY, so much so that you can’t help but wonder if YUI’s music will ever outgrow that baby face of hers. YUI’s brilliance primarily lies in her ability to so effectively capture the vibrancy of youth, so although I LOVED YESTERDAY doesn’t denote a huge evolutionary step forward, it does again capture YUI doing what she unquestionably does best: write songs for her generation.


7) Robyn - Robyn

check out:
Konichiwa Bitches
Be Mine
Bum Like You

Technically a 07 release in the UK, Robyn’s self-entitled release made its way over to the states in 08 and turned out to be the best pop record on either shore. It’s still easy to associate Robyn with "Show Me Love," so the transition to “Konichiwa Bitches” Robyn can be a bit of a peculiar one. Critics have been embracing this new breed of edgy yet oddly endearing pop starlet in recent years, and Robyn, much like Lily Allen before her, puts out a record that exudes the type of carefree confidence that is mostly lacking in America’s pop scene. The production here is real slick, but Robyn as a character is a little rough around the edges, possessing just a pinch of undomesticated fire which leads you to believe that her songs will sooner pull hair and scratch than coo and cuddle.


6) Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping

check out:
An Eluardian Instance
Plastis Wafers
Wicked Wisdom

Where to start here? In a way, the latest album from Of Montreal is the same gaudy, effervescent set that we’ve come to expect from the group. The capricious record is as erratic as it is entertaining, possessing the type of balls-out eccentricity that can only really be accurately conveyed through the nude folks being attacked by demons (or whatever) on the album’s cover. Of Montreal indiscriminately dips and dabbles in different hues, and the resulting experience is something akin to waking up in Candyland with lots and lots of naked people. Kevin Barnes is brilliant here, intermittently tiptoeing a tightrope of strange, but more frequently keeling over into a vast pool of bizarre.


5) 絢香 - Sing to the Sky

check out:
Why
WINDING ROAD (w/ コブクロ)
おかえり

On "WINDING ROAD," a collaboration with コブクロ, Ayaka nearly turns the duo into a sideshow with her potent performance, an episode mostly averted by the fact that there are two of them and merely one of her. Simply put, the girl has some serious pipes, and could make a case as the strongest vocalist on Japan’s pop scene. While it’ll take more than a big voice to sell records, songs like the towering “Why” will keep Ayaka’s releases at the top of the charts for a long, long time.


4) Q-Tip - The Renaissance

check out:
Gettin Up
You
Official

Q-Tip has unquestionably been away from the game for too long, but he thankfully hasn’t lost a step during the 8 years that have passed since his last album released. Fans of Amplified may be disappointed with the record’s lack of a “Vibrant Thing,” but the masterful “Gettin Up,” with its silky, piano-laced beat, is probably the dopest song to come out all year. The whole record maintains an intricate balance of retro and fresh, and there’s something to be said about a guy who can take an 8-year hiatus (we can blame Arista for that) and put out arguably the best hip-hop album of the year. Not sure when we’ll be seeing that new A Tribe Called Quest album, but a new Q-Tip joint is clearly the next best thing.


3) 木村カエラ - +1

check out:
Yellow
はやる気持ち的My World
ファミレド

While the majority of +1's strongest cuts are still rooted in rock, Kaela experiments with dance on tracks like "Jasper" and comes out the better for it. Though plenty eclectic, there was a subdued, almost ethereal quality to last year’s Scratch. With +1, we get a much more kinetic piece, chock-full of riffy hooks and shimmering mid-tempo ballads. Kaela isn’t above singing a love song, but you never get the feeling that she’s helplessly smitten with the object of her affection when she does so. Maybe it’s her somewhat tomboyish air, but one of Kaela’s defining characteristics is that she simply isn’t the head over heels type. I’ve said this before, but if there’s one drawback to the release, it’s the album’s horrible cover. Kaela has many marketable qualities about her, but being incredibly greasy simply isn’t one of them. Brutal cover aside, Kaela’s latest eclectic set is up to par (at least) with her last album, further cementing her status as my favorite solo artist.


2) She & Him - Volume One

check out:
Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?
This Is Not A Test
Swing Low Sweet Chariot

I’ve always been a fan of Zooey Deschanel, so my interest was naturally piqued when I heard that she would be teaming with M. Ward to put out an album. Ward brings his acclaimed resume to the table, but its Deschanel’s homely, warm voice that carries the record. Zooey's transition from big screen indie darling to indie music darling is a seamless one, and you almost wish that she would switch to making music full time. Deschanel’s delivery in the recording booth is in fact quite similar to her delivery on the silver screen: a little odd, always endearing, never presumptuous.


1) Butch Walker - Sycamore Meadows

check out:
ATL
The Weight Of Her
Going Back / Going Home

Walker’s songs are vast, sprawling, and a little murky; a series of reflective confessions that are as epic as they are engaging. It’s a little hard to believe that Walker is responsible for producing pop ditties for the likes of Avril and Puffy, because everything on this record is just so wistful and wonderfully bittersweet. It’s not quite perfect; you can’t help but wonder how that, “We don’t get along anymore/You just take the bed/I’ll take the floor,” chorus made the album, but it’s a rare misstep on a record brimming with sagely soft rock, and at times, an almost gentle sadness. One of my favorite Walker ballads remains “Cigarette Lighter Love Song” from back when he was with Marvelous 3, but even that track seems a little two-dimensional when compared to some of the winding, multidirectional stories that Butch gives us here.

NHK紅白

This year's lineup:

Red:
aiko (7)
Thelma Aoyama (Debut)
Junko Akimoto (Debut)
Ayaka (3)
Angela Aki (3)
Ikimono Gakari (Debut)
Sayuri Ishikawa (31)
Ai Otsuka (5)
Miyuki Kawanaka (21)
GIRL NEXT DOOR (Debut)
Kumi Koda (4)
Natsuko Godai (15)
Sachiko Kobayashi (30)
Fuyumi Sakamoto (20)
SPEED (4)
Yoshimi Tendo (13)
Mika Nakashima (7)
Mitsuko Nakamura (13)
Ayumi Hamasaki (10)
Perfume (Debut)
Yo Hitoto (5)
Ayaka Hirahara (5)
Ayako Fuji (16)
Fujioka Fujimaki and Nozomi Ohashi (Debut)
Kaori Mizumori (6)
Akiko Wada (32)

White:
Masafumi Akikawa (3)
Aqua Timez (2)
Hiroshi Itsuki (38)
EXILE (4)
Saburo Kitajima (45)
Takeshi Kitayama (4)
Kimaguren (Debut)
Yusaku Kiyama (Debut)
Kobukuro (4)
Jero (Debut)
Shuchishin (with Pabo) (Debut)
SMAP (16)
TVXQ (Debut)
TOKIO (15)
Hideaki Tokunaga (3)
Kiyoshi Hikawa (9)
Ken Hirai (6)
Akira Fuse (24)
Porno Graffiti (7)
Kiyoshi Maekawa (18)
Kenichi Mikawa (25)
Mr.Children (Debut)
Yutaka Mizutani (Debut)
Shinichi Mori (41)
Naotaro Moriyama (3)
WaT (4)

No モー娘。:-/ And how is it that Mr. Children are making their first appearance? Not sure why I never noticed that before. Looking at that lineup though, I think I might just skip this year's show. I suppose I wouldn't mind seeing TOKIO if they're performing「雨傘」, and I quite like SPEED and いきものがかり, but not enough to sit through the rest of that stuff. I'm actually into GIRL NEXT DOOR and Perfume as well, but their live performances are pretty brutal.

伴都美子 「Van.」

伴都美子がニューアルバム「Van.」を12月10日にリリースすることになった。

先ごろDo As Infinityとしての活動を再開させた彼女。ひさしぶりのオリジナルアルバムとなる本作には、2006年6月発売の1stソロシングル 「Flower」から今年6月にリリースされた「東京日和」までの全シングルのほか、初めて作曲にチャレンジした新曲などを収録。“ソロアーティスト・伴 都美子”の魅力あふれる、等身大の内容となっている。ある意味、ソロ活動3年間の集大成といえるアルバム「Van.」。Do As Infinityでの彼女とはひと味違った歌世界を、この作品からじっくり味わってほしい。

本人の名前をイメージさせるアルバムタイトルだが、ほかにも“ヴァンガード（先駆者）”という意味を示すとのこと。タイトルに込めた彼女の強い意思と姿勢を感じ取ってみよう。

http://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/3862049/

Guilty Pleasure

Listening to:
Allister
Guilty Pleasures
"チェリー"

I went to a club the other weekend, where I remained absolutely sober for a good 4 hours. Maybe it’s because I’m used to clubs full of idiots who know that Soulja Boy dance by heart, or maybe it’s because I was in a club in a foreign country for the first time (or maybe it was the total absence of alcohol in me), but it turned out to be an interesting experience. One thing that caught me off guard was the DJ playing a rock version of Spitz's「チェリー」. I did a little bit of research when I got back to my place, and it turns out that the cover was done by the band Allister, of “Moper” fame. I distinctly remember listening to them late in our high school lives and hating on their cover of “I Want it That Way” with Ono, so Allister is probably the last band that I thought I'd be revisiting in my mid-twenties. Their take on「チェリー」is really great stuff, and I actually like their version better than Van Tomiko's (and that’s saying a lot). Granted, it’s kind of hard to mess up a great song like「チェリー」, but there’s nothing wrong with calling a good cover what it is.

Do As 復活

Listening to:
Do As Infinity
TRUE SONG

So Do As Infinity played their first real post-reunion set last week, and word is that they haven’t missed a beat. They apparently plan to do live shows for the remainder of the year, and will then hit the studio to work on new material for next spring. With another Van Tomiko solo album slated to drop later this year, I’m really quite excited about all the DAI-related releases coming up. I’m still in the midst of finishing up my complete Do As Infinity discography (all singles, albums, comps, DVD lives), but having some new releases on that calendar is really what makes being a fan so fun.



According to Ryo, they’re “never breaking up again,” so that means I’ll get the opportunity to finally see my favorite band live.



But maybe not for a little while.

TOKIO - 「雨傘」

If nothing else, TOKIO has always been the most talented of the Johnny's groups, but「雨傘」is probably the first song of theirs that I've really been into.



This damn track has been stuck in my head since I've been in Japan, and I've just found out that the song was written and composed by Shiina Ringo and Tokyo Jihen. That explains a lot.

It's Official: Do As Infinity Returns

At a-nation'08. OH YEAH.

Do As Infinity...To Reunite!?

An interesting video of DAI rehearsing "Summer Days" has surfaced recently. I was actually never particularly fond of this specific song, but that's beside the point here; at the end of the video, the camera pans to reveal what appears to be a 3G iPhone on a table. Given that DAI disbanded in 2005, and that the 3G iPhone just recently released in Japan, it seems logical to conclude that Tomiko Van and Ryo Owatari are currently back and jamming together for one reason or another.



Perhaps they're doing a one & done type appearance to celebrate Avex's 20th anniversary at A-Nation later this month, or perhaps they're gearing up for a full time return? I'm nonetheless giddy as hell, and will go positively apeshit for any type of DAI reunion.

Me & My Music

Listening to:
Rachael Yamagata
Happenstance

Sometime after my PowerBook hard drive crashed last summer, I vowed to work on what I had dubbed an "uber-streamlined version of my music library." That ending up going nowhere for whatever reason, but since I can't realistically bring my entire CD library with me to Japan, I've really got no choice but to take care of it before I leave. I'm actually kind of shocked by the sheer amount of albums that I have that I don't even like, but I guess it's inevitable that you outgrow some of the junk that you listened to in high school. Regardless, I've decided to actually go through with pawning off most of my albums anyway, a task that I thought would be a lot more difficult for me than it's turning out to be. Ripping music is sort of a lame way to be spending my days off from work, but it's actually kinda fun, so whatever. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but there's something very, very satisfying about scrolling through your iTunes library in "Cover Flow" mode.

Scarlett Johansson off the market

Looks like Scarlett Johansson is set to tie the knot with Ryan Reynolds. I'd say that he's overachieving, but the guy clearly has something going for him. I mean, it's a small miracle that his career survived Van Wilder as far as I'm concerned. Seriously, Van Wilder? From there, he grows muscles in places that most people don't have places (thanks King), gets cast in his reported dream role as Deadpool, and to top it all off, he lands Scarlett Johansson. Lucky dude. But good for him, I guess. Scarlett also has some big things on the horizon, most notably her Tom Waits cover album, Anywhere I Lay My Head. I was planning on checking it out anyway, but with David Andrew Sitek (TV on the Radio) and Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) reportedly involved, it could actually be pretty darn good.

Eureka Seven and April splurge: the aftermath

Listening to:
Eureka Seven: Complete Best
track: 「虹」by 電気グルーヴ

Some quick Eureka Seven thoughts before I forget. I still like RahXephon a little better, mostly for reasons that are largely aesthetic in nature, but on a purely personal level, I have to stick Eureka Seven ahead of Evangelion on my list of all-time favorite titles. The highlight of the show? Denki Groove's (電気グルーヴ) "Niji" plays at the show's final climatic scene, and contextually, the song is just magic. I can't really go into it any more without coming off as totally cornball here, but the final 5 minutes of the show, coupled with the 50 episode buildup preceding it, is just something that's really quite poignant and incredibly rewarding. Overall, the characters are very deep, and much in the same way that I felt the cowardly protagonist was what made Eva so enigmatic and true to life, the type of self-doubt and the subsequent character growth displayed by Eureka Seven's main players are what really power the show. What's great here is that the character development is set at a slow boil over the course of 50 episodes, and aside from a filler ep. or two, the various tangents never stray particularly far from the main story arc. The thing about Eva was that it turned out to be, for lack of a better term, a tragedy piece, and given the mainstream following that the show eventually garnered, audiences weren't necessarily ready for that type of mindfuck at the time. It's interesting, because Gainax's penchant for terrible endings aside (Eva, KareKano, Mahoromatic, etc.), you don't see that type of tragic, apocalyptic ending with the giant robot shows so much anymore, because studios are afraid of receiving the kind of backlash that Eva initially did. In the end though, I don't really like comparing Eureka to Eva, because though the two shows certainly possess multiple similarities, Eva is truly a unique, groundbreaking beast of a show, while Eureka is a wonderful little love story with a really, really good sci-fi backdrop. Given that the lead character is 14, there's really no shortage of corny lines, and though there are a handful of characters that can get real irritating, most likely by design, the product as a whole is a masterpiece in my humble opinion. Not my favorite show of all time by any means, but it's certainly in the top 5.

April purchases, revisited:

4/1 Kimura Kaela - +1 (album + DVD)
4/1 1969 - Maya (CD)
4/5 Air Jordan XX3 stealth/gold (apparel/footwear)
4/15 Eureka Seven Vol. #12 (DVD)
4/15 Eureka Seven Music (DVD w/ bonus CD)
4/16 Morning Musume - Resonant Blue (single + DVD)
4/18 Bleach Vol. # 33 (manga)
4/22 Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES (PS2)
4/22 The World Ends With You (Nintendo DS)

I couldn't find a copy of the 1969 record anywhere, although I should have figured as much beforehand. That's really the one thing that sucks about not having Tower Records around anymore; if you're looking for anything even remotely obscure, you're going to have to find it on the web. I decided to pass on The World Ends With You for the time being, not because of any current monetary issue, but because I can't realistically play a DS game until I get my new glasses. So, although I did manage to save about 50 bones by cutting out a couple of items from the list, I unfortunately spent $200+ on the aforementioned prescription glasses, another chunk on a physical exam sans any medical insurance, and the usual sum on various impulse DVD (Rob & Big seasons 1&2), literature (Foer's Everything Is Illuminated), game (Arcana Heart), music (She & Him!), and clothing purchases (a pair of jackets to get ready for, uh, summer). That being said...

Projected damage: approx. $400
Actual damage: approx $1000

I'm a little afraid to see what happens when I add my car insurance, gas, food, and phone expenses to that. Of course, the best part is that there are still five days left in April. I'm not trying to shoot down any personal spending records by any means, but certain silly things happen to me when I have the money to throw around. Questionable? Perhaps. But irresponsible? Nah, I don't think so. I was weighing the various pros and cons of the PS3, the Wii, and the X-Box 360, when it occurred to me that I could conceivably afford to get all three if I so wanted to. But the reality is that I can still play the PS2 for days on end when I have the time to do so, and like it or not, I've got to pocket a couple of grand before I head to Japan. So that's me being somewhat levelheaded for a change.