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Music 25/10/09

2009-10-24T20:36:51Z

Jordin Sparks - Battlefield
I initially tried listening to her first album but I couldn't get into it at all, everything sounded the same and not in a good way. So I tried this one instead and liked it quite a lot, at least at first. I got sick of/bored of a bunch of songs before the 10th play, but there were also quite a few that I still really like: Walking On Snow, SOS (Let The Music Play), No Parade, Let It Rain, Was I The Only One and The Cure.

Sugawara Sayuri - Destiny, Koi, Tsuyoku Naritai
The other songs from her mini-album, Kimi Ni Okuru Uta, Destiny is a soft R&B song and Koi and Tsuyoku Naritai are acoustic-y songs. It's a toss-up between Destiny and Tsuyoku Naritai for my favourite.

Scandal - Shoujo S, Yah! Yah! Yah! Hello Scandal
I love these guys so very much and am really looking forward to their album. They have this great late-90s style girl pop-rock sound and it is so very, very catchy. My favourite song of these is So Easy from Shoujo S, but I also love Shoujo S and Future from Shoujo S and Space Ranger from Yah! Yah! Yah! Hello Scandal, though I really like pretty much everything,

S Club 7 - Someday Someway, If It's Love, Dangerous, Everybody Get Pumped
Someday Someway is the B-side of Reach and is quite catchy, but I never like the songs where the guys sing the lead quite as much as the ones where the girls do.

If It's Love is the B-side of Natural and is quite a pretty ballad, but again it's the guys singing the lead, and I don't find their singing to be anything special. It was the girls who brought the magic in that department (I loved the guys and girls equally in the show, in fact Bradley was one of my favourites.)

Dangerous is the B-side of Have You Ever, one of my all-time favourite songs of theirs, perhaps because it reminds me of my last day of high school, and is my favourite of this batch. I swear I've heard it before, though! It must have been on the first of my "crap that I bought from Real Groovy, copied and then sold back" CDs, which I lost. I don't know what the hell I did with it, but it never turned up, and I've forgotten what was even on it. This must have been one of the songs. It's a laid-back mid-tempo song with the girls singing the lead as it should be.

Everybody Get Pumped was made for their best-of album which came out after they started to get blah, so while it's catchy it doesn't really wow me.

Yorico - Memory Of Soul, Dear My Friend, Yakusoku No Basho De, Honto Wa Ne
Very beautiful ballady stuff. I particularly love Memory Of Soul, the chorus reminds me of an Enya song.

Music 17/10/09

2009-10-17T09:35:16Z

God, I'm so tired. I've been busy all week so after work today I just collapsed on my bed and spent the rest of the afternoon lying with my head on my new massive Lellow Bear which I won last week. Seriously, this thing is the height of a smallish child and twice as wide. It was on TradeMe last week and I bid on it but someone with an autobid bid more than I was prepared to pay. So Mum said that she likes to fuck with people with autobids by purposely bidding a bunch of times and making them pay more. So I was doing this and having a great laugh, until about the 5th time I did it, when I got told that I was the highest bidder, and Mr/Miss Autobid must not have been home (the auction went off at 3:30ish in the afternoon) so I stayed the highest bidder and won it. It was only $10 more than I had been prepared to pay for it, so today while I was working Mum and Dad went and picked up my bear and I came home to find the most massive Lellow Bear I have ever seen. LOVE!

Belinda Carlisle - Her Greatest Hits
One of the greatest female singers of the 80s. So much catchy 80s love. <3
Favourites: Heaven Is A Place On Earth, I Get Weak, I Feel The Magic, Leave A Light On, Circle In The Sand, Mad About You, I Feel Free, Summer Rain

Garnet Crow - Stay ~Yoake No Soul~
Mellow, often ballady pop-rock. I couldn't get into their last album at all but really enjoyed this one. And I now really want to find time to listen to their other albums because when I said that I really liked the album before their last one, Julia said it wasn't anywhere near as good as their previous stuff.
Favourites: Elysium, On The Way, Stay, Fall In Life ~Hallelujah~, Rainy Soul

And now miscellaneous stuff!

S Club 7 - Hello Friend
The B-side of Bring It All Back, their first single. The chorus is beautiful, but the verses are so cheesy that I avoided listening to it a lot.

S Club 7 - Our Time Has Come
The B-side of S Club Party, their second single. So very, very catchy.

Morning Musume - Subete Wa Ai No Chikara
The other B-side of Nanchatte Renai. It's definitely catchy and I liked it the first few times, but I got bored of it very quickly. It's not really anything special.

Yui - It's All Too Much/Never Say Die
Both pretty good, the first track is rockier while the second has a poppier sound (and is my favourite.) The acoustic track is OK, but I wouldn't rave about it.

Kome Kome Club - Koi No Gamble
I'm liking these guys more and more the more I listen to them. So catchy, and their sound is still like it was in the 80s and 90s, so it has the effect of being nostalgic when I've never even heard it before.

Juliet - Fuyu Love
Not my favourite song by them, but it's growing on me. There's a B-side too, but it's a Christmas song and it is ridonkulous to play Christmas songs in the middle of October (oh God, when is Nora going to start getting on our backs to play Christmas songs in the shop? Fuck it, she's hardly ever even there, so we can play what we want most of the time. And hey! She very likely won't even be able to make us play them when she's there, because our stereo won't play CDs anymore, only USB, and I highly doubt Nora would know how to make a USB of Christmas songs, or that she'll spend the money for a new stereo. She may ask us to make a Christmas USB, but we can just keep "forgetting" about it until it's actually Christmas! Oh hell yeah! Contrast this to Paper Plus where the music was all controlled by the bosses and we were subjected to the same fucking Christmas songs for TWO WHOLE FUCKING MONTHS, including this fucking annoying song called I'm The Happiest Christmas Tree and FOUR FUCKING VERSIONS OF FUCKING WINTER F

UCKING WONDERLAND. It's been four years and I still want to find this Carson Fucking Brown asshole and kill him in the most painful way possible.) Anyway, I am not playing Christmas songs in October, so that has been put aside until Christmas. I'll upload and comment on it then.

Scandal - Yume Miru Tsubasa
Girl pop-rock. I really want to hear their other stuff now, because I loved this and Doll, one of their earlier singles, too. The music in the chorus of the title track makes me think of Volcano Girls by Veruca Salt, which I also loved. I loved Beauteen, too, so catchy. The last track is a cover of Daydream by Judy and Mary, which. I get that there was a cover album so it probably wasn't their idea, but guys. Nothing will ever be as good as the original Daydream. Ever.

Scandal - Start
This one's a ballad and it's really pretty.

Music 11/10/09

2009-10-11T02:15:04Z

Stacie Orrico - Stacie Orrico
I had high hopes for this album after Stuck and (There's Gotta Be) More To Life, but the rest of the album was very disappointing. I liked Security and Tight, but the rest ranged from OK-but-not-great to downright blah, with some being so cheesy that I ended up skipping them. I don't think I ever played That's What Love's About to the end, and I started skipping Instead after awhile too.

Boowy - Only You
So very, very catchy. One of my favourite songs this week.

Amuro Namie - All For You
I don't tend to like Amuro Namie's R&B stuff because it's too hard-R&B for me (I prefer the poppier stuff and some of the the middly stuff to the hard stuff) but this is a beautiful ballad with powerful vocals in the chorus. Love it!

Mr Children - Kimi Ga Suki
I tend to like Mr Children's ballads quite a lot, and this is no exception. Beautiful song.

Fucking Boyfriend (from the Forgetting Sarah Marshall soundtrack)
Yeah, there was no way I could ignore a song with that title. Sadly, the song itself does not live up to the awesomeness of its title; I found it quite boring, and it was another song that I skipped a lot.

Ikimonogakari - Yell/ Joyful
Ikimonogakari are a bit hit or miss for me, sometimes I love them and sometimes I find them a bit blah. Lately I've loved their ballads - their previous single Futari and Boku Wa Koko Ni Iru from their latest album being two I particularly loved. Yell was another ballad, and while it didn't wow me quite as much as those two, it was still beautiful. Joyful was a fast, pop-rocky track and did not do it for me at all. I played it when I was at home, but when I was out I tended to skip it, and I usually favour the fast tracks when I'm out walking (and as I now walk to and from work, as well as at least part of the way when I go somewhere else, walking makes up a pretty big part of my out time.)

Sugawara Sayuri - Ano Hi No Yakusoku
Oh wow. I discovered her when Julia translated Kimi Ni Okuru Uta and I Still Love You and since I liked Kimi Ni Okuru Uta quite a bit I decided to give this single a listen. And it's great! Poppish R&B (the title track is mid-tempo R&B and the B-side is upbeat and poppy) with a great voice. I might give her album a listen at some point.

Greeeen - Haruka
Not my favourite by them (that's Kiseki, Ayumi and Hito), but still pretty good. Haruka is a beautiful ballad (practically everything I listened to while I was out this week was ballads!) Koe is midtempoish and OK but not that memorable. I had to replay it to remember what it was like.

Hiromi - Ai Saretai
Slowish R&B. Addicted was by far my favourite, and I think Stay In Love would be number two. I prefer the songs where she's not trying to sing strong ballady vocals, as she sings high pitched in those and it sounds kind of screechy, especially in Complete. The first version of Ai Saretai was OK, though.

Music 04/10/09

2009-10-03T23:35:18Z

These didn't get as much play as they could have, because I played them over and over while I was translating all day Sunday and got sick of a bunch of them and started playing my top 100 list instead.

LeAnn Rimes - Right Kind Of Wrong
Pop, very catchy.

Nine Days - Absolutely (Story Of A Girl)
Guy pop rock circa 2000, pretty good. I'm annoyed that I can't find one of their later albums online, though, because there's a song on it called Reality TV that I'm dying to hear purely because of the title.

A1 - Caught In The Middle
Boy band ballad from around the same time. OK, but not stand-up-and-rave material.

Stacie Orrico - (There's Gotta Be) More To Life
God DAMN, this song is catchy! Between this and Stuck, I think I need to get hold of one of her albums.

Moritaka Chisato - Watashi Ga Obasan Ni Nattemo
Bubblegum girlpop from the early 90s. OK but not great. (And huh, her married name is Eguchi! I had a nice coworker in Japan called Mr Eguchi.)

Luna Sea - I For You
Great rock ballad from the late 90s.

Tina Arena - If I Was A River
Great ballad.

S Club 7 - Anytime Anywhere, The Two Of Us
Some of their older stuff that never made it onto albums. I like Anytime Anywhere quite a bit, but The Two Of Us is a bit blah. It's apparently from Stuart Little, though, which brings back fond memories of seeing it at the movies with Andrew and Melissa, finding the movie itself puke-makingly cheesy, but loving looking at Geena Davis because she looked like Crush Sensei. :P

Elton John - Bennie And The Jets, Jamaica Jerk-Off, Sweet Painted Lady
Bennie And The Jets I downloaded because it was in a movie I watched awhile ago (27 Dresses, I think) and is pretty good. Jamaica Jerk-Off I downloaded purely because anything with "jerk-off" in the title is automatically worth a listen, and I ended up liking that one the best of the three, I think. I like stuff with a reggae sound. Sweet Painted Lady was a reject for my Air NZ playlist because while the whole reason I chose them for my next fright is because there are two painted ladies (and two painted men) in their safety video (which had BETTER still be there when I use them or I will NOT be a happy bunny), the lyrics were too mean. Anyway, this is a ballad and it's pretty good if a bit blah in terms of the melody.

Sting and the Police - Roxanne
Another prostitute song. I got to this song from Elton John because my dad used to sing those two songs. It's a pretty good song.

Busted - Air Hostess, Crashed The Wedding, Fake, Nerdy
Another group I really need to find an album for, because DAY-UM, their shit is catchy!

For those wondering why Air Hostess is showing up in iTunes as "Hotesse de la Cabin", I'm mocking Kioku Fansubs' (and Japanese airline drama fandom in general's) inability to translate the Japanese for "flight attendant" correctly in French, because I can. For those wondering why I put "Tsukasa's Song" in brackets, Tsukasa is the guy in Attention Please whose flight attendant fetish led Aya to apply to JAL in order to please him by becoming a flight attendant herself (and now that I've read almost all of the Real Air Hostesses' Handbook I really want to re-watch that episode so I can scream "MY ASS!!!!!!!" all through it because unless Pervy Boss Guy is an ULTRA-MEGA-PERV (which, admittedly, he pretty much is) and has an airline-boss mafia who will kill anyone who disagrees with him, she would not have gotten in in a month of Sundays in real life.) So anyway, this song sounded just like him, so yeah, Tsukasa's Song.

Oh, and one of the writers of the Real Air Hostesses' Handbook said that song might be about her. All I can say is, anyone who writes a book as awesome as that deserves to have a song written about them.

Anyway, the songs. The first three songs are insanely catchy pop-rock, while the last one is a slower rockish song.

Daniel Powter - Bad Day
I downloaded this purely because it was mentioned in Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella which is one of my favourite books ever. It's a pretty good song, a rock ballad.

Oasis - Wonderwall
Slowish rock song that I heard aaaaaall the time when I was in intermediate and early high school but never knew what it was called. I love that Liam Gallagher apparently said "I can't fucking stand that fucking song! Every time I have to sing it I want to gag." XD

Hooters - Karla With A K
Carla put me onto this one and I really like it. The violin melodies are so very, very catchy.

Dreams Come True - Mirai Yosouzu
I was downloading Nude No Yoru by them for my Air NZ playlist and saw this on the list of files in the torrent, and since I'd translated it recently I decided to grab that too. It's pretty good, this is the original that I know of and I like it a lot more than the covers I heard by Aoyama Thelma (who has been a disappointment all around lately, actually) and whichever Hello Project group covered them on that marriage songs album.

Music 25/9/09

2009-09-25T10:25:42Z

I'm actually going to be listening to these for a few more days, but I've just been told that I'll have a 10-page job to do soon, so I'm going to post about these now. I had a big backlog of miscellaneous tracks, so no album this week, just 24 miscellaneous tracks. (Same next week too. I kept finding random songs I wanted to listen to!)

Juice Newton - Angel Of The Morning
Oooooh, I loved this song so much when I was a kid! It took me awhile to found the version I listened to as it's been sung by a bunch of artists, but when I did...SO MUCH LOVE. <3

Sandy Posey - Single Girl
Country song that was on Nellie's playlist when I was working at Taka the other week. (Speaking of which, must sort out some new albums to bring in next week, I'm getting tired of the old ones. Also, I totally insulted our bitchy owner without even realising it! She said she liked the music, and I said they were albums I'd gotten hold of for my mum. Which, given that we are supposed to play classic 60s and 70s music because that's the atmosphere we're supposed to set, you'd think wouldn't be a big deal, but she was all, "I'm hurt! You're comparing me to your mother! I thought she was kidding, but yesterday I ran into her in Taka and she started telling the Taka girl that I hurt her feelings last week with the music, and she was doing that thing that my coworker told me about, where she pretends she's kidding but actually means it. So I INSULTED OUR BITCHY OWNER!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!)

Anyway, the song is quite nice but not my favourite.

The Crystals - Then He Kissed Me
Another song from my childhood. Catchy and cute.

Smokie - Think About The Night
More from Nellie's USB o' goodies. It's a late 80s guy ballad and so good.

Smokie - Rock Away Your Teardrops
This one's a fast song and one of my favourites from this batch. So very good.

Smokie - Tambourine Man
I put this one on for the nostalgia but it didn't really stand up against the other songs. Still good, though.

Divinyls - I Touch Myself
I had heard many jokes about this song but never heard it, so when I came across it online I decided it was high time that I found out. And it's pretty catchy! It came out in 1991 and has that late 80s/early 90s sound that I really like.

Lisa Loeb - Stay
Alternative music from the mid 90s. Really, really good.

S Club - Say Goodbye
I heard this song when I bought the DVD of all their music videos and liked it a lot, but never thought to try and find the song. Then when I was trying to replace all those albums I accidentally deleted I came across S Club (7)'s entire discography and remembered this song and added it to this week's playlist. And GOD, is it good. Beautiful ballad with strong vocals. I didn't like their later stuff AT ALL (including the B-side of this single), but this song is as good as their old stuff.

S Club - Special Kind Of Something
Yeah, this is fairly typical later-S Club stuff, so not that inspiring. The poppy stuff with the occasional ballad was what they did best, and while I have come to like more R&Bish stuff over the years, I still don't like much of theirs at all (with the sole exception of Whole Lotta Nothing. That was pretty good.)

Will Young - Evergreen
Very, very pretty ballad by the first Pop Idol winner.

Shinohara Ryoko & T. Komuro - Itoshisa To Setsunasa To Kokorozuyosa To
Komuro Tetsuya was the guy who produced artists like Kahara Tomomi, so it's no surprise that this song sounds a lot like something she'd do. And I see what Travis meant about a lot of his artists singing really high pitched.

Oda Yuji - Utaenakatta Love Song
Nice ballad, but I'm not a fan of the vocals. His voice reminds me of Southern All Stars, whose voices I don't really like.

Matsutoya Yumi - Kekkon Roulette
I was wiki-ing for another song by her and decided any song called "Marriage Roulette" had to be worth a listen. (I also came across a song called Babylon that I was going to put on my Air NZ playlist as a shoutout to Air Babylon, before reading a far superior book and realising that Air Babylon apparently caused genuine offence. So no more Air Babylon jokes from me, and that song has been deleted from my Air NZ playlist.)

Anyway, this song is fairly typical 80s girlpop. Not brilliant but not bad.

Matsutoya Yumi - Salaam Mousson Salaam Afrique
Another one I downloaded because it had an interesting title. Again, fairly typical 80s girlpop.

Tohoshinki - Stand By You
I've actually only listened to the first two tracks on this (the third, Sky, went on my Air NZ playlist in case I couldn't find more songs about nudity or nakedness - or paint! Does anyone know of any songs that mention paint in the title, or mention it a lot in the lyrics? - by January) so I can only comment on those two at this point. Both are ballads and both are pretty, but I like Tea For Two better than Stand By You.

Gotou Maki - Crazy For You
Gotou Maki has been doing R&B stuff outside of Hello Project for awhile now, but I haven't really listened to much of it. This song is really good, though. Well worth a listen.

Shibasaki Kou - Lover Soul
I don't really understand Shibasaki Kou's fast stuff. Her ballads are so mindblowing, while her faster stuff doesn't tend to be anything special. I quite like the chorus of the title track, though.

Alan - Kuon No Kawa
More pretty ballads. Not my favourite by her so far, but they're growing on me. And I really like the music at the beginning of Chi Bi ~Da Jiang Dong Qu~.

Music 22/9/09

2009-09-22T10:36:45Z

Ice Creamusume - 1st Best CDM
If you will recall, I got all kinds of squee over Ame No Furanai Hoshi De Wa Ai Senai Daro by Morning Musume awhile ago. I raved about it to one of my friends, who discovered a couple of weeks ago that there is a Chinese spinoff group who have covered a bunch of Morning Musume songs, including that one! I played the Chinese version of Ame No Furanai Hoshi De Wa Ai Senai Daro over and over again last week. SO MUCH LOVE for that song. They've also covered Morning Coffee, Renai Revolution 21 and Go Girl! Koi No Victory, all of which are pretty good, as well as made a song of their own, Love Debut, which is pretty catchy.

Detroit Spinners - Working My Way Back To You
Oh, this song. This is one of those songs that I always loved as a kid but never got hold of. And now I have it and it's still awesome and like the Chinese Ame No Furanai Hoshi I could not stop playing it. This version came out in 1980 and it's a very, very catchy guy pop song.

Deep Blue Something - Breakfast At Tiffany's
This too. So much love. <3 Great guy rock song from the mid 90s.

Air Supply - All Out Of Love
80s power ballad. Need I say more?

Tiffany - I Think We're Alone Now
80s girlpop. I never actually heard this song but heard of it in Jawbreaker, so when it popped up again in this music game show a few weeks ago I decided to look for it. And I'm glad it is because it is so very catchy.

Boomtown Rats - I Don't Like Mondays
Late 70s power ballad about this, which really creeps me out.

Human League - Don't You Want Me
Very catchy 80s guypop.

Janet Jackson - Runaway
Very pretty slowish R&B song.

Janet Jackson - Nasty
I downloaded this because there is a running joke in 1bruce1 about Mr Collins the pervy English teacher involving this song. To quote the mod: Mr. Collins if you're nasty first appeared in the recap where Aaron Dallas was a rageaholic. There was an especially pervy scene between Mr. Collins and Elizabeth with all kinds of gross subtext, so I made the joke as a play on the lyrics from the song "Nasty" by Janet Jackson: "No, my first name ain't baby, / It's Janet... Ms. Jackson if you're nasty." It seemed fitting. Also, check out the diary! (Which was done by meeeeee! I'm world famous in 1bruce1! :D :D :D :D)

Anyway, I'm glad I checked this song out, because it's very catchy. I couldn't stop playing the "Ms. Jackson if you're nasty" part, natch. XD

Jon LaJoie - Radio Friendly Song
Oh. My. God. You all need to listen to this NOW. It is fucking HILARIOUS.

Lil'B - Jikan Wo Tomete...
They're back! I don't love this the way I loved Negaigoto Hitotsu Kimi E and Kimi Ni Utatta Love Song, but it's pretty good. I particularly like Omoide Ni Naru Mae Ni. This is girl pop-R&B, btw.

Fukuhara Miho - Let It Out
Powerful pop-rock with amazing strong vocals. Not my favourite by her, but still pretty good.

Tanimura Nana - If I'm Not The One
Girl ballad. Pretty good, but I like my ballads to have a bit more power in them.

High-King - C\C (Cinderella Complex)
Hello Project, so it goes without saying that it's insanely catchy. This has an R&Bish sound to it and I really like it.

A*Teens - Don't Even Know Your Name
Before I came home in August, I very stupidly wiped almost my entire music collection from 1997 to 2004, so I've been busy recovering it (I still had a lot of the CDs and was able to download most of the rest, so I'm only missing a few albums now.) One of the albums I re-downloaded was Teen Spirit by A*Teens, and the version I downloaded had a bonus track that I hadn't heard before, so I took a listen. It's a nice-ish ballad, nothing special in itself but I quite like it, possibly because their voices make me nostalgic for 2002, my first year of uni, when I listened to the rest of the album.

Miki Douzan - Lifetime Respect
Guy reggae, not bad.

Koyanagi Yuki - Anata No Kiss Wo Kazoemashou
Powerful girl ballad.

Music 06/9/09

2009-09-08T10:52:56Z

Kylee - Love Kicks
15-year-old Japanese-American rock singer. She sings in English and her stuff sounds wicked like Avril Lavigne's, in a good way.
Favourites: Not For You, Empty Handed, Wherever You Are Tonight

Pussycat Ditzes - Doll Domination, or Ditz Domination as I have taken to calling it.
For those who didn't see my previous post with them, I call them this not because I actually think they are ditzes (though it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were), but because of a skit on this kids' variety show, What Now, shortly before I went to Japan. There was a parody of this quiz show for intermediate school students, New Zealand's Brainiest Kid, which we had all enjoyed watching and making fun of together, so me and Kathryn watched it avidly. This parody was called New Zealand's Dumbest Adult and featured six dumb adults, one getting voted off each week when they answered a question correctly, usually by accident. (It also had the winner of the real show playing the host, and she copied the annoying way the real host used to throw her head about, which endeared me to her a lot more than when she was on the show.) And so one of the six dumb adults was Melody something from the "Pussycat Ditzes" (and I found out this week that one of them really is called Melody! Hee!) So I've called them the Pussycat Ditzes ever since.

Anyway, this album took a few plays to get into it, and I skipped Bottle Pop pretty much every time, but I got to quite like it. A lot of the tracks are slow, melodic songs which I got to really like. Favourites that spring to mind first are I Hate This Part, Out Of This Club, Happily Never After and Space, but I favourited way, way more than that. I also liked a few of the faster tracks, like Whatcha Think About That, If I Was A Man, Don't Wanna Fall In Love and of course When I Grow Up, which will always have a special place in my heart for the part that sounds like they're saying "I wanna have boobies".

Also, I love that the lead singer, who apparently gets 99.999999% of the vocals, got the lamest solo. XD

Nan Quan Mama - Colour Palette
Cantonese ballady stuff. A little too mellow for my tastes, but I found it quite pretty.
Favourites: Quietly Tell Her, Series Of Pink First Love, Mermaid's Tears, Guns And Roses, Good Bye Good Luck, Crystal Dragonfly, A Second Father, Not Far From Home, Rock.

Tube - Juunen Saki No Love Story
80s/early 90s guy ballad.

Sharan Q - Single Bed
Tsunko's band! This is actually pretty good, nice 90s guy ballad.

Aiko - Eriashi
I'm not a fan of Aiko, but this is quite a pretty ballad. But not as pretty as...

Nakashima Mika - Yuki No Hana
So beautiful. I was never a fan of Nakashima Mika but I may have to give her a second listen as this isn't the first ballad of hers that I've really liked.

Aska - Hajimari Wa Itsumo Ame
One half of Chage & Aska who sang Say Yes, which I loved. This isn't as mindblowingly awesome as Say Yes, but it's still a beautiful, powerful ballad with that 80s/early 90s sound that I love so much.

Tohoshinki - Box In The Ship, Sennen Koi Uta, Share The World/We Are single
Oh, Box In The Ship. I love it so. When Hiromi took me to the station on my last day in Japan she was playing the two-disc version of The Secret Code, which this is from, and I loved this song and made a note to myself to get hold of it for my next batch. And I did! I've been playing it during my walk to work a lot because it's so catchy.

Sennen Koi Uta is a ballad and is quite pretty, but it gets overshadowed by Box In The Ship which I LOVE LOVE LOVE.

Share The World and We Are are more very catchy, poppy songs, and Ashita Wa Kuru Kara is a beautiful ballad that didn't really get the attention it deserved because I was all over Box In The Ship.

Tina Arena - Italian Love Song, Soulmate #9, Symphony Of Life, Dare You To Be Happy
From her best-of album. My favourite is Italian Love Song, it starts with midtempo verses that are nothing special, but then it launches into this beautiful, beautiful chorus. Soulmate #9 is a midtempo rockish song, Symphony Of Life is one of those songs with slow vocals but faster music in the background and is quite nice, and Dare You To Be Happy has a mature pop sound to it.

Morning Musume - Nanchatte Renai
Another very, very catchy song that I played a lot during my walks to work. I'm really, really liking Morning Musume's stuff at the moment. The B-side, Aki Urara is also quite catchy, but I didn't take to it anywhere near as much as the title track.

Hamasaki Ayumi - Sunrise/Sunset ~Love Is All~
These songs have the same melody and similar lyrics (speaking of which, Travis, do you think you'll translate them?) but Sunrise launches into a fast chorus while Sunset plays the same melody slowly and softly. I really like both of them.

Aoyama Thelma - Wasurenai Yo
Another ballad from Thelma that's OK but not mindblowing - just good enough that I still have hope that she'll sing more stuff that blows me away the way Soba Ni Iru Ne, Good Time, Last Letter and Diary (oh God, Diary) did. The B-side is R&B/hip hop, a bit much so for my liking, but I like hearing her speaking at the beginning, and the "HOLLA!"

B'z - Ichibu To Zenbu
They're back from the dead! I thought they'd called it quits. All 3 of the songs are very catchy pop-rock songs, and I love, love, love his voice.

Crystal Kay - After Love
Another one who we haven't heard from in a year! After Love is a beautiful melodic R&B song, Girlfriend (which features BoA) is a midtempo R&B song and Deaeta Kiseki is an R&B tinged ballad.

Garnet Crow - Hana Wa Saite Tada Yurete
Two more beautiful ballads from Garnet Crow (speaking of which, Julia, do you think you'll translate them? Oh, and are you there yet? How was your fright and how's Japan?)

AAA - Break Down/Break Your Name/Summer Revolution
All very fast dance songs. Catchy I guess, but they never grabbed me the way some of the other songs did.

Girl Next Door - Be Your Wings/Friendship/Wait For You
It's Bitchy's band! (In Uta No Ojiisan, the lead singer of this band played Ohno Satoshi's ex who dumped him from their band which was called Giselle. Instantly that made me think of this, so I immediately dubbed the members members Wasteful, Bitchy and Stupid and the band Heatwave, after another quote about Giselle which I can't find anymore in which Elyse said "Giselle coined the term 'heat wave' as a euphemism for farts which thus far is her major contribution to society.")

Anyway, this isn't half bad. It reminds me a lot of Tamaki Nami, not least because she's got a song about friends in this batch too.

Juliet - Natsu Love
Nice, laid-back slowish songs. I really like both of them.

Maria - Kanashimi Rensa
Another one that sounds like Tamaki Nami/Heatwave. I didn't get into this as much, although I did like the B-side, Mirai E No Kiseki, which is a slower song.

Tamaki Nami - Friends
Much more mellow than the stuff I'm used to hearing from her, but pretty nice. Negaiboshi is pretty much her usual dancy stuff, and Happy Forever is a cute poppy song that I really like.

Mano Erina - Summer Party
The latest darling of Hello Project. This is by no means the best H!P stuff I've heard, but it's pretty catchy.

Kago Ai - No HesitAtIon
It's Kago Ai! She used to be in Morning Musume and various other H!P groups like W (who were awesome) but got kicked out for underage smoking (teh scandal! Though my favourite will always be a tie between Yaguchi Mari HAVING A BOYFRIEND OMGWTFBBQ and Sawajiri Erika attracting a national scandal for answering a question sullenly at a premiere. God, Japan.)

Anyway, like Yaguchi Mari recently, she's back on the scene under a different, presumably less restrictive label and her song's pretty damn good. She still has a very cutesy voice, but the songs are a lot more mature than Hello Project's stuff, and well worth a listen.

Music 19/8/09

2009-08-19T21:37:34Z

Hello Project Chanpuru ~Happy Marriage Song Shuu~
Compilation of cover songs by a whoooooole lot of new H!P subgroups. Tsunko has obviously finally run out of names for subgroups, because he's "resurrected" a bunch of the old groups - Pucchimoni, Mini Moni, V-U-Den, etc - but with completely different members. Yeah.
That said, a lot of these songs are pretty good, even the ones I've heard the originals of.
Favourites: Diamonds, Ai Wa Katsu, Tentoumushi No Samba, Kimi Ga Iru Dake De, Mamotte Agetai, Cosmos, Only You

Now That's What I Call Music 30 (NZ Edition)
Kathryn was going to buy this, but I compiled it myself the day it came out. :D I can't believe we're up to #30, the first one came out when I was in 3rd form and had just started to get into recent music.
Favourites: When Love Takes Over by David Guetta and Kelly Rowland, Jai Ho by the Pussycat Ditzes, I Do Not Hook Up by Kelly Clarkson, If You Seek Amy by Britney Spears (I only just realised why it's called that. As I was listening to it this afternoon I was like "Why Amy?" and then was like "...Ohhhhhh!" Also, I can't believe she's been around for 10 years!), Love Sex Magic by Ciara feat. Justin Timberlake. I've been playing these songs all afternoon. I also really liked LoveGame by Lady Gaga, Bad Influence by Pink, Knock You Down by Keri Hilson and Waking Up In Vegas by Katy Perry, even though I really don't want to like her after the lyrics of some of her previous songs.

Coeur de Pirate - Coeur de Pirate
French folksy music. Samey, but good samey - the kind where no one song stands out so I wind up favouriting everything.

And now the lastest last Eurovision stuff! These are the rejects from Semifinal 2!

Sinead Mulvey & Black Daisy (Ireland) - Et Cetera
Pop-rock with a female vocalist, not bad.

Intars Busulis (Latvia) - Probka
More pop-rockish stuff, this time with a male vocalist. OK.

Marko Kon and Milaan (Serbia) - Cipela
Weird, but I quite like the chorus.

Lidia Kopania (Poland) - I Don't Wanna Leave
Girl ballad. I like how it gets all powerful in the second half, but the first half is kind of boring. It actually reminds me of the equally boring ballad Britain did, which came fifth, except that this girl has a nicer voice, so I am thoroughly confused as to how that crappy British ballad did so well. I get that the UK gets a free pass to the finals, but that still doesn't explain how it came fifth. >_<

Christina Metaxa (Cyprus) - Firefly
Another girl ballad, I like this one more than the Polish one.

Kamil Mikulčík & Nela Pocisková (Slovakia) - Let' Tmou
Ballad by a male and a female vocalist. The verses are a bit boring, but I love how it gets all powerful in the chorus

Quartissimo feat. Martina (Slovenia) - Love Symphony
Technoey song, not bad.

Ádok Zoli (Hungary) - Dance With Me
Ricky Martinish song. Catchy, but the lyrics are pretty dumb and that started to annoy me after awhile.

The Toppers (The Netherlands) - Shine
English ganbare song. This has cheesy lyrics too, but I love the melody so much that it doesn't bother me as much.

The Hollies - Carrie Anne
The only lyrics I remembered from this song were "I played a janitor, you played a monitor", "Hey Carrie Anne, what's your game now, can anybody play?" and "[This time] I'll be the teacher" so once I was old enough to know what role playing was, I always thought it was a kinky song about teacher roleplay sex. In fact, when I thought of this song and decided to look for it, I didn't have time to do it at that moment and didn't remember the title, so to remind myself I wrote a note saying "Kinky teacher sex song". Sadly, it's actually not about kinky teacher sex, but it's still a great song, one of my favourites this week. Now that I know all the lyrics, I like to think that the narrator is Mameshiba and Carrie Anne is Dim Blub (Julia will know what I mean. Just substitute "prefects" with "butlers"...)

The Hollies - The Air That I Breathe
Classic song. I don't like this as much as Carrie Anne, but it's still a great song.

And now some songs that Julia translated which I ganked for my site!

Arashi - Ichioku No Hoshi, Futari No Kinenbi
These are the B-sides for their Wish single. As usual, I like the last one the best (I almost always like the last song of Arashi's singles the best for some reason.) Ichioku No Hoshi is a poppy, fairly average song, while Futari No Kinenbi is a pretty ballad.

Checkers - Julia Ni Shoushin
Cheesy 80s song. OK, but not my favourite.

Sugawara Sayuri - Kimi Ni Okuru Uta, I Still Love You
I really like Kimi Ni Okuru Uta, which is a laid-back R&B song. I Still Love You, which ALWAYS makes me think of Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquois by Kylie Minogue, is a ballad and quite nice.

Flumpool - Hoshi Ni Negai Wo, Over The Rain ~Hikari No Hashi~
Hoshi Ni Negai Wo is a fastish pop-rock song and Over The Rain ~Hikari No Hashi~ is a ballad with a really, really nice chorus.

Yuzu - Umaku Ienai
Soooooooooo preeeeeeeeetty. This is my favourite Yuzu song that I've heard so far.

Uverworld - Shamrock
I listened to Bugright, the album this is on, last year, but never got into this song that much. Then I started watching Dandori, which it's the theme of, and started playing it again, and I really like it. So very catchy.

Music 07/8/09

2009-08-07T04:26:43Z

The music I listened to during my last weekend in Ariake and the frights!

Ueto Aya - Happy Magic ~Smile Project~
Yeah, I listen to Ueto Aya albums during long haul frights because Ueto Aya starred in Attention Please. Aren't I witty? :P I played this album during the first fright, from FUK to Hong Kong.

I wasn't sure what to make of this album, as the two of her other albums that I listened to didn't do it for me that much (one didn't have much new stuff, the other was pretty samey apart from the single tracks) but I liked this one a lot. A good balance between upbeat poppy tracks and ballads and both were really good. I actually ended up favouriting the whole album. The two-year break has done her good!

Ayaka - Sing To The Sky
All of the albums in this batch have some relation to flying or Cathay Pacific, and I have been saving some of them for a while. The significance of this one is...OK. First of all, I listened to her first album and some of her singles after that and found the vast majority of it lacklustre, to the point where I stopped downloading it altogether. Then I started liking Mizushima Hiro, who was married to her, and I developed a little of that...well, not really jealousy-hate, as I am fully aware that I will probably never meet the guy, more like "making up celeb man-candy fantasies is nowhere near as much fun when the response is always "But he's married to Ayaka!"" type hate (in the end I just started saying that he just made that up to protect my privacy and keep the paps off my doorstep. I got some of my students and coworkers going rather nicely - some of the 8th grade boys would yell "You're not going out with Mizushima Hiro!!!" every time they saw me, to which I would say "Yes I am!" and a nice "Are not!" "Am too!" fight would follow, sometimes halfway to the staffroom. XD With my coworkers it took a slightly more sophisticated form: "That's just a delusion!" "Yes! Hiro being married to Ayaka and not me is your delusion!" and again it'd go round and round until one or both parties was cracking up.)

So anyway, a few months ago me and Julia friended each other on LJ, and she likes Ayaka. So we used to wind each other up, her saying that Hiro is married to Ayaka and me saying (sometimes in German) that Ayaka is boring. This was around the time I booked my flight home, which despite being a different airline was still a night flight, and as I always have trouble sleeping on planes, I said that this time I was going to play Ayaka's album to make myself go to sleep. I got hold of her second album, this one, a good few months ago and had been saving it ever since. And then when I played it, it was actually pretty good! Samey for the first few listens, but there are a lot of songs that I actually liked quite a lot. I have gotten to like ballady stuff a lot more of late, especially the powerful ones, and she has a lot of those. So in the end I actually ended up playing this album during my awake hours on the night fright.
Favourites: Sky, Why, Gold Star, Ai Mo Uso Mo Shinjitsu, Clap & Love (albeit partly because of this), Winding Road, I Believe (English Version). And Okaeri. Oh God, Okaeri. This was the song I always loved (along with Melody), even when I didn't like much of her other stuff. This was the theme song of Zettai Kareshi (better known among those on my flist as Homegirl Fucked A Robot Once) which made me cry like a motherfucker numerous times, and so ever since then this song has gotten me every. Damn. Time.

Fiona Sit - Smile
The significance of this one is that she is from Hong Kong and this time I used a Hong Kong airline (Cathay Pacific, who are awesome even with their lack of body paint) and flew home via Hong Kong. This was the one I ended up listening to during my sleeping hours, because the majority of her songs are very soft, slow songs. It's very hit or miss as to whether this appeals to me, and had I not had a night flight in mind I might have deleted it on the first listen, but as I listened to it a few more times a lot of the songs grew on me a lot, and I noticed that a lot of them are really pretty.
Favourites: Heaven's Smile, Sweet, Stegosaurus Strolling On The Grass (and how awesome is that for a title?), My Choice X

Eurovision! This week's batch is all the artists from the first semi-final who didn't make it to the final.

Andrea Demirović (Montenegro) - Just Get Out Of My Life
Very, very catchy girlpop.

Gipsy.cz (Czech Republic) - Aven Romale
The first couple of times I listened to this I was like "...This is...just noise..." but the traditional Romani music has grown on me quite a bit.

Patrick Ouchène (Belgium) - Copycat
Hadise, the representative from Turkey who came 4th, is actually from Belgium but has lived in Turkey for awhile. She chose to represent Turkey instead of Belgium because they care more about the Eurovision in Turkey. How much less Belgium cares about the Eurovision became apparent when I listened to their representative. Seriously, my reaction was "What. The. Ever. Loving. HELL?!" It's kind of catchy, but the wannabe cowboy shit makes me cringe every damn time. I actually skipped over it last night because I was afraid that my brother, whose room is next door, would hear it and not let me live it down, and I will willingly listen to the cheesiest of Hello Project shit within earshot of him with no shame whatsoever.

Petr Elfimov (Belarus) - Eyes That Never Lie
Catchy guypop with rock riffs. I didn't notice it much during the first few plays but now I like it quite a lot.

Susanna Georgi (Andorra) - La Teva Decisió
One of my favourites in this week's batch. Kind of reminds me of 90s pop-rock singers, which is instant LOVE.

Lovebugs (Switzerland) - The Highest Heights
The name and opening melody makes me think of the Thunderbugs, who sang Friends Forever, so I was actually quite surprised when these guys turned out to be guys. I like it quite a bit, though. Midtempo rocky song.

Krassimir Avramov (Bulgaria) - Illusion
Guypop. Kind of catchy but not my favourite.

Next Time (FYR Macedonia) - Nesto sto ke ostane (Macedonian version)/Something Sweet That Will Remain (English version)
Wow. Just wow. This is probably my favourite song of all the Eurovision songs and I am gobsmacked that it didn't get into the finals (people chose that violin drivel over this?! Seriously?!) It's pop rock and so very powerful and so very catchy and just LOVE. I played this EVERY TIME I took a bag of my crap up the road to the rubbish area on Saturday and a big chunk of Sunday, and I must have done that about a million times.

Aiko - Kabutomushi
Ballad. I don't like her voice much, but the melody's quite pretty.

Spitz - Robinson
Apparently these guys chose this name because it means "sharp" or "pointed" in German, but I still like to think they're really named after this. Incidentally, our current neighbours have a dog that barks FUCKING CONSTANTLY. Melissa would like very much to shoot it, and no longer wants a dog of her own. XD Anyway, this is a nice, laid-back mid-90s guypop song. I like it quite a bit.

Makihara Noriyuki - Mou Koi Nante Shinai
More 90s guypop (1992 this time), pretty catchy. I wouldn't mind hearing some more of this guy's stuff (when I don't have a massive backlog of other stuff that I've been wanting to listen to...)

SMAP - Ai No Uta ~Jeong Mal Sa Rang Hae Yo~
I really don't like SMAP. Partly because even I can tell that their voices are subpar, but also because of the massive hype surrounding them. If I'm just eh on something, seeing it hyped to death will turn that "eh" into full-blown hate before you can say "SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT FUCKING SMAP ALR

EADY!!!!" But this song has Korean in it, so it got a listen.

Hirosue Ryoko - Maji De Koi Suru 5byoumae
Cute girlpop.

Die Ärzte - Männer Sind Schweine
The title of this means "Men are pigs", and the lyrics, from what I understand of German or managed to look up in an online dictionary, contain lines like "All the other girls are stupid to me...You're so different, really special...Now get your clothes off and lie down/Because I'm so in love with you" and "He'll lie like a trooper/To get you into bed" and "He drinks beer, watches TV and quickly gets fat/And burps and farts in the bed you share/And then you've got King Kong in your bed". XD

Tanya Donelly - Pretty Deep
I was looking for the snark in ClaudiasRoom where Tiff says "I really didn't think of the noise a harmonica makes when I read "WWWAAAAANNNNNK!"" and came across this one, where she says that the book made her think of the lyrics of this song. Of course I had to go see what she meant and thus did this song wind up in this week's batch. It's 90s alternative stuff and really good. :D

Pee-Ka-Boo - Garasu No Taiyou, Love Maze
90s guypop with a strong guitar sound. Bri had been looking for this single for ages, and when she finally got hold of it she asked me to romanise and translate it. I had to listen to it to check the readings of certain kanji and really liked it. The first track, my favourite, is a nice, laid-back song, while the second one has a rockier sound.

4 Non Blondes - What's Up
This was in one of the compilations I downloaded to get at another song and I listened to it purely because I liked the name of the band. And it turned out to be a song I heard all the time in high school, always liked but never knew the title of! I love when that happens!

MAX - Rough Cut Diamond
MAX are back! What's with all these comebacks lately? Not that I'm complaining. They're as...well, not as good as the awesomeness that was their first album, but still pretty damn good. Catchy pop with a Euroish sound.

Guys & Dolls - There's A Whole Lot Of Loving
Six, the Irish Popstars, remade this back when I first started uni and I fell head over heels in love with it, so when I came across the original on one of the albums I downloaded for Mum, I grabbed it immediately. I still like the Six version better, but this is still awesome.

Younha - Girl
Her first Japanese single since Hakanaku Tsuyoku in January 2007, and like many of the artists who have come back from long breaks, it's done her good. The first song is a rocky ballad that starts kind of so-so but kicks into an amazing chorus. The B-side is a poppy song with lyrics that fit really well with my leaving my town, so I played it a lot on the bus to the airport. I like both quite a lot.

Garnet Crow - Mou Ichido Waratte, Kono Te Wo Nobaseba
Two more songs that I listened to so that I could romanise them properly and ended up really liking. Both slow, powerful, beautiful songs with a unique voice. I ended up grabbing the whole album, which I'll listen to...at some point... ^_^;;

Taylor Swift - You Belong With Me, Our Song
Catchy country-pop songs. I particularly love Our Song. So cute!

Jordin Sparks - Battlefield
Awesome power ballad.

Shinee - A.Mi.Go
Catchy Korean guypop.

Berryz Koubou - Seishun Bus Guide/Rival
Standard Hello Project fare. Seishun Bus Guide doesn't do it for me, but I like Rival quite a lot.

Ayaka - Minna Sora No Shita
Again, I ended up liking this a lot. The title track is a powerful ballad, while the B-side is a faster but also powerful and beautiful song, and like the B-side of Younha's single was very fitting for my exit from Ariake, so this was another one I played a lot on the bus to the airport.

Moumoon - On The Right
This took ages to find! Eventually a friend of Bri's found it on a Chinese forum. Another awesome single from Moumoon. On The Right is a faster song, Hallelujah is a ballad and the English version of Philia is...Philia, and therefore awesome. And I have said it before and I will say it again: I LOVE this girl's voice.

Bonnie Tyler - And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going
I downloaded this because of this snark. Not my favourite song by her, but not bad.

Tanya Donelly - Goat Girl
I noticed this song on the same album as Pretty Deep and listened to it because Gillian has an icon saying Goat Girl. It's a pretty good song. I still like Pretty Deep better, but it's not bad.

Aiuchi Rina - Story/Summer Light
Not a ballad this time, but still a lot mellower than her older stuff. I like Summer Light the best and played it a lot on my last day in Ariake.

Music 29/7/09

2009-07-29T07:06:27Z

It is my last day of work ever tomorrow and then next Monday I leave here to go home. Yeah.

So the music for basically my last two weeks here is:

Tohoshinki - Secret Code
I never really listened to Tohoshinki all that much besides a few songs, but Hiromi's mad about them so we were dancing to their DVD at her place the other week and I really liked a lot of their songs. They have some really, really catchy stuff, like Purple Line and Surivor, as well as some really pretty ballads like Bolero, Doushite Kimi Wo Suki Natte Shimattan Darou and Kiss The Baby Sky.

Village People - The Ultimate Collection
After hearing YMCA, Big Mac and more recently Go West, I knew I had to get hold of one of their albums, and this does not disappoint. Catchiest. Shit. Ever. My favourite tracks besides YMCA and Go West are In The Navy (which, like Fame by Irene Cara, I cannot listen to without thinking of the Japanese cover by Pink Lady), Can't Stop The Music and San Francisco.

Juanes - Mi Sangre
Another artist I started listening to because my friend really likes him. Her favourite song is La Camisa Negra, and apparently when he sings it live people throw panties onto the stage. XD My favourite from the very beginning was A Dios Le Pido, but I like pretty much everything quite a lot, it's hard to pick favourites besides that one.

Eurovision! This is the last of the finalists. I enjoyed this week's batch a lot.

#21 - Malena Ernman (Sweden) - La Voix
I love this song so very, very much. The beginning and choruses have this operatic stuff combined with dancy music and just. SO. AMAZING.

#22 - Chiara (Malta) - What If We
Ballad. OK, but didn't grab me as much as some of the others.

#23= - Soraya Arnelas (Spain) - La Noche Es Para Mi
So very catchy. And it's in Spanish!

- Sasha Son (Lithuania) - Love
Another ballad. Like Denmark, the beginning was so blah that I came to think of the whole song as blah, forgetting that the chorus isn't bad.

#25 - Waldo's People (Finland) - Lose Control
Eurodance. Very, very catchy.

Every Little Thing - Fragile
Ballad, quite pretty.

Porno Graffitti - Ai Ga Yobu Hou E
Slowish song. Very, very pretty, and will forever remind me of the last day of my last term here (term ended on the 17th, I've just been coming to school in the mornings, emailing people and such and going home at lunchtime to use up the time I have left.)

Princess Princess - M
Early 90s ballad, quite pretty but as with Every Little Thing, it suffers by being right next to a song that I really love, so it tended to get passed over.

Kuwata Keisuke - Shiroi Koibitotachi
I wasn't surprised to hear that he was the singer from Southern All Stars, I thought the voice sounded like them. The melody is pretty, but I'm not really a fan of his voice.

VA - Sekaijuu No Dare Yori Kitto
One of those midtempo songs that sounds like the end theme of a TV show or a movie, so in my book can't go wrong.

Jigsaw - Sky High
One of those songs that I LOVED as a kid but never got hold of, so I was SO happy when it turned up on an album Mum asked me to download while I'm still here and therefore still have my unlimited Japanese broadband. This is another song that will forever make me think of my last day of my last term.

David Dundas - Jeans On
Another song that was on Mum's 70s compilation. I grabbed this song to listen to purely because the band in Pop Babylon sang a cover of it as their debut single and references to the Babylon books are always welcome. I'm not that much of a fan of the song itself, but Babylon references!

Helen Reddy - I Am Woman
Eh, for a song that's been touted so much, it really didn't do it for me at all. I guess I always pictured a more aggressive song (the only lyrics I knew was the often-quoted "I am woman, hear me roar") rather than the ganbare song on a guitar that it is.

On the other hand:

Helen Reddy - Delta Dawn
I liked this one quite a lot. This is another song that I always heard about but never heard, as one of our cats is called Delta and so Dad would sometimes sing "Delta Dawn, what's that flower you have on?" to her. This is a slowish song with a powerful chorus, and I do love a powerful chorus.

Letty De Jong - De Zon Zal Weer Kommen
This was in a file that I downloaded to compile that 70s album for Mum. I grabbed it because, Dutch song! It's quite cute, quite an old, folky sound.

Sinsemilia - Tout Le Bonheur Du Monde
French song. It means "We wish you all the happiness in the world", so Amanda and her coworkers sang this to their graduating students at their prom. Amanda = awesome teacher. This song is kind of midtempo and I can't really describe the sound, but it's a great song.

These next few are songs that Noguchi Sensei sang at karaoke a few weeks ago that I really liked.

Nakajima Miyuki - Tabibito No Uta
I love this song so very much. It's a powerful ballad, and the lyrics fit so well with how I'm feeling on the occasions that it actually hits me that I'm going home (sometimes it hits me and I get sad, sometimes it hits me and I get excited, but the majority of the time I just feel like I'm still going to be here like normal. I didn't get very emotional at all during most of my goodbye sessions at my various schools because it hadn't hit me that I was actually leaving.)

Yamamoto Linda - Nerai Uchi
70s song. Catchy, but not my favourite. I find her singing to be a bit overdramatic to the point of silly in some places.

Matsutoya Yumi - Inochi No Hana
Slowish song from the mid-90s, not bad.

Matsutoya Yumi - Manatsu No Yoru No Yume
Midtempo song from the early 90s, pretty good.

Pocket Biscuits - Yellow Yellow Happy
Mid-90s girlpop. Very, very catchy.

Tokio - Heart Wo Migakukkyanai
Mid-90s Johnny's, pretty catchy.

Ikimonogakari - Hotaru No Hikari
Not as good as the musical orgasm that was Futari, but pretty catchy with their trademark sound. The B-side, Omoide No Sukima is a slow song with harmonica melodies (no, not "Wwwwaaaaaank!") Quite pretty.

Raydio - Jack and Jill
More 70s stuff. Quite catchy.

Brad Paisley - Online
Country. I love the lyrics of this song so very, very much.

Brad Paisley - If Love Was A Plane
I came across this while I was searching for the lyrics of Online and yeah, anything that references plane crashes automatically gets a listen. Even if you don't have unnatural fangirlish tendencies for anything relating to flying, this is a beautiful song, again with great lyrics.

Player - Baby Come Back
More 70s stuff. This is another one that makes me nostalgic for when I was a kid.

Music 12/07/09

2009-07-12T08:48:08Z

Gah, so tired. I was wondering when that late night/early morning in the week would catch up to me. I stayed up late-ish at Hiromi's place dancing to Korean rockbabies and cuddling her family's kittehs, but I felt that it would be a shame to break my morning exercise routine so I got up early as per usual. I didn't feel tired at all throughout the week, but then yesterday I slept until 11am after going to bed fairly early the night before (it can't have been after 10) and didn't feel like doing much but sleeping for the whole day. I went to Kohoku and bought stuff for dinner, ate dinner while watching ANTM, then decided to call it quits and went to bed. Feeling a lot better today, but probably still won't do much - just update this blog, do a bit more downloading and packing and then watch some more of Quirrell In A Skirt On A Plane.

Also, after seeing the trailer courtesy of Amanda, I HAVE to watch the Hannah Montana movie just to laugh my ass off at Tyra Bank's crap acting. The fact that I can tease Kathryn (who hates Hannah Montana) doesn't hurt either. Oh Cathay, why can't you have personalised entertainment on your current Hong Kong-Auckland flights (Uncle Graham says they don't, you have your own TV set but it plays the same thing as everyone else's) so I could watch it for free now. I bet Air NZ have it. I wonder if it's on Warez-BB or Demonoid? *looks* HA! Found it on Warez-BB! I'm going to take it home on my external harddrive and watch it in front of Kathryn!

So! On to this week's music!

Misia - Misia Greatest Hits
The best of her early stuff (up to 2002.) I was only really familiar with her ballads before this, so I was surprised to hear midtempo R&B stuff and even fast, poppy stuff too, but it's pretty good. I'll always love her ballads the best, though.
Favourites: I love Wasurenai Hibi and Hatenaku Tsuzuku Story, two ballads, but I ended up favouriting pretty much everything else too.

Rihanna - Good Girl Gone Bad
R&B. When I first listened to some of Rihanna's songs on various compilations I wasn't a fan, but now I really like her.
Favourites: Umbrella, Say It (which actually sounds a lot like All Saints in some parts, it's quite scary), Sell Me Candy, Rehab, Good Girl Gone Bad (the beginning sounds like the beginning of Mama by the Spice Girls - also scary), Cry. But again, I favourited most songs.

Shakira - Pies Descalzos
Her first Spanish album. I think I remember her saying that it wasn't as good as her second album, Donde Estan Los Ladrones, and I agree, but there were some pretty good songs on here.
Favourites: Estoy Aqui, Un Poco De Amor, Pies Descalzos Sueños Blancos, Donde Estas Corazon

Eurovision stuff!

16. Noa and Mira Awad (Israel) - There Must Be Another Way (video)
Slowish song with the verses sung in Hebrew and Arabic. Not bad.

17. Kejsi Tola (Albania) - Carry Me In Your Dreams (video)
Catchy, poppy song. I love her accent. That green guy makes me think of the balaclava orphan army in Me-e-ei Chan No Hitsuji, though. Run, Kejsi! Run for your life! (Unless she's Lucia...) Anyway!

18. Igor Cukrov feat. Andrea (Croatia) - Lijepa Tena (video)
Slow, folky song. OK, but not brilliant.

19. Elena (Romania) - The Balkan Girls (video)
So many hot girls in one place! And the song's really catchy too. On a random note (and it really is random, because I didn't watch the video until just now) whenever I hear "My girls take me for a ride" I can't help picturing her getting dragged along by her tits.

20. Alex Swings Oscar Sings! (Germany) - Miss Kiss Kiss Bang (video)
Sorry, Julia, but this song doesn't do it for me at all, and I actually like the majestic Eurovision music before it better. I could watch and listen to that part of the clip all day. But the song itself...it's kind of catchy, I guess, but something about it just doesn't do it for me.

Fountains Of Wayne - Stacy's Mom
Catchy English guypop. I've been wanting to get hold of it ever since someone referenced it in bsc_snark upon observing that Stacey's MILF in the series was probably the inspiration for that song.

Hanson - Dancing In The Wind
Another song that I downloaded because of a snark. This snark, in fact. It's an acoustic song and pretty blah, with none of the magic of that short, glorious period in 1997, but it's OK. And it's fun to snark on that book with.

Village People - Go West
This was also featured in that snark, and in contrast to Dancing (In The) Wind, this is one of my favourite songs of the week. For next week's English album I'm going to find me a Village People album, because I've loved every song that I've heard by them.

Yuu Takami - Aya
Mostly instrumental song with a Middle Eastern influence. Not bad.

Radwimps - Oshakashama
Catchy punk rock song.

Radwimps - Order Made
I find the lyrics and video really interesting (though I am irrationally annoyed by the part where he says that he doesn't need a heart on each side of his chest, only one on the left, because THE HEART IS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CHEST, YOU FUCKING MORON!!!!!! It protrudes more to the left than the right because the left ventricle is bigger, but that's it. STOP FUCKING READING MANGA AND SLEEPING D

URING SCIENCE CLASS!!!!!!!!) But yeah, great ballad with really interesting lyrics and video.

Also, as I said to my friend who recommended the song, the part about not needing two mouths is inherently flawed in its reasoning too:
*friend guesses that the lyrics are saying that he asks to only have one mouth so that he can only fight and kiss one person*
Yeah, that's right. But he is forgetting something very important. Even if you can't multitask enough to snog two people at the same time (which, fair enough, I'd probably rather concentrate on the one person, unless I was at, like, an orgy or something) when you're tongue-kissing with the conventional one-mouth model, you need to break away every so often to breathe, right? But if you had TWO mouths, you could use the other one to breathe! Especially if you had a cold and your nose was blocked. Or if you were a stud or girlstud, you could totally make out with two people at the same time. This guy has no sense of adventure, is his problem. Jeez dude. Just because orgies aren't YOUR thing, doesn't mean everyone's the same! I think he needs two mouths so he can sip his haterade and sing at the same time. :P

More from the Music Station Top 100 Love Songs!

Spitz - Cherry
Ah, this song makes me nostalgic for last spring. I downloaded Van Tomiko's version then after Bri made this parody video.
Anyway, nice, laid back song, perfect for spring and summer now I think about it. :D

Rip Slyme - One
Another summery song, kind of a slow rap with a nice laid-back melody.

Kan - Ai Wa Katsu
One of my favourites this week. It has that awesome, awesome early 90s boypop sound to it.

Chage & Aska - Say Yes
Another early 90s song, a ballad this time. Awesome, awesome song.

Kiroro - Nagai Aida
Soft girl ballad.

Ueto Aya - Smile For...
Aya's long-awaited single! I must say, the two-year hiatus has done her a world of good. Her last two singles didn't do it for me at all, but this is great. Cute, catchy, poppy song. The B-side, Mou Ichido Dake, is a pretty ballad. I do love her voice, and this song shows it off particularly well.

Arashi - Everything
A solid Arashi release. It doesn't blow me away like Kumori Nochi Kaisei, Smile, How To Fly, Firefly, Love So Sweet or Kitto Daijoubu (my favourite songs by them) but both songs are pretty catchy and are near the top of my list for this week.

Do As Infinity - Infinity
Speaking of bands whose hiatuses have done them no harm at all. The first song, Umareyuku Monotachi, is a strong, beautiful ballad, Meramera and Timeless are catchy pop-rock songs, and Let's Get Together At A-Nation is a catchy pop song with those kind of distorted vocals that would normally annoy the crap out of me (and I was turned off at first) but somehow I've gotten to really like it.

Fukuhara Miho - Hanabi Sky
I really like Fukuhara Miho. I love her strong voice and her awesome power ballads, like the title track. The second song, La La La Fighters, is a faster track and is really catchy. The last track, I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair) is an English song that sounds kind of 60s/70s to me, but maybe that's just because of the lyrics. (I wonder what Miho would say if I told her that it makes me think of the 60s plotlines in all the Sweet Valley Sagas I've been reading lately. :P)

Jasmine - Sad To Say
R&B. My favourite song is Koi, but all the songs are pretty good.

Kagrra - Shigatsu Tsuitachi
I've been meaning to get hold of this song since I saw Cat Street last year (which is a great, great drama, which you should watch if you haven't already.) Nice guy poprock song.

And finally, some Ueto Aya B-sides that I hadn't heard before (there weren't many! Most of her B-sides seemed to be either double A-sides or remixes of previous songs.)

Ueto Aya Megamix
B-side of Egao No Mama De. A mix of a bunch of her later songs, pretty good. It also reminded me how much I like 1 Million Thanks, which I played while I was hanging around Kankuu before I flew home last year (when I wasn't watching Celeb To Binbou Tarou To Baka Tarou To Bitch Tarou and writing a running commentary to Tsutsumi Sensei.) And now I want to play that and Look Into The Future again. I think I shall do just that after I finish re-listening to everything for this post.

Get Fight
B-side of Yume No Chikara. So very, very catchy. I like to listen to it when I'm running.

Arigato
B-side of Ai No Tame Ni. I love Aya, but her eyes on the cover of this single make me think of a cat. I am forever confusing this song with 1 Million Thanks, because the chorus of 1 Million Thanks goes "A-ri-gaaaa-toooou!" But the two songs are nothing alike. 1 Million Thanks is a super-catchy fast song; this is a soft ballad. Not my favourite, but still quite pretty.

Tears
B-side of Kizuna. Ooh, she looks young there. How old was she when she released that? *wikis* 17. That explains that.
As you can tell by the above comments, we're at her early stuff now, and it shows. She got more mature and ballady later, but her early stuff was pure, upbeat pop with music and melodies that kind of remind me of Tamaki Nami. (It was interesting to see the progression as I listened to her best-of album.) So this is very upbeat and catchy.

Breath Of My Heart
First B-side of Pureness, her first single. This is my favourite B-side of hers by far. I love the "Woooooow, woooooooow"s so very, very much. This is tied for favourite of the week with Go West by the Village People and is another one I listened to a lot while running.

Puzzle
Second B-side of Pureness. Another awesome, catchy poppy song.

And now I leave you with this quote from Overheard In New York!
Eight-year-old sister: Oh, I'm telling momma that you been mean to that boy and you been cussin'! She'll take your allowance away!
Eight-year-old brother: Fuck you! Suck my dick!
Eight-year-old sister: I'll take your allowance and your dick!

Music 28/6/09

2009-06-28T13:01:58Z

First, I must share with you the awesomeness that is/was Ace of Base. Ryan asked me to upload them recently, and it just reminded me of how amazing they were. They were a Swedish pop group who were popular in the 90s and to a lesser extent the early 00s, and just. SO. AMAZING. <3

Happy Nation
This was their first album. The Sign will forever remind me of Year 6, when it came out and Francis, a girl in my class, liked to sing "I saw Justin, he opened his bum, I saw Justin, he opened his bum..." The mention of Justin reminds me of the year before when we had to do this class slide show on penguins that involved each of us speaking a sentence, and Justin said "Penguins digest their food by...regurgitating." I don't know why I remember this so many years later, but something about the way he said it was just so funny. I can still hear that sentence now. XD

And while we're on the topic of childhood reminiscence, me and my sister were talking about this creepy teacher she had in intermediate school, who used to GET BONERS IN CLASS. She just told me that she and her friend went up to him one day and asked him if he wanted to join the PEN 15 Club, which involved letting them write "PEN15" on his hand (reread it!) Apparently her friend managed to write "PEN1" and half the "5" before he realised and, quote, he blushed and pulled his hand away and said "ok girls..." XD

Anyway, this came out in 1993. I didn't hear it until Christmas 1999, and it's never been my favourite, but it's got some good stuff on there. I've always liked The Sign, Don't Turn Around, Living In Danger and Happy Nation, and I got to like Wheel Of Fortune a lot later. Hear Me Calling's pretty good too.

The Bridge
This was their second album (released in 1995) and the second I heard by them (in September 1999.) I like pretty much every song on here, but I particularly love Beautiful Life, Lucky Love, Ravine (oh, how I love Ravine), My Deja Vu, Que Sera, Just 'N' Image, Experience Pearls (another one I love to death) and Blooming 18.

Flowers
Their third album (released in 1998, apparently, but I could swear that it only came to NZ in 1999.) This was the first album of theirs that I heard, in July 1999, and I loved it to death. I played it over and over again, and it makes me soooo nostalgic to hear it now. I love every song, but particular favourites are Travel To Romantis, Cecilia, He Decides (I actually brought this song to English class the following year because one of the members' blurb about it was so much like Orsino's lovesick obsession with Olivia in Twelfth Night (I think it was Orsino -> Olivia, anyway)), I Pray, Tokyo Girl, Donnie and the remix of Cruel Summer (which apart from The Sign and Beautiful Life was the first song I heard by them.)

Singles of the 90s
Their best-of album, but it also contains four new tracks - C'est La Vie (Always 21), Love In December, Hallo Hallo and Every Time It Rains. All of these are musical orgasms. <3 (Also, Love In December reminds me of this Sweet Valley High book, which I reread just recently, so I was playing it for the first time in aaaaaaages the other night. You all need to read the snarky recap I linked to, as well as the second half here, as it is hilarious.)

And now onto this week's stuff!

Sweetbox - The Next Generation
I listened to their last album, Addicted, when I first moved here, so hearing this album not much more than a month before I go home, it's kind of like I've come full circle. As a whole, I don't like this album as much as Addicted, but I like quite a lot of the songs on here. I thought You Don't Know What You're Sorry For was really beautiful, Crash Landed is pretty catchy, Blue Angel is quite nice, as is These Dayz, and More Than You'll Ever Know, Coming Home To You and Love Forgets are pretty catchy. And I like how in We Can Work It Out and Magic they mixed in famous classical music (the piece in the latter makes me think of the Answers Song in the movie Cheats, which isn't anywhere near as funny as I remembered it. :( ) Magic is pretty good in general, actually. The remake of Everything's Gonna Be Alright sucks, though. As the great Mikami Kyoukan would say, this new singer no koui wa the original wo boutoku suru mono desu.

Now That's What I Call Arabia 2005
More Middle Eastern music! I favourited most of these, but particular favourites are Aweeni Beek, Bi'eynak and Ghali Alayi, as well as Habib Albi, which I featured last week.

And now for the fuckton of miscellaneous songs we have this week!

Rihanna - Shut Up And Drive
Catchy pop song. This was the promo song for Cycle 9 of ANTM. Also, as mentioned last week, she hot! <3

Eurovision!

Anastasiya Prikhodko - Mamo (Russia, #11) video
Apparently a song to her mother. It is nowhere near the musical orgasm that is Anma ~Haha Uta~ that we will see further down, but it's pretty catchy, and I love that it's in Russian.

Svetlana Loboda - Be My Valentine (Anti-Crisis Girl) (Ukraine, #12) video
First, the name Svetlana will forever make me think of that scene in Beautician and the Beast (which is an awesome, awesome movie that I need to find a DVD for when I'm in NZ) where Fran Drescher has made friends with all the peasants in the fields and calls out "SvetLAAAAAAAAAANAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!

!!" to her in her Fran Drescher voice when she sees her.

The song itself is fairly generic, but that is some video. I know it's not her actual performance (that would be...*searches*...here. That's still...interesting) but still...wow?

Niels Brinck - Believe Again (Denmark, #13) video
The beginning of this song is so blah that I always forget that the chorus is pretty good.

Nelly Ciobanu - Hora Din Moldova (Moldova, #14) video
This appears to be a poppified version of traditional Moldovan music (the PV is full of Moldova love too.) Also, she purdy.

Flor-de-Lis - Todas as ruas do amor (Portugal, #15) video
RESPEITO! Em Português, quer dizer 'respect'.É falta de respeito, in this house there is no respect! (from 8:53.) Sorry.

Anyway, this is a nice, folky song and possibly my favourite of this week's Eurovision songs.

Valeria - Ooh-La-La
I downloaded this because of this snark. I love it when I discover new songs by seeing them referenced in snarks. This song is apparently from the Legally Blonde soundtrack and is a very catchy pop-R&B song.

Taylor Swift - Picture To Burn
Also from that snark. This is pop-country and also very catchy.

RSP - Anma ~Haha Uta~
So. Very. Beautiful. It's a reggae song, which I have a weakness for anyway, but this is just so beautiful. And the lyrics. I totally teared up a couple of times. The first B-side, You Are My Friend, is similar - not as pretty, but a similar style and still pretty nice. The second B-side, La La La Love Song is a cover of a song that I think was originally sung by Kubota Toshinobu and covered by BoA. I actually rented and ripped the album by BoA that has her version on it, but I had problems ripping it and never bothered replacing it, so I never really listened to it. I got hold of it later, but I didn't listen to it much. So listening to this song now, it's kind of familiar but also kind of new. And it's gooooood. So catchy.

Also, when I wikied RSP, I realised that they also sang Sakura ~Anata Ni Deaete Yokatta~ which will forever remind me of the time I went to Tokyo for a couple of job fair/conference things and got so tired one evening that I lay down for a nap, went into deep sleep mode and woke up so groggy that I literally couldn't function.

And here we have a bunch of songs starting with K, which I grabbed from Grace's latest letter meme. :D

B'z - Koigokoro
This is closer to their older, Euro style, but it feels rockier than the Euro album I posted a little while ago. It's from a compilation/best-of album that came out in 1998, so that makes sense (they started out Euro in the 80s and early 90s and then moved to a rockier sound later.)

Curio - Kimi Ni Fureru Dake De
This song wasn't the first to grab me, but it's pretty catchy and now I want to play it more. Midtempo pop-rock with a male vocalist.

Dreams Come True - Kessen No Kinyoubi (Version of The Dynamites)
Dreams Come True are very, very hit or miss for me. There are a few singles of theirs that I love, but for the most part I find their stuff boring. This song doesn't wow me the way Merry Life Goes Round or Tsuretette Tsuretette (especially Almost Home) did, but it's pretty catchy.

Elephant Kashimashi - Kaze Ni Fukarete
Another song that didn't really grab me to begin with but I really like now. It's a rock ballad and it's soooo nice.

Kent - Kungen är Död
Swedish rock ballad, really nice.

Kome Kome Club - Kimi Ga Iru Dake De
Early 90s guypop. GOD, these guys are catchy. I need to get hold of an album of theirs.

L'Arc En Ciel - Kasou
Guyrock. L'Arc are another band that are very, very hit or miss for me. I like this song quite a bit, although it did kind of get overshadowed by the songs before and after it.

Moxy Früvous - King Of Spain
I love this song so very, very much. The lyrics are hilarious and it's catchy as hell too. On my first night in Osaka last weekend I was actually model walking down the street to this song. XD And a quick look at Wikipedia reveals that the rest of their songs appear to be similarly funny. Have you got any more stuff by them, Grace?

Oda Kazumasa - Kirakira
This is one of those songs that sounds like the end song of a movie, and there are few things I love more than that.

Remioromen - Kasa Kurage
Beauuuuuuuuuutiful rock ballad.

Saruganseki - Kimi No Aozora
Guypop, kind of makes me think of Tokio. Another song that I didn't really notice at first but is pretty good.

Tachibana Keita - Kimi No Koe
Guy ballad, pretty good.

Three Doors Down - Kryptonite
Guyrock. I used to hear this song on the radio when it came out and always liked it but never knew what it was called, so when I downloaded it and played it I was like "OMG! THAT song!!!! Yay!!!!!!"

Tokio - Kaze Ni Natte
Guypop, another one of those songs that wasn't my favourite at first but I like quite a bit now.

Weezer - Knock-Down Drag-Out
Are Weezer always this damn catchy? If so, I may have to get hold of some of their albums.

Yuzu - Karappo
Nice folky stuff with pretty mouth organ music.

Kuraki Mai - Beautiful
No matter what they saaaaaaaaaaay, words won't bring meeeeee doooooooooown.... Sorry.
This is a slow R&B song and it's really pretty. The B-side, Wana, is a midtempo R&B song and is pretty good too.
Also, this cover reminds me of one of the photo shoots they did in Cycle 11 of America's Next Top Model. XD (And the one in Cycle 7, for that matter, where I suspect that they chucked a lot of ice in the pool to create drama, because, as one of the recappers pointed out, if the weather is warm enough that people are going about in shorts, people should not be geting hypothermia from ten minutes in the pool.)

Ozaki Yutaka - I Love You
Nice ballad, AND it mentions a "creaking bed", which is always awesome.

Dreams Come True - Love Love Love
The title of this makes me think of the wedding scene in Love Actually where the band sings "Loooooove, looooooove, looooooooooove!"
As for the song itself, the first part made me think it was going to build up to something awesome, but then it just carried on with that same tone, which was...eh. Not bad, though, I guess.

Southern All Stars - Tsunami
This, on the other hand, is so powerful in the chorus. I'm not a big fan of Southern All Stars, but this is awesome.

Mr Children - Dakishimetai
So, so beautiful.

Southern All Stars - Namida No Kiss
I don't like this as much as Tsunami, but it's pretty good. Laid-back, summery song.

Amuro Namie - Can You Celebrate
Earlyish Amuro Namie. Eh, it's OK.

Nakayama Miho - You're My Only Shining Star
I could swear I've heard this by someone else before, but I can't think who. It's a pretty nice ballad, anyway.

Koizumi Kyouko - Anata Ni Aete Yokatta
Mid-tempo pop. I don't really like her voice, she has that overly girly, kind of breathy voice that I find insipid and kind of annoying. It's not a bad song, though, I guess.

Misia - Everything
Misia on the other hand, has an incredibly strong, beautiful voice. LOVE SO MUCH.

Mr Children - Sign
Another ballad, I didn't like it as much as Dakishimetai, but it's still pretty good.

Tokunaga Hideaki - Kowarekake No Radio
I was never a fan of this song originally, but I read the lyrics closely recently and really liked them, so I got to quite like the song too.

Music 16/6/09

2009-06-16T04:23:58Z

Tube - TUBEst
Summery early 90s boypop and sooooo goooood. <3 I do love Being's stuff. <3
Favourites: Season In The Sun, Because I Love You, Dance With You, Beach Time, Summer City, Be My Venus

Tata Young - The Very Best Of Tata Young (Thai)
This is from several years before Sexy Naughty Bitchy and is nothing like that song, which makes me think that her change in image happened after she discovered what "tatas" are. :P

Anyway, it's a nice album. It's mostly ballads (my favourite being Kon Derm Jai Derm, which is freaking beautiful, but I love Ruk Tur Dai Mai and Proong Nee Mai Sai too) with the occasional pop or pop-R&B song (Oo Oui, Ma Laeng and Sak Ga Nid. I like Oo Oui the best, but they're all awesome.)

Shibasaki Kou - Single Best
I love this album so very much. It's mostly strong ballads (my favourite kind of ballad), with the occasional softer ballad and faster track. I favourited pretty much everything that I hadn't already heard. Seriously. Such a great album.

And now onto the singles!

First, Rihanna is HOTT. <3

Janet Jackson - Feedback
Promotional song for Cycle 10 of ANTM; not my favourite of the ANTM songs so far. Fairly standard R&B stuff.

Eurovision songs!

#6 Urban Symphony - Rändajad (Estonia) (video)
Pretty, dramatic song. It's in Estonian, which makes it interesting to listen to. This video has an English translation of the lyrics.

#8 Patricia Kaas - Et s'il fallait le faire (France) (video)
Ballad, in French. Eh, it's OK.

#9 Regina - Bistra Voda (Bosnia and Montenegro) (video)
My first thought was "I like the majestic Eurovision music at the beginning better than the actual song" and my second was "Those are men?!" (although I ripped the sound files from the videos, I didn't watch the videos until I'd listened to the songs a few times.) Both thoughts stand, but I've gotten to like this song quite a bit. It's in Bosnian, and quite pretty.

#10 Inga & Anush - Jan Jan (Armenia) (video)
It's official - Armenian artists will forever make me think of StephaniEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. This is my favourite song of this week's batch, though. So catchy, and I love their traditional(?) outfits and seizure monster flashes of colour. The singers are pretty good looking too. :D

Play - I Must Not Chase The Boys
I basically downloaded this song because of this parody. :P The song itself is fairly catchy, but it didn't go the distance for me - I got tired of it after a few plays.

Yui - Again
First, I may have mentioned this before, but she purdy.

Of the songs on there, I like the B-side, Sea, the best. It's a soft ballad with a bit of power in the chorus and it's sooooo pretty. <3 The title track's pretty good too - one of her rocky songs.

Guardian 4 - Omakase Guardian
Are they a Hello Project subgroup thing? They sound like one, and their name sounds like one. Wikipedia! Ding! Yay!

If you don't know what I just referenced, you need to watch this video NOW.

Anyway, typical catchy H!P stuff.

Zard feat. Kuraki Mai - Sunao Ni Ienakute
Eeeee, Zard sounds exactly the same as before! Very pretty, very 80s-sounding songs. I didn't pay much attention to them this week (you'll see why in a minute) but now I want to keep playing them.

Kishimoto Hayami - See You Darling
R&B-tinged pop. I really, really like the first B-side of this, Epilogue. The other two songs aren't brilliant, but they're not bad.

Ayuse Kozue - Apple Pie
I downloaded this thinking it'd be like One and Cry Baby (the latter of which I loved to death) but it wasn't much like that at all. These are faster songs, and while the title track and second B-side are OK (especially the second B-side, which again, I didn't notice much for reasons that will become clear in a moment), they're nothing on Cry Baby. The first B-side didn't do it for me at all.

Tommy February 6 - Everyday At The Bus Stop
I'm not normally a fan of Tommy February 6, but I knew I had to download it after someone showed me the video. Sweet Valley High crack dreams!

Sawajiri Erika - Free
Most of her stuff doesn't do it for me at all, but this song was pretty good - pop with a bit of rock.

Orange Range - Ikenai Taiyou
Pop-rock with a summery sound, pretty good.

Jyukai - Ai No Hoshi
Girl pop-rock, pretty good. Again, didn't get as much play as usual for a reason that I am going to tell you...

NOW.

MIDDLE EASTERN MUSIC OMG
OH MY GOD THIS STUFF IS SO GOOD. Seriously, I don't know what it is about Indian and Middle Eastern music, but I really love the kind of melodies those songs have. The person I got it from (via this post in jpop_uploads) uploaded a big compilation album for me after I said I liked this mix, so expect more of this soon.

Also, those who haven't already, check out this video. It's freaking hilarious.

Kon Derm Jai Derm by Tata Young

2009-06-07T05:01:36Z

Is freaking amazing.

For those who know Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy, it's nothing like that. It's a really (really, really) beautiful ballad.

Also, I didn't used to be a fan of music in languages I didn't understand, but between this and the Middle Eastern music someone posted in jpop_uploads (the OP had asked for Jpop with an Arabian influence) and BoA's Korean stuff, I'm interested to hear more non-English, non-Japanese stuff? Does anyone know of anything good (especially pop, pop-rock, R&B or ballads)? Any language is fine.

Music 04/6/09

2009-06-04T07:53:09Z

So very, very tired. I got up at 2am this morning to finish a big translation I was working on. But by the most freak stroke of luck ever, my visit school got cancelled this afternoon, so I got to go home. Going to sleep at 1:45pm would be a very, very bad idea though (I can't get into properly fucked-up sleep patterns yet, as I still have a full-time job) so I shall post this week's songs instead!

Itou Yuna - Dream
Only 5 new tracks, but it was really good to listen to the single/B-side tracks again. I actually really liked Koi Wa Groovy x2 a lot this time round, whereas before I didn't think much of it all. Somehow it reminds me of the night I went to the yosakoi performance in Sasebo and got stranded there (and to add insult to injury, the show sucked - hardly any dances, the rest was just an hour or two of talking.) Anyway, it reminds me of then, but the weird thing is, I don't remember actually playing it then - I remember playing something else. *looks at date in iTunes* Ah! It must have been when I went to FUK a couple of weeks before that! Anyway, I really like that song now.

I also really liked replaying Miss You, as I've always loved that song. Actually, I can't think of any single/B-side tracks on there that I didn't like.

Out of the new tracks...my favourite was Baila Baila, which has kind of a Hawaiian sound to it. I also really liked No One Else, which is a ballad.

B'z - Best Pleasure II
I rented this to get Gold, which was in this book I was reading that deconstructed Jpop lyrics (and I'm glad I did, because it is now one of my favourite Jpop ballads.) I kept the whole album and after listening to Flashback I decided to dig out the whole album and give it a listen. And I'm glad I did, because if I liked Flashback, I LOVED this album. It's of their stuff from 1999-2005, I guess, and just SO AMAZING. I seriously cannot choose favourites. It's poppy rock (with the occasional power ballad, which by definition are awesome) and I love it so. I had planned on getting hold of their other best-of albums, but now I think I may have to get hold of all their albums.

Lady Gaga - The Fame
This was weird, weird, weird to listen to. I've barely listened to any English music in years, first because I didn't like a lot of what was out at the time and now because I have so much Jpop to listen to that I've had to invest in an external harddrive. So I don't listen to English music much, and the only time I listen to current, mainstream English music is when I go home. So this album made me really nostalgic for my last trip home, even though I didn't actually play it then.

It's a great album. I particularly loved the melodic R&B songs, like Paparazzi, Poker Face, Boys Boys Boys, Paper Gangsta and I Like It Rough. I also really liked Summerboy, which is a poppier track, Starstruck, which is pretty standard R&B, and Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say) and The Fame, which I'd loved to begin with. And Lovegame, purely for the references to "taking a ride on your disco stick."

Mystery Jets - Half In Love With Elizabeth, Young Love, MJ.
Bruce, my friend who upped it for me, describes it as "neo-New Wave pop". It is really, really good. I've grabbed the whole album, so expect to see that some time soon. Also, check out the video for Half In Love With Elizabeth. XD

The Pussycat Dolls - When I Grow Up
I downloaded this because it was the promotional song for Cycle 11 of ANTM (I'm going through the promotional songs for each series, or at least the ones that are posted on Wikipedia) and when I got to the chorus, I was like "OH! THIS SONG!!" Me and my sister played this a couple of times when I was home last time, and she told me that the part that goes "I wanna have groupies" sounds like "I wanna have boobies" and so I can't hear it as anything but "boobies" now either. XD Also, we call them the Pussycat Ditzes because of a skit on What Now aaaaaaaages ago, before I came to Japan. XD It was called New Zealand's Dumbest Adult, and it was a parody of New Zealand's Brainiest Kid, this kids' quiz show (which was (unintentionally) hilarious in itself. Me and most of my family would just sit in the lounge mocking the shit out of it.) The parody featured about six dumb adults on this quiz show (the host was played by the winner of NZ's Brainiest Kid, and it was hilarious because she had the NZBK host's mannerisms down pat and mimicked them at every possible moment XD) and each week, the person who answered the question correctly (usually unintentionally) would have to leave. One of the dumb adults was "a singer in The Pussycat Ditzes" and me and my sister have called them that ever since.

Now for some songs from this year's Eurovision Song Contest! I want to eventually listen to all of them, but here's the top 5 + one my friend put me onto.

Sakis Rouvas - This Is Our Night (Greece, #7)
My friend posted the video of this in her blog because she was mesmerised by his dancing shirt. You will be too!

As a song, it's actually very catchy, and the lyrics scream "English ganbare song" in the most hilarious way. Seriously, it's like someone took every cheesy "Go for it, achieve your dreams!!!!!!1!!one!" Jpop song, put them all together and translated the result into English. There's even a "Yes, we can." XD Also, the part that goes "Fly to the top, baby/Yes, we can do it" makes me think of those ANA ads that I saw in FUK Airport on the way back from Yokohama in March saying "YES, WE CAN FLY".

Alexander Rybak - Fairy Tale (Norway, #1)
THIS got the highest score in the history of the contest and almost twice as many points as the second place winner? SERIOUSLY?! I mean, it's not bad, but it's not all that either. Somehow this kind of turns me off (I'm always like that. If I think something's just OK to begin with and then see it getting hyped to shit, I generally like it less.)

Like I said, though, it's pretty good, upbeat pop song accompanied by a violin. Maybe it just won because it was different from the usual Europop/Eurodance/Ricky Martinish stuff.

Yohanna - Is It True (Iceland, #2)
This song really, really reminds me of No Angels, the winners of the German series of Popstars, the forerunner of Idol. It's a ballad and even if it didn't make me wicked nostalgic for the beginning of uni when I played their debut album a lot, it's a nice song.

AySel and Arash - Always (Azerbaijan, #3)
Fairly standard, catchy Europop, with some traditional-sounding music at the beginning. I like it quite a bit.

Hadise - Dum Tek Tek (Turkey, #4)
This is my favourite song of this week's batch. Very, very catchy, and I like her voice a lot too, it reminds me of Pandora. I want to look for some of her albums.

Jade Ewen - It's My Time (UK, #5)
This song confuses me. I know the UK do some good stuff (though like I say I haven't listened to much lately) and THIS was the best they could submit? It's a Whitney Houstonish ballad and it's not terrible, but it's my least favourite of this week's batch. When I Zamzarred it the commenters on YouTube were saying stuff like "We [the UK] should just stop entering, our entries always suck and everyone makes fun of us." I don't know about "always" because this is the first year I've listened to the Eurovision songs, but if this song is anything to go by, I can see what they mean.

And now an older Eurovision song!

Bucks Fizz - Making Your Mind Up
This was Britain's entry in 1981 and it won. I didn't find it much to write home about, but it's kind of catchy, I guess. Also, it has the same "English ganbare song" thing as Dancing Shirt Man. Also, the line "Don't let your indecision take you from behind" is making me giggle far too much. (It's OK, Bucks Fizz, I prefer my indecision to use the missionary position too.)

And now for the Japanese stuff!

Okui Masami - Starting Over
Eh, it's OK. Standard anime pop stuff. I might like it more ordinarily, but this week was almost all stuff I loved, so it didn't stand out.

Arashi - Ashita No Kioku/Crazy Moon ~Kimi Wa Muteki~
Not my favourite single by them (but again, it had stiff competition) but pretty good. Ashita No Kioku is a ballad and quite pretty, and Crazy Moon is an upbeat, catchy, 80s-ish song.

There will be a brief moment of delay while I jump up and down squeeing about the fact that I have another biggish translation job! This is especially yay-worthy, as the first one was haaaaard and I was worried that I hadn't done it well enough. But I must have if they've given me more! :D

Misia - Ginga
The reason Arashi didn't stand out so much this time. Wow. Just wow. On my first listen I didn't like it to begin with, because she had that golf-ball-in-her-mouth thing that I remember Nakashima Mika doing. Then it kicked into the chorus. And just...wow. I freaking LOVE strong, powerful ballads like this. You can suck on golf balls all you want, Miss Misia, if that's the result.

For B-sides...I wasn't a fan of Itsumademo, but Sukoshizutsu Taisetsu Ni is really pretty too.

Garnet Crow - Doing All Right
The title track is OK, a nice mid-tempo song. I actually like the B-side, Nora, better, and not just because it reminds me of one of the most cracktastic Sweet Valley High books in the (already cracktastic) series. It's a ballad and really pretty.

Hi-Fi Camp - Hitotsubu Dai No Namida Wa Kitto
Nice, laid-back guypop. They remind me of One Draft, who sang Ai Wo Kudasai a few months back.

Ikimonogakari - Futari
And it's a hat trick for beautiful ballads! It makes me think of Boku Wa Koko Ni Iru on their latest album a few months back, which I also loved. I didn't bother keeping the B-sides, which were live performances of a couple of their previous singles that I wasn't so fussed on.

Yamada Yuu - Free
I felt that it was my duty to check this out, because Yamada Yuu played the evil heiress chick in Me-e-ei Chan No Hitsuji. It's pretty good - fairly standard, catchy R&B.

And finally, we have Ayase Haruka.
Period, Kousaten Days, Hikoukigumo
I had already been comparing this chick to Ueto Aya, as they've both each been in an airline drama/movie and a rich girl/poor guy drama, and then I found out last week that she sings too! Or sang, I should say, as she released these singles in 2006/2007. She's not bad. The first single's a bit blah, but I like the title tracks for Kousaten Days and Hikoukigumo a lot. Kousaten Days is one of those slowish songs that kind of sounds like the theme song of a TV show, and Hikoukigumo is faster and quite catchy. The B-side of the latter, Chiisana Kujira, is growing on me too. It's a ballad and quite pretty.

Topic for discussion: Who wore it better?

Also, that just reminded me that Ueto Aya has a new single coming out soon! Yay! I thought she was gone for good!

Also, Ayase Haruka was apparently arrested as a suspected spy in NZ after she was caught flying around in a plane taking pictures after/during the filming of Happy Flight. I like to think she just got arrested because the NZ airline industry hated her movie (though this is probably left over from my annoyance with Attention Please 1970.) I really want to watch it now to see how cracky/I-call-shenanigans it is. But it'll have to wait, cause I GOT ANOTHER BIG JOB!!!! WOOT!

Finally, a telemarketer just thought I was Japanese. Woot?

PANTS PRINCESS!!!!

2009-06-01T04:01:20Z

So, there was this drama recently called Uta No Oniisan, which basically features Oono Satoshi from Arashi as a singer on a kids' TV show. When he first starts at this show, it is ruled by these two egotistical and bizarre singers who like to dress up as a prince and princess. The prince (who is the worse of the two) starts to feel threatened by Satoshi and the other noob, so he purposely sticks a nail into the side of the stage and rips his pants on it, and hilariously yells "LOOK THIS PANTS!!!!!" So me and my friend have called him the Pants Prince ever since, and we call the princess (and the actress who plays her) Pants Princess by association.

Despite our pisstaking, as in many cases, we actually really like this actress, who is called Katase Nana. So when Julia discovered that she sings too and I discovered her best-of CD at the video library a few weeks later, I got it out and ripped it. It's not really my thing, but I thought I'd upload it on Megaupload for you guys. This will be available until the link expires, so enjoy! :D

Katase Nana - Reloaded Perfect Singles

Music 26/5/09

2009-05-26T15:26:18Z

How to tell you spend too much time on the internet: when you hear your principal grill a student on the plural of "child" and when they say "children" you immediately think "No, it's not! It's chrilden!"

So much stuff I was excited about this time. <3

B'z - Flashback (Disc 2)
The second disc from the album I posted last week. More catchy Euroey stuff.
Favourites: Oh! Girl, Break Through, Stardust Train, Rosy

Bonnie Pink - One
Soft acoustic rock, pretty nice.
Favourites: Won't Let You Go, Fuschia Fuschia Fuschia, Princess Incognito, Kane Wo Narashite, Himitsu, Get On The Bus, Ring A Bell

Matsuda Seiko - Bible (Disc 1)
Fairly typical 80s girlpop. It's samey, but good samey. I love Canary in particular, but I ended up adding 11 of the 19 tracks to my favourites playlist.

Vixen - Edge of a Broken Heart
I do love it when ANTM recappers put me onto awesome 80s songs. This is a powerful rock song by female vocalists and just so. So. Awesome. <3

Carly Simon - Let The River Run, We Have No Secrets
Little Black Book is responsible for these two. We Have No Secrets came out in the early 70s and is kind of eh, but Let The River Run (which came out in 1988 and was in Working Girl, which I want to watch purely because it was ripped off in a Sweet Valley High miniseries and I really want to see what the real thing was like.) Anyway, this song...wow. Just wow. So beautiful and powerful and uplifting. Last Monday when I went to a city about half an hour to an hour away to run some errands, I was playing this song almost nonstop.

Morning Musume - Shou Ga Nai Yume Oibito
I was just eh on this song at first, but I've gotten to really like it, especially after paying attention to the lyrics. I like to think that this impossible dream of his is to become a model and the reason she wants to dump him is because he spends all her money on cocaine, but I have a one-track mind. :P Anyway, I really like this song. It's pretty and sad and just aw. The B-side is...you know Take Off Is Now from their latest album? Like that, pretty much. Midtempo rocky stuff.

Superfly - My Best Of My Life
Beautiful, powerful ballad. I like it. I like it a lot.

Stephanie - Future
Catchy! The first B-side, Breakdown, is kind of slow rock and took awhile to grow on me, but it's pretty good. The second B-side is a remake of Pride, which, any version of this song makes me happy, because it makes me think of the movie, which I can't wait to see when it comes out on DVD (which I think is right after I leave for my few months in NZ - figures >_<) because it looks awesome.

Hirano Aya - Set Me Free/Sing A Song
I downloaded this purely because of this cover. The two songs are pretty much exactly like the cover - insanely catchy, upbeat pop. Good stuff.

Jyongri - Maybe Someday
As I kind of mentioned last week, this single is more of the same OK-but-not-great stuff Jyongri has been putting out for ages...until you get up to the last track, First Kiss. This is the Jyongri I fell in love with when I heard Hop, Step, Jump, Let Me In and Lost Girl. It just has that sound, I can't really put my finger on what makes it so great, but it is so, so awesome. I can has more of this, yesplzthkyou?

Imai Asami - Day By Day/Shining Blue Rain
More insanely catchy girlpop.

Buono - My Boy
And more! I like the B-side, Warp, better, but they're both great. And can I just say that I love the phone people for starting to include B-sides as ringtones? Now if they'd just go back and do How To Fly and Smile by Arashi, I would be a very happy bunny!

Yu-A - Aitai
R&B. Again, I like the B-side better. The title track is a ballad and I was wibbling over whether to keep it, then I heard the B-side, Little Girl, which is midtempo R&B and I really liked it. I kept the title track too and that's grown on me quite a lot too.

NEWS - Koi No ABO
Usually when I download a NEWS single I like the title track but the 345348756348 B-sides bore me to tears, but this time it was the opposite! The title track was just eh, but the first two B-sides, Labyrinth and Open Your Eyes, are really good! Labyrinth is fairly standard catchy pop stuff and Open Your is a pretty slowish song. The last track, a live performance of a song called Share which I haven't heard before in any form, is pretty good too.

Lady Gaga - The Fame
I downloaded this upon discovering that it was the promotional song of Cycle 12 of ANTM (those of you who followed it, what were your thoughts?) and I'm glad I did because it is very, very catchy. Watch this space for the promotional songs from the previous cycles!

Kahara Tomomi - As A Person
I downloaded this years ago, purely because Grace told me that Tomomi wrote it as a jab at her producer, who she had been dating and then broke up with. I wasn't a fan at the time, but as I enjoyed Hate Tell A Lie recently I re-downloaded it and liked it quite a bit.

Music 14/05/09

2009-05-14T13:09:14Z

First of all, Katou Miliyah, you make me sad. You come out with this amazing single and almost-as-good album 2 years ago that makes me download everything else you release in the hopes that there'll be someone else as good. And then release increasingly uninspiring singles and albums ever since. But I can't stop downloading your stuff because a part of me always wonders if I'm missing another Eyes On You/Kono Mama Zutto Asa Made. Damn you, Miliyah.

And Jyongri, you're just as bad. Your latest single is just good enough for me to keep it, but only just. And again, I can't ignore your releases in case by some chance you turn out to have gone back to releasing stuff as amazing as Hop Step Jump, Let Me In and Lost Girl.

ETA: I've just listened to the last track on your latest single, First Kiss. That's more like it. I can has more of this, yesplsthkyou?

Finally, Hey!Say!Jump. I'll put up with the stupid pun that is their name, but when the hell are they going to put a fucking album out? They've been in action for nearly 2 years, released 5 singles, all of which went to #1 according to Wikipedia, but still no album. What's the deal, Johnny?

Also I must take back every bad thing I said about Ueto Aya's character in Attention Please. I thought she was annoying, but she has nothing on the incredible, eye-sporking, vomit-inducing celluloid torture that is Kino Hiroko's character in the original 1970 version. (And I can't stop watching it because it's an airline show, and thus I must watch every episode.) Come back, Aya, and bring your bed head and fierce (and legitimate) scarf with you. And touch and play with everything in the cabin as you go. (Although it does make it more bearable to remember that the couple of industry insiders I talked to about the 1970 version both said that there is not a snowball's chance in hell of someone as bad as Kino Hiroko ever being allowed to be responsible for passengers.)

Also, these ads with Ueto Aya are freaking awesome and I give jadore_histoire huge props for finding the first two.

And now for the music!

B'z - Flashback (Disc 1)
The first disc of a 2-disc best-of album (the second one's coming up next week.) This is pretty different to the stuff they release now; it's very upbeat, catchy, euro-ish pop. And it is so, so good. <3 Although, like I said last week, some of the lyrics are a bit suspect. XD
Favourites: Safety Love, Kimi No Naka De Odoritai, Lady-Go-Round, Hurry Up, Guitar Kids Rhapsody, Dakara Sono Te Wo Hanashite (although I really liked pretty much everything.)

Lindberg - Lindberg II
80s pop-rock. Like Lindberg I, this is samey, but in a good way - it all sounds similar, but it all sounds good. I didn't even attempt to pick favourites, it all went on my favourites list.

Metis - Te Wo Tsunagou
I had no idea Metis released more (mini) albums after One Love! I came across this and her other mini albums when I was looking for her latest single on Jpopsuki. It's all pretty slow, which would normally bore me, but it has that reggae sound which I love, so I actually really liked this album.

One thing that gets. On. My. Tit, though, is the way she pronounces "everybody" as "everyborry" in Te Wo Tsunagou. I freaking HATE it when Japanese people pronounce the "d" sound (especially in words like "water" where the "t" is pronounced like a "d" in several branches of English) like an "r" and think they're being soooooooo clever. IT IS NOT AN R. IT IS A D. Yes, your tongue hits a similar part of the front of your mouth to the Japanese R. It is still not the same. And your tongue is nowhere near the same place when pronouncing the English "r" (it doesn't touch the front of your mouth at all, in fact), so pronouncing the "d" in "everybody" like an English "r" like Miss Metis has done here? Instant fail.

That aside, though, this is a great album. I love what a strong voice she has, and I love that this album is all slow songs yet I still love it. If I had to pick favourites I'd probably say Te Wo Tsunagou (in spite of the "Look! R!" thing) and Aoi Namida.

Also, her name has always made me think of "penis" for some reason. :P

Berryz Koubou - Waracchaou Yo Boyfriend, Munasawagi Scarlet, Kokuhaku No Funsui Hiroba, Tsukiatteru No Ni Kataomoi
Various singles from 2006-2007. They're all pretty catchy, but I like Waracchaou Yo Boyfriend and Tsukiatteru No Ni Kataomoi in particular.

Rock'A'Trench - Every Sunday Afternoon
A single from last year by the same people who sang the theme song of Me-e-ei Chan No Hitsuji (which, incidentally, one particularly sex-obsessed student of mine changed to "Sa-shi-ta-ku-te, sa-shi-ta-ku-te..." (I wanna put it in, I wanna put it in...)) Pretty good guyrock stuff.

D&D - Grab My Love, Girl Friends, You're No.1; Aya & Chika - Kiss In The Sun, Dancin' My Heart, Waitin' For Heaven
Mid-90s euro. Whenever I feature euro I pretty much always say that euro is a big hit or miss for me - I either love it or it bores me silly. This is definitely the former, especially You're No.1, Dancin' My Heart and Waitin' For Heaven.

Metis - Zutto Soba Ni
Pretty ballad. I like the B-side better, though, as it's a lot more reggae.

The Wallflowers - One Headlight
Awesome soft-rock song from my early high school days that I rediscovered when I watched Excess Baggage during Golden Week.

ANNOUNCEMENT: The requests are back!

2009-05-10T09:00:19Z

On August 3 I am going to be finishing my contract here and going back to NZ for a few months. Once I arrive in NZ on August 4, I will be taking requests again, for a fee. For those who remember when I did it for free, the upside of doing it this way is that your translation will get done a lot quicker. Instead of spending months on a waiting list, you'll get your translation in a couple of days. It's also more flexible - I now take romaji-only requests as well, and you can also request translations of material other than lyrics. See here for details.

Music 06/5/09

2009-05-06T04:41:29Z

This week it's all (or mostly) H songs. No, not that kind of H*, songs that start with H.megchan(God, I haven't thought of her as Megchan in years) did another of those alphabet memes (I tried for a little while last year but I've never been good at narrowing shit down, so I'd have 100 or more songs that would take me forever and a day to write about, so I decided to just stick to recent stuff because it's more manageable.) I wound up grabbing a ton of songs, so I listened to those instead of albums.

*That's next week, by the sounds of it. This song by B'z that I'm listening to as I'm typing this has a line that I think is supposed to say "You're tasty girl", but actually sounds like "Your testicle". I'm pretty sure there's another song in next week's batch that set off my dirty mind too.

Ah yes, here it is: Kimi No Naka De Odoritai (I Want To Dance Inside You.) This would make me giggle at the best of times, but having just rewatched Borat last week (for those who haven't seen it, at one point he talks about making romance explosions on Pamela Anderson's "stomatch")...yeah. Dying here!

Which just reminded me of a somewhat embarrassing moment in Year 13 Japanese, where our teacher (who, incidentally, I had a gigantic crush on) read out the description of this speech contest we could enter. Year 13s had to talk about an element of contemporary Japanese culture, and one of the suggested topics was "chapatsu (dyeing hair)". Most NZers under 35-40 apparently pronounce "here" and "hair" the same, but my mum is British, and while she's pretty much lost her British accent, it's not 100% NZ either, so I have always distinguished between "here" and "hair" (my dad pronounces them the same, but I always thought that was a quirk, not the other way round.) So when my teacher read out "dyeing hair" I misheard it as "dying here" and thought a whole lot of Japanese people came to NZ to die and told several other people that they did. I was really embarrassed when I saw the paper for myself and found out what it really was, and I have never told anyone about this before.

First up is not an H song, it was after we got on the topic of Matsuda Seiko, who starred in Natsufuku No Eve, where the main characters go to NZ (it was an 80s movie set in Christchurch/the South Island, not 00's Auckland (my hometown, which is on pretty much the other end of the country), but it was still pretty cool to watch.) I don't remember how we got on the topic, but megchansaid the only song by Matsuda Seiko she really liked was this one, and since it was just the one song I just added it to the list with the H songs.

So I give you Watashi Dake No Tenshi ~Angel~. It's a soft ballad and quite pretty.

B'z - Hadashi No Megami
One of my favourites of the bunch. It has that early 90s boypop sound that I love so, so much. <3 <3 <3

Bad Religion - The Handshake
megchandescribes this as "melodic punk". I am beginning to discover that I quite like punk music. I preferred Slumber, which she posted in her S meme, but this is pretty good too.

The Blue Hearts - Kimi Ni Yasashiku
Japanese punk music with a male vocalist. I don't like it as much as Linda Linda, which is awesomesauce, but it's pretty good.

Blumchen - Heut Ist Mein Tag
German electronica. I took German in high school and remember enough to know that the first few words mean "I feel ---" but translate literally as "I feel me/myself ---" which makes me think of Natasha from Cycle 8 of America's Next Top Model (it's #2 in the general commentary after the Tyraisms.) One of the first icons I ever made was about that. *points to icon*

The Brilliant Green - Hello Another Way ~Sorezore No Basho~
Mellow, acoustic-y ballad. Not my favourite song to begin with, but it's really pretty and once I got done squeeing over EARLY 90S BOY BANDS OMGWTFBBQ I got to really like it.

Damn Yankees - High Enough
80s hair metal. I didn't know what hair metal was before this and pictured something really heavy, but this is actually a very nice, melodic rock ballad. (And I swear I've heard the opening verse before, maybe in an ad or at the beginning of a video, but I can't think where.)

Don Henley - The Heart Of The Matter
80s power ballad. Not my favourite, but pretty good.

Faster Pussycat - House Of Pain
I downloaded it purely because Potes on Television Without Pity referenced it as the title of this recap of America's Next Top Model...wait, no, it was the actual title of the episode! Huh. Either way, you should check out this video about it by Rich on fourfour, because it is freaking hilarious. The best stuff is from 1:38 pretty much all the way to the end.

Anyway, this song is another 80s power ballad and it's pretty good. The verses don't do much for me but I like the chorus quite a bit.

Fukuyama Masaharu - Heart
Laidback acoustic song, released in *wikis* 1998. Nice song.

Gin Blossoms - Hey Jealousy
Midtempo rock song from the early 90s. It's kind of catchy, but there's also something kind of beautiful about the vocals. Also, not that I'm a tad preoccupied about how I'm going to get my translation career started in a few months or anything, but the first few times I played this playlist I wasn't looking at the track names, so I heard the part that goes "Heyyyy jealousy" as "Aaaaagency". XD

GLAY - However
J-rock ballad that came out in 1997. It didn't do much for me at first, but as with Hello Another Way, once I was done squeeing over early 90s boypop I realised how beautiful and powerful and awesome it is and I really like it.

Hide - Hurry-Go-Round
I'm going to take a guess and say that this came out in the late 90s *wikis* Yes! I thought so! It just has that sound, that takes me back to my early days of high school in the late 90s, even though I've never heard it before.

God, this song is amazing. It's a midtempo soft rock song and it's so beautiful. I love the instrumentals. They take me straight back to 1997/98 (even though, like I said, I heard this song for the first time last week) and just omg. So beautiful. Da-dada-dada-da-dada-da-dadada, da-dada-dada-da-dada-da... LOVE. <3

Hootie and the Blowfish - Hold My Hand
Early 90s rock. Not bad.

Hyde - Hideaway
I always assumed Hyde's stuff would be too heavy for me, but this song is actually really catchy. The chorus makes me think of the end theme of a movie or something, which is a surefire way to my heart.

Although is it just me or does "You've grown a big bojangle" sound kind of dirty?

Hysteric Blue - Haru ~Spring~
Late-90s pop-rock, reminiscent of Judy And Mary. I can't listen to a whole album of their stuff, but individually their songs are pretty good. Again, the chorus of this song sounds like it could be the end theme of something, so it makes me happy.

Kahara Tomomi - Hate Tell A Lie
I actually bought the single of this from megchan in 2005 but didn't like it all that much. Then I re-listened to it last week and liked it quite a bit...because it reminds me of 2005! Gotta love the way my mind works. She does have quite a distinctive squeaky voice, though, so the distinctiveness would have helped.

KAT-TUN - Haruka Na Yakusoku
I don't generally like KAT-TUN, but this song is so upbeat and catchy that I can't not like it.

Kiss - Hide Your Heart
Rock/metal. As with Hyde I'd assumed that they'd be too heavy for my liking, and I don't think I could listen to a whole album of their stuff, but this song isn't bad at all.

L'Arc En Ciel - Honey
J-rock. L'Arc En Ciel are one of those bands that I get bored stiff listening to a whole album of, but when Grace posts individual songs I often quite like them (especially Vivid Colours and Snow Drop. God, I love those songs.) I didn't like this one quite as much as those two, but I like it quite a bit nonetheless.

Le Couple - Hidamari No Uta
Ballad with a female vocalist. It took a little while to grow on me, but it's quite pretty.

Letters To Cleo - Here & Now
Alternative rock with a female vocalist. It's not my favourite song by them (that's I Want You To Want Me...god, I love that song. Although the fact that it makes me crazy nostalgic for high school doesn't hurt) but pretty good.

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - Hello
Punk cover of the Lionel Richie song. Between this and their cover of The Rainbow Connection, I have to conclude that punk covers make everything better.

Mr Children - Hoshi Ni Naretara
Early 90s guypop. God, I love that stuff.

My Little Lover - Hello Again ~Mukashi Kara Aru Basho~
Mellow, acoustic rock with a female singer. Another one that took awhile to grow on me but I really like now.

Rocket Diary - Heart Messenger
Korean rock, not bad. Pretty catchy.

Saitou Kazuyoshi - Hey Mr Angryman
I translated this song a little while ago without ever listening to it, and I always associated it with Hey Mr Wonderful by Smile, which is the cheesiest of Europop. XD (And incidentally reminds me of the first time I came to Japan, in 2003.) The song is actually laid-back guyrock and pretty good.

Spitz - Hadaka No Mama De
Slow early 90s j-rock. Not my favourite of the bunch, but it still has that nostalgic sound that takes me back to my childhood days when I've never even heard it before.

TM Revolution - High Pressure, Hot Limit
Oh, man. Early 90s boypop at its awesomest. At first I actually thought they were Being, a studio that produced most of my most favourite 90s boypop EVER. They're not, but still awesome, catchy and so very 90s. LOVE.

Tommy February 6 - Hey Bad Boy
I'm not a fan of most of Tommy February 6's stuff (other than Where Are You My Hero, which is <3 <3 <3) Euro is very, very hit or miss with me, and Tommy February 6 is usually a miss. This song isn't my favourite either, but it's not bad, I guess. If you like Euro you'll probably like it.

Yuzu - Hajimari No Basho
Guy folk music. I love the harmonica melodies.

Blu Cantrell - Hit 'Em Up Style
Not a couple of hours before I read megchan's post, I read this snark in bsc_snark, in which the snarker says:

...she can hear the screaming before she even gets to her door. Her dad must have just gotten the credit card statement and he’s pissed by how much money Mrs. McGill has been dropping on jewelry. It sounds like she did go overboard—her jewelry tab adds up to $2000 on one statement. Mr. McGill generally acts like a giant douchebag in all the books, but I’m on his side here. That’s a lot of money to throw down in one month on luxury items. Anyways, her defense is that he works so much that he neglects her, so she shops. Clearly, she took advice from the divine Blu Cantrell and decided that she’s going to “hit him up style” and spend all his cash.

I had already been debating looking for the song and then I came across megchan's post! 'Tis fate!

This song is really good. I did remember it from when it first came out so there's a bit of nostalgia there, but I was a lot pickier about my music then, so I never listened to it all that much, so in some ways it was like hearing it for the first time, especially since I'd never properly listened to the lyrics, which are hilarious. XD

Music 25/4/09

2009-04-25T11:28:40Z

Don't travel from Kyushu to Tokyo and back in less than 24 hours, kids. Just don't do it. Trust me on this one.

At least I had some great music for it, though. This was a good week!

Do As Infinity - Break Of Dawn
Signs that I have perhaps watched a little too much Me-e-ei Chan No Hitsuji (and I STILL haven't watched more than half of the series!): I literally cannot hear one line in Yesterday & Today as anything other than "It's so precious when you have the bishies", even after finding out what they're actually singing. Personally, I like my version better. It is precious when you have bishies. Especially Mizushima Hiro.

Back on topic. This is their first album, and pretty standard DAI fare - great pop rock by a female vocalist. Favourite tracks are Standing On The Hill, Oasis, Raven and of course Yesterday & Today. XD

Aiuchi Rina - Be Happy
Her first album. After being meh on her latest album, I thought I was a bit Rinaed out, but this album is really good. So much catchy stuff! My favourites of the songs I hadn't heard before (which I played again and again on the way to Tokyo for the first of my two events) were Be Happy?, Her Lament ~Dare Ni Mo Kikoenai Kanojo No Sakebi~, Ohh! Paradise Taste, Kimi E No Sayonara and Dear... From..., and I also really liked Close To Your Heart and It's Crazy For You when I heard them a little while ago.

Lindberg - Lindberg I
Pop rock with a female vocalist. I love Lindberg so, so much. Their Lindberg IV album is one of my favourite albums of all time. This isn't quite as mindblowing as that one, but there's still a lot of really great stuff on it. I've always loved Route 246 (it actually reminds me of when I first moved here *nostalgia*) and Crazy Diamond was a particular favourite this time around, but I've favourited pretty much everything.

Bonnie Pink - Joy/Happy Ending
Mellow acoustic rock, not bad, though it got overshadowed by the awesomeness of the other stuff I was listening to this week.

Olivia - Sailing Free
Girl rock, really good.

Bennie K - Fuurigan In The House, Rararai Lie, Echo, Aoi Tori, Waiha
What's happened to Bennie K? The moment I started to really like them, they've dropped off the face of the earth. These songs are from their last studio album, The World. Bennie K are a J-urban group, but their music is really accessible even to those who aren't usually a fan of J-urban stuff. And one of them (Yuki, the singer) is from the town next to mine! I shit you not!!!

Fuurigan In The House, Rararai Lie and Waiha are particularly good, and Waiha kind of makes me feel sad and nostalgic. Maybe it's the references to going home from a really good trip. Also, "talofa" and "tasi, lua, tolu fa" are actually Samoan, and as there are quite a few Samoan people in NZ, I understood it* and was like "WHOA! Samoan in a Jpop song?! I like!"

*I've never learned Samoan, but I did hear those things in passing, and "tasi, lua, tolu fa" sound similar to the Maori "tahi, rua, toru, wha (pronounced "fa")" (now if someone put THAT in a Jpop song, I would faint) so I've always remembered it.

Music 15/04/09

2009-04-16T14:40:52Z

Another quiet-ish week. I was starting to panic last week, but I've found another company or two that may be interested, and I've got the networking events coming up this weekend and next Tuesday, so I'm feeling better about things. And my new-term-itis is gone too! I'm always depressed about having to actually do work again instead of getting paid to dick around on the net, but I had the first classes of my last term today and I'm feeling better about things. Especially as the new English teacher is a million times better than her predecessor. Yesssss!!!! Some of the students who had him last year and had gotten used to getting away with anything tried it on for her, but the majority of them were in work mode, rather than circus mode like they were towards the end of their year with their previous teacher. Also, one of them wrote an absolutely amazing essay for her holiday homework assignment. It blew me away.

I've also got most of my apartment sorted now, bar the stuff I'm actually using. Spent all Sunday and several evenings before that packing up my shit, throwing out my and my predecessors' crap, and setting aside a bunch of other shit to either sell on or take to a secondhand shop. My apartment is so neat and uncluttered now! When I move into my permanent apartment (which may be the next one but may also be the one after that, depending on how much work I can get and how the visas work - I'm finding out about visas when I go to Tokyo in a couple of days) I'm going to try and keep it like that. I'm not sure how long that'll last, but I'mma try!

And now to stop the rambling and get down to the music!

Aiuchi Rina - Thanx
I can never read the word "thanx" without thinking about how in 3rd form I hung out with a girl who liked to steal the soap out of the dispensers in the girls' bathrooms and pour it all over the toilet seats and stuff. When they replaced the machines with ones that you filled from the top rather than putting bags into, she got a pair of scissors and punched a hole in the front, so that the soap oozed out of the front and all over the place (I still remember her coming back from the toilet during class and saying "Go look what I did! It's wonderful!") After doing it a few times, she hit on the idea of writing a message on the mirrors with one of the bars of soap. I think it may have been me (or at least partly me) who decided that the message should say "Ha ha, thanx 4 the soap". To this day, I crack up whenever I remember it.

That's the only think I really enjoy about this album, though. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that it, to quote what Rina sounds like she's saying right at the end of the title track, "Sux-x-x-x!"

I hate that Rina puts so many singles and B-sides on her albums. It's OK when it comes to her earlier albums, which I didn't listen to the singles for, but it does suck(x-x-x!) that there's so many repeats and so little new stuff. And, I don't know, maybe I've listened to too much of her stuff lately, but I actually found most of the new songs bad-samey rather than good samey. The only new song I remember offhand is Little Star. Flicking through the rest of the album, Natsu No Maboroshi is pretty-ish if forgettable, Thanx (aka Sux-x-x!) is catchy-ish if forgettable, and everything else is just plain forgettable. Bleh.

BoA - My Name
Her 4th Korean album, and the only album I really liked this week. I do love BoA's early pop-R&B stuff. My favourite tracks are Spark, Maybe...Maybe Not? and Etude, but I like almost everything on this album.

V-U-Den - Best Blah Blah Long Name That I Can't Be Bothered To Remember
As with Aiuchi Rina, I'd already heard all the best stuff before, although at least in this case it's a best-of album so it's supposed to be stuff you've heard before. I enjoyed listening to it again, though, as the majority of the songs I'd already heard, I listened to a lot when I first moved here, which makes me pretty nostalgic given that I'm now near the end of my contract. (I know I say this a lot, but where the FUCK did the last 3 years go?!) The songs in question are Ai No Nukegara, Ajisai Ai Ai Monogatari, Aisu-Cream To My Pudding (aka the Playboy Bunny song) and Issai Gassai Anata Ni Ageru, and all of them are very catchy. Of the four, I like Aijsai Ai Ai Monogatari the best. Of the remaining tracks I like Koi Suru Angel Heart the best, though I like Fantasy and Jajauma Paradise a fair bit too. I also really like the music in Kurenai No Kisetsu. And actually, even the annoying, patriotic Kacchoi Ze! Japan (and before you ask, I would find a song called "New Zealand is Way Cool" or something even MORE annoying) grew on me with its catchiness. I still liked the stuff I'd heard previously way better, but all in all not bad.

Kuraki Mai - Puzzle/Revive
Standard Kuraki Mai fare; pretty good. I liked Revive the best. The B-side bored me so much I actually deleted it.

Actually, you know what? I'mma finish this tomorrow. I'm feeling all frowny at the moment, and tired too. How the hell did I get my body into a routine where I need to go to bed so damn early?! Then I wake up at 5:30am but can't be fucked getting up, so I just lie there awake and then fall back asleep just in time for my alarm to go off. Then since I woke up early I get tired early the next night. Bleh.

***********************************************************

OK, I'm back and feeling marginally better. :D

Lady Ga Ga - Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)
I listened to some of her other stuff before and wasn't fussed at all, but my mum and sister insisted that I try this and it was really good! Laid-back R&B. :D

AKB48 - Juunen Sakura
Catchy graduation song. I watched it at my friend's place and got all weepy because my "graduation" from JET is coming up soon. ;_; The B-side, Sakura Iro No Sora No Shita De, is a cute, pretty ballad.

Tohoshinki - Survivor
Catchy boypop.

Shibasaki Kou - Taisetsu Ni Suru Yo
Shibasaki Kou is kind of hit or miss for me. I really loved Tsuki No Shizuku but wasn't a fan of one of her other songs at all. I really liked this single, though. The title track is really pretty - not as powerful as Tsuki No Shizuku, but still bloody good. The first B-side, Dive is a faster track that still manages to be pretty because of her beautiful voice. The last track, Shiawase Tsunaida Ito, is fast-ish and really pretty and I just love it. <3

GLAY - Say Your Dream
OK, can I just say right now that I freaking hate it when artists cram several different songs into one track. You know, one song then blank then another one, all in the same track. I don't care what effect you're trying to achieve, the only effect it has on me is to annoy the living piss out of me. Just give each song its own track like a normal single/album, FFS! That said, the songs themselves were pretty good. Not the musical orgasm that some of their stuff has been, but pretty solid.

And since today I downloaded this week's crop of albums and singles, I think I'll also list the stuff I didn't like enough to keep. When I download each week's stuff, I generally know right away whether I like something enough to listen to it for the week. Sometimes I'll keep something that I'm initially iffy over and it'll grow on me, but if something doesn't do it for me at all, I'll just delete it. So these are the songs I deleted this week:

Beni - Kiss Kiss Kiss I can't believe it took me this long to click that Beni is Arashitty Beni, as Cori dubbed her. O_o The stuff she released as Arashitty Beni had about as little appeal for me as it did for Cori, but since she'd had a comeback on a new label with a new name, I thought her music might have improved too. I thought wrong. Still the same insipid, uninspired, badly-sung crap. And for me, lover of all manner of things cheesy and manufactured, to call something insipid and uninspiring, you know it must be bad.

C-ute - Bye Bye Bye I thought with this recent streak of good Hello Project stuff this might be good too, but it was more of the same uninspiring fare they've been putting out for ages. Also, I am disappointed that it wasn't a cover of this. :P

And now I'm all nostalgic. XD

Exile - The Monster ~Someday~ Just didn't do it for me.

Melody - Lei Aloha album I really loved her best-of album and quite liked her Ready To Go album, but I found this one really boring and samey.

I may do this every week, if I can remember/be bothered.

Music 05/4/09

2009-04-05T02:35:00Z

Hamasaki Ayumi - Next Level
I was ready to love this album purely because "taking it to the next level" is one of the things that Tyra loves to say on America's Next Top Model. I didn't find this album all that fierce, though. This album is very dance-influenced, and I'm not a great fan of dance music. I did like Identity, though, which sounds like a lot of her stuff from Secret and Guilty, as well as Days, which I love even more in contrast to the rest of the album, and Curtain Call, which is another beautiful ballad.

Also, her pose here is way stiff. Tyra would fully take her to task for that. She'd be impressed with the intensity in her eyes here and here, though. Fiiiiiiiierce!

AAA - Departure
I have a new thing to say when I blog about flying! "I was tossing up between the plane that will departure at 7:30 and the one that will departure at 8:40, but the one that will departure at 8:40 turned out to be $50 cheaper, so I went with the one that will departure at 8:40." (Listen to the intro and you'll see what I mean.)

This album had some good tracks, but as with Ayu's latest, it didn't really hit the spot for me. I liked Jamboree a lot, though, and Tabidachi No Uta is really pretty.

Mihimaru GT - The Best Of Mihimaru GT
Eh, it's OK. It was kind of samey. I do love Punkish, though, and Sayonara No Uta is significant for me because the lyrics make me think of a coworker who I was mates with who's just left. And I do like the classical bits in Kaerouka, and Yurume No Lady isn't bad either. But the rest kind of blurs together for me.

Various - Yesterday Once More ~Tribute To The Carpenters~
This one's Megaupload because I'm only keeping half of it but I thought you guys might like the whole thing.

Some of the covers didn't do it for me at all, but I liked I Need To Be In Love, We've Only Just Begun, Superstar, I Won't Last A Day Without You, Jambalaya and (They Long To Be) Close To You a lot. I particularly love that they included Jambalaya, which is one of my favourite, favourite songs by them. It's also funny because in some places the singer's accent is closer to mine than Karen's, which means I actually find some parts of it easier to understand (when I first heard it as a kid in the pre-internet days I didn't have a clue what most of the song was saying and thought Karen was talking about goldfish pie. XD)

Also, last year I saw an episode in The Simple Life 2 where Paris and Nicole experience the Louisiana culture that that song is singing about, so not only do I understand better what that song is about now, it makes me think of The Simple Life! It's a win-win situation!

Dolly Parton - Better Get To Livin'
First of all, a) I had no idea Dolly Parton was still around and b) English ganbare song! I want to go teach her Japanese.

This came about when someone on bsc_snark linked to this blog, which referenced the song. It's not bad, not bad at all. She's still got it!

Actually, have some of her older stuff purely because it makes me nostalgic and I love it. Particular favourites are Nine To Five, Potential New Boyfriend, Jolene and Why'd You Come In Here Lookin' Like That. And Baby I'm Burning.

AI - My Angel, Day Vacation
I wasn't fussed on her latest album as a whole, but I did like these two songs. My Angel is midtempo R&B (I love her voice on this song. I also love the sword noises at the beginning because it makes me think of Me-e-ei Chan No Hitsuji) and Day Vacation is a poppier song.

Do As Infinity - Shinjitsu No Uta (Mandarin Version)
It's Shinjitsu No Uta by Do As Infinity! In Mandarin! It's quite pretty, actually.

Yaguchi Mari - Seishun Boku
It's Yaguchi Mari! I thought she'd dropped off the face of the earth! This is an ultra-catchy, ultra-ganbare song, which actually fit my mood perfectly last week when I was all fired up about the industry networking events I'd just found out about. I played it all the way to the travel agency to book the flight that will departure at 8:40, and when I stopped off at the ATM to get the money for it I was running at full speed with that playing. Yeah, I'm a dork.

Although I can't resist being snarky about the part that goes "Instead of bitching, talk about your dreams": "*sigh* Fine. I won't bitch about what a twunt a certain individual is, I'll tell everyone how I dream that they'll leave soon instead..." (Funnily enough, said individual DID leave! Yay!)

Anyway! Great song!

Tamaki Nami - Give Me Up
New label, same sameyness. It's OK, but nothing I'd rave about.

Nishino Kana - Tookutemo
Eh, I liked Make Up better. This was OK but not brilliant, and to be honest I kept thinking it was off Tamaki Nami's single because it was so similar.

But! She pretty! I do like that long curly hair. I don't know quite why, but I do. <3

An offer and a request

2009-04-04T02:15:55Z

So. I leave here in 4 months (which is alternately exciting, shit-scary and really, really sad.) The plan, if I can do it, is to find enough freelance translation work to support myself by then, then go back to NZ for a few months until my pension refund comes through, then rock up to the Consulate, show them that I can support myself, get a visa and come back to Japan. So.

1. I bought a whole lot of hardsubbed bootleg drama DVDs when I first got into dramas. I will never watch these again. I don't often rewatch dramas, and even if I wanted to rewatch these I'd just get hold of raw files because I literally cannot watch fansubs anymore. Partly because a number of them are exceptionally bad which gives the translator in me an eyetwitch, but even if they are good, I can't leave them alone. I constantly compare what the fansubber put to what I would say, and it distracts me from the actual drama. So I was wondering if anyone wanted any of these? All you'd have to pay is the shipping, which would be a few bucks if that.

Joou No Kyoushitsu
Seikei Bijin
Hana Yori Dango
Nobuta Wo Produce
My Boss My Hero
Dragon Zakura
Gokusen
1 Litre No Namida
Densha Otoko
Koukou Kyoushi
Hotaru No Haka (non-anime version)

There's also a few bootleg DVDs of English movies that my predecessor left behind. Again, all you need to pay is the shipping, which is super cheap.

About A Boy
Casablanca
Kill Bill
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King
Once Upon A Time In Mexico
Dawn Of The Dead
Cabin Fever

2. Once I lose the day job I'll be back to having one job, not two, which means more time for watching dramas! But NZ broadband is limited (I think the highest my family's company goes is 10GB), so I don't want to go eating up all my family's broadband and leaving them with slow internet for the rest of the month, so I'm downloading all the dramas on my wish list now. Trouble is, there are a whole lot that I can only find hardsubbed. I'll watch them if I have to, but like I said, I find fansubs distracting as hell, even if they are decently done. So I was wondering if anyone had or knew where to find raw files for any of these?

Dandori
Isshun No Kaze Ni Nare
Kinpachi Sensei Series 6 (the one with Ueto Aya in it)
Ace Wo Nerae
Shimokita Sundays
Xmas Nante Daikirai
Otoko No Kosodate
Shomuni (seasons 1&2)

Thanks, and don't worry, I haven't forgotten this week's music post. It'll be here soon! :D

Music 26/3/09

2009-03-27T10:35:18Z

Comparatively less busy day these past couple of days. It's been good in that I've gotten a lot of other stuff done (I even managed to get my hair cut!) but after having near-solid work from this agency for about a month now, I start to get nervous when work becomes anything other than nonstop. Oh well, if it's this quiet again tomorrow I'll have time to research other agencies and networking events and stuff.

Also, I'm currently playing Lindberg's Lindberg IV album, which is one of my favourite Jpop albums of all time, but also reminds me of right before I moved here. I can't believe my contract is nearly up. Where the fuck did the 3 years go?!

Anyway! Time to come back to this week and post my music!

Morning Musume - Platinum 9 Disc
This makes me think of when the Vengaboys released The Platinum Album in 2000 (now THERE'S some nostalgia!) All I could think of was "But what if it doesn't GO platinum?" and kind of hoped that it wouldn't so I could laugh. (It did, though, IIRC. And actually, have a listen. Late 90s/early 00s electronica pop, yespleasethankyou! God, I miss 90s pop music. I loved that stuff so much.)

Anyway. As I mentioned before, Ame No Furanai Hoshi De Wa Ai Senai Darou blew me away (thanks aprilisloca for transcribing and translating the Chinese solos for me), Take Off Is Now made me think of cheesy and vaguely canonrapish yet nonetheless addictive airline dramas with Ueto Aya in them, which made me like it more than I would ordinarily, and the album as a whole was better than I expected. The break Tsunko took from writing original songs for them has done a world of good.

Also, um. For some reason, I misremembered the beginning of Watashi No Miryoku Ni Kizu, "There's a flaw in my attractiveness" as "There's a flaw in my little attractiveness", which made me think of this demotivational poster (NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK) in this thread on BigDaikon making fun of a scarily sad and overzealous ALT who is apparently real.

Anyway, great stuff!
Favourites: Ame No Furanai Hoshi De Wa, Take Off Is Now, Naichau Kamo, Guruguru Jump, Jounetsu No Kiss Wo Hitotsu, Kataomoi No Owari Ni. Mikan and Onna Ni Sachi Are also grew on me over the months.

BoA - ID Peace B
Her first Korean album, and again really good. I love the playful R&Bish pop stuff that BoA did in her early days so much. Come on, BoA, quit trying to be Kouda Kumi in the US and make some more of this! (Here or in the US, either works.)
Favourites: ID Peace B, Heart Off, Sara, No Way, Letting You Go, Someday Somewhere

Do As Infinity - True Song
Probably my favourite album of theirs so far. So much love for so many songs on here. I also got nostalgia for the summer holidays last year, when I translated/corrected the lyrics of most of their songs, because I remembered the lyrics.
Favourites: Under The Sun, I Can't Be Myself, Grateful Journey, One Or Eight, Wadachi, Ai No Uta. But ESPECIALLY Under The Sun, I Can't Be Myself and Wadachi. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Utada Hikaru - Poppin
The butler fighting song! R&B, kind of catchy, I guess, but I probably wouldn't have bothered keeping it if it wasn't for the images of bishie butlers fistfighting, as that album didn't do it for me at all.

Richard Marx - Angelea
It's actually spelled Angelia, but I had to spell it like this as a shoutout to how I came across it. I recently started watching the latest cycle of America's Next Top Model and, as usual, read the snarks afterwards. One of the snarkers took a liking to one of the semifinalists, Angelea, and referenced this song. So of course I had to take a listen and immediately really liked it, so I used Zamzar to convert the video to an mp3. It's a good song - it's an 80s ballad, and as I've mentioned before, 80s music = <3

Heart - These Dreams
Meanwhile, the other snarker referenced this song! I had actually heard this one before, but I never knew what it was called or who it was by, so I was really happy to be reintroduced to it. I love the ANTM snarkers. Not just hilarious pisstakes every week, but 80s songs too? HELL YEAH. This one's another ballad, by female singers this time. Such a pretty, powerful song. Have I mentioned that 80s music is awesome? Cause it is.

The Generous - Heart
From a song by Heart to a song called Heart! That was pretty much why I decided to download it, and I'm glad I did (make that three good songs courtesy of ANTM snarkers!) The title track is an R&Bish ballad and it's really pretty. It sounds a little like Aoyama Thelma; her latest single is next on my playlist and I kept forgetting which was which. The next track, Mirai No Tobira is midtempo R&B and also quite a pretty song. The last song, Renaissance, is a faster song. I love the chorus; it has that kind of soaring melody like a movie theme song that I really love.

Aoyama Thelma - Todoketai
Pretty, midtempo R&B. I liked this one better than a lot of her other recent stuff. It's still nowhere near the musical bliss that was Soba Ni Iru Ne or Diary, but it's pretty good. The second B-side, a cover of Someday My Prince Will Come, began to grate fairly quickly, though. I'd never heard the song before, so at first I thought it was quite pretty, but the lyrics began to annoy me pretty quickly. They're standard old-Disney stuff, and I'm...really not a fan of old Disney stuff. I liked the stuff like Aladdin, where they started to make it funnier, but the stuff like Snow White and Cinderella...bleck.

June - Always
Guy pop-R&B. Eh, it's OK. I liked it at first but after a few listens I got a bit bored of it.

Berryz Koubou - Dakishimete Dakishimete
I had been wholly disappointed with everything I heard by them over the past couple of years, but after how much I loved Morning Musume's latest stuff I decided to give them another go. And I really liked this single! It's not Koi No Jubaku (oh, how I loved that song. And damn, it reminds me of just before I came here...) but it's pretty damn good. The title track is one of those fast tracks that manages to be catchy and pretty at the same time, and the B-side, Sono Subete No Ai Ni is a cute, pretty ballad.