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Snowtsuku

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On 23.04.2020 at 4:53 PM, adamstan said:

The girl who made this song, Youko Matsuura, seems to be rather unknown, she doesn't have any records released,

I looked a bit more at her page, and it turns out she has some CDs, but it looks like they're self-published, and she sells/sold them only at her live shows, and a few shops/places she's friends with. So for me they're impossible to get :(

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The same day I heard Yoko Matsuura, I've also heard this:

Guess kind of humble beginnings of eurobeat ;) This song is a funny case. It's a cover of italo disco song. Actually, UK made one. So, I guess, euro-disco then? Nevertheless, original was this:

And it's interesting, because lyrics are completely different (it isn't the translation of Angie Gold's version), making them effectively different songs sharing the same melody. English song is angry, breakup/revenge song, while Japanese version is very lighthearted, with girl hunting at the disco for her "cinderella boy" ;) What's more, Yoko Oginome release also english version, which is the translation of JP one.

I have to say - I prefer both covers than the original :)

(for some reasons the embedding seems to be temporarily broken...)

Edited by adamstan
fixed embedding
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7 hours ago, adamstan said:

I looked a bit more at her page, and it turns out she has some CDs, but it looks like they're self-published, and she sells/sold them only at her live shows, and a few shops/places she's friends with. So for me they're impossible to get :(

Maybe she'll make a big label debut one day and get this stuff made in mass, let's have hope. ;) I won't comment on your multi-instrumentalist cover cause that makes me aware of my lack of musical talent too much. :P

In other news, I'm recently getting more and more enamoured with the Japanese alt. rock scene. There's such an awesome chill factor to this music, they really work well as ambient music when I'm working of doing random stuff on the net. I kind of feel that Western rock rarely goes for this kind of harmonious feel. :)

 

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1 hour ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

There's such an awesome chill factor to this music, they really work well as ambient music

Yeah, really. Very nice, chilled feel indeed.

1 hour ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

I kind of feel that Western rock rarely goes for this kind of harmonious feel.

Yeah. Maybe it's because often they try too hard to be... how to say... edgy? Not sure if it's the right word, but what I mean is, that I feel like when it comes to the current (and by "current" I mean last 20 or 30 years ;) ) Western popular music, anything that sounds nice and harmonious is easily being labelled as cheesy, fake etc etc - basically unworthy of attention. Or to put it in other words - Western musicians and listeners seem to value different things in music than Japanese.

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5 hours ago, adamstan said:

Yeah. Maybe it's because often they try too hard to be... how to say... edgy? Not sure if it's the right word, but what I mean is, that I feel like when it comes to the current (and by "current" I mean last 20 or 30 years ;) ) Western popular music, anything that sounds nice and harmonious is easily being labelled as cheesy, fake etc etc - basically unworthy of attention. Or to put it in other words - Western musicians and listeners seem to value different things in music than Japanese.

Right, I guess I also see that with Western fans of Japanese artists, to some degree? Particularly with Daoko, who started with these pretty weird electronic sounds and then released a much more "mainstream-sounding" Thank You Blue album (it's excellent BTW), which English speaking fans apparently see as selling out for money. God, how I hate those snobbish attitudes. :P

Bonus pleasantness (in the melody at least, the lyrics this band do seem to be a lot more sombre than the sound would suggest):

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 25.04.2020 at 2:33 PM, Plk_Lesiak said:

Maybe she'll make a big label debut one day and get this stuff made in mass, let's have hope. ;)

Update on this - I got in contact with Youko-san on FB. She does weekly live streams there, performing a few songs each time. I asked in comments for CDs, and she messaged me back with a link to an online store with her records. While it isn't possible to make international orders there (the ordering form accepts Japanese address only), that's where the cdjapan's proxy service comes in ;) Let's keep fingers crossed that they can get it for me.

Edited by adamstan
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This just came up on the radio :)

While I'm not a big Akina Nakamori's fan, I might check out the album this song is from - it sounds great :)

On 10.05.2020 at 3:02 PM, Plk_Lesiak said:

The search for the chillest Japanese music continues. I think we're getting close. ;)

I'm really liking the arrangement of this song.

Edited by adamstan
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On 5/13/2020 at 10:36 AM, adamstan said:

While I'm not a big Akina Nakamori's fan, I might check out the album this song is from - it sounds great

:o

Well, I challenge you to listen to my YouTube playlist of her songs and repeat that statement. I think she's pretty amazing, particularly where the more electronic/80s specific sounds kick in. Not even speaking of her voice. ^^

On the front of newer stuff, I've been charmed by a few Kanon Wakeshima's songs... There are few things that aren't made better by the chello, but the general vibe of these songs and her vocals also sum up to something very climatic... I still have to check out her earlier albums, but for the more mainstream J-pop, what I heard so far stands out in a very nice way. :3

 

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7 hours ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

Well, I challenge you to listen to my YouTube playlist of her songs and repeat that statement. I think she's pretty amazing, particularly where the more electronic/80s specific sounds kick in.

Yeah, I have listened to some of her albums from the 1984-88 period, and have to agree. She is great. I think that 2-3 years ago, while dipping my toes in Jpop for the first time I kind of brushed her off because at that moment I've been searching for something else, but it was clearly a mistake :D

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On 18.05.2020 at 11:13 AM, Plk_Lesiak said:

 

Nice, very chilled out :)

On 10.05.2020 at 6:22 AM, adamstan said:

Update on this - I got in contact with Youko-san on FB. She does weekly live streams there, performing a few songs each time. I asked in comments for CDs, and she messaged me back with a link to an online store with her records. While it isn't possible to make international orders there (the ordering form accepts Japanese address only), that's where the cdjapan's proxy service comes in ;) Let's keep fingers crossed that they can get it for me.

And so today CDJapan sent them to me :) At first Youko offered to send me the discs directly, but it turned out to be nearly impossible, since international postal services are currently suspended, and DHL, who still operates, is really horribly expensive for individuals - they quoted her 9600円 for this :o So we decided to wait until postal services resume. But then, I got reply from CDJapan, saying they can get those discs for me. They also use DHL, but they have some kind of partnership, so DHL shipping at CDJ is just 2600円  :o. So even after adding their proxy service fee, it still was reasonable.  Now let's just keep fingers crossed, that they arrive safely.

Also, next saturday (30.05) Youko will be doing special live performance on YT - from the studio, with HQ sound etc :) Here's the announcement:

 

And finally, let me spam with another one of my recordings ;) Yesterday I uploaded my cover of Ai Kawashima's "Garasu no kokoro":

 

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@Plk_Lesiak - some really good stuff there :)

Yesterday I heard Mariya Takeuchi's "Let's Get Married" again, and it reminded me about the thing we talked about earlier - how some of that '70s/'80s Jpop feels similar to our pop scene from that time. I mean, I instantly remembered this Anna Jantar's song:

And well, just have a look at that music video - you could easily swap Anna with Seiko Matsuda there, and nobody would notice (if not for the language difference ;) )

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Indeed :) It sounds very good with this natural-sounding singing. What was with the album version - did they overuse the vocal processing? (extreme tuning etc?)

BTW recently I tried to do kind-of "live" cover of one of abovementioned Yoko Matsuura's songs. Here's the result - officially approved by the author herself, despite my terrible singing ;)

Also, this time I also put English translation of lyrics in the subtitles.

Edited by adamstan
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