The Groove Music Life

From Midori’s J-Pop Overanalizations: Let’s see how well I pass the “You Know You’re A Wota When…” test:

You can name and/or recognize half or more of the AKB48 research students or H!P Eggs. I couldn’t even name anybody in AKB48 proper, except for Megumi Ohori because of her solo single.  

You own at least 10 photos of your favorite idol. Guilty as charged!

You buy t-shirts advertising your favorite idol/idol group and wear them on a regular basis. If you’re a man 25+, you don’t feel any regret or embarrassment about this. Regrettably innocent. Japan doesn’t seem to make their shirts in American XL size, otherwise I’d have at least one Morning Musume shirt and one Reina Tanaka shirt.

You know all of your favorite idol’s stats by heart. I know Reina Tanaka’s birthday, where she’s from, and what her first single with the band was. Beyond that, fuggedaboutit.

Whenever anyone insults your favorite idol or idol group, you immediately come to their defense… even if you know you’re b.s.ing half your compliments. (i.e. “They’re good singers!” “She can dance well!” “She has more personality than [insert some famous TV personality here]” “They’re NOT ugly!”) For one thing, I don’t bullshit my compliments when it comes to J-Pop. Other than that, guilty as charged, especially where my fiancée is concerned. All that having been said, anyone in MoMusu could run circles around [name of a certain teen pop/TV star deleted as I vowed never to mention her name on this blog ever again].

You have spent more than you make a day on idol goods. Guilty!

You can recognize all of your favorite idols’ voices. Yep.

You have almost a stalkerish obsession with wanting to meet them or even just see them in person. I definitely don’t know about stalkerish obsession, but let’s be fucking blunt: Morning Musume are my favorite band along with Iggy Pop & The Stooges, and since I’ve gotten to see the Stooges play live last year in what was the best fucking concert I’ve ever seen in my life, I need to get my ass to Japan someday so that I can complete that equation! If I got to MEET them, I’d probably be extremely fucking nervous.

You hear someone say something that remotely sounds like your favorite idol’s name and you immediately assume they’re also a wota. Let’s just say that it doesn’t help that Reina is also a common name for Latin females!

You heavily anticipate any news from your idol. Guilty.

You have sent fan-mail. Honestly, I wouldn’t know where to send them fan mail.

Your favorite idol appears in your dreams more than once. Hasn’t happened with Reina Tanaka yet, but I do remember a dream where I was supposed to be going away somewhere the next day and I’m in a room with my parents and Mika Todd. 

You have wondered what would happen if your idol dated you. (Mainly for guys, but if we include Johnnys here…) Actually, I haven’t wondered what a date with Reina would be like. A record-shopping trip with Reina would be quite interesting, though…

Your husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend/immediate family has learned to deal with your obsession long ago. Perhaps.

If your favorite idol is suspended/fired/retired/graduated/has no work with their agency/other you check more than two sources of possible info everyday and accept any rumors about his/her return to be true immediately. Um, seriously, I’m trying to put what happened with Ai Kago out of my mind, but…

You have at least 3 photobooks or DVDs of your favorite idol. To date, four photobooks and two DVDs of Reina.

You could colorcode a song sung by AKB48 O.o (I’m afraid of those who can!) I couldn’t even colorcode a song sung by MoMusu!

You do fandubs, cosplays, or fandances of your favorite idol or idol group. This would be fellow Cancerian wota Vee’s department. Personally, on a related note, I’m surprised I haven’t sat down with my guitar and figured out the chord changes to MoMusu songs!

You make birthday and worship posts on a blog/forum. Guilty in the first degree – hell, I started So Hot She Shits Fire on Reina’s 18^th birthday and did birthday posts that day on MotokoAoyama.com and YODC as well.

You don’t take the cheap route and buy your idol’s songs from iTunes or another mp3 site, you spend the money to order every edition of the CD/DVD. Unfortunately, I’ve taken the impatient route and downloaded a few things from either iTunes or Hello-Online.org’s tracker when the mail service for an advance order was way too slow for my liking. 

November 10th, 2008 | Tags: AKB48, Morning Musume, Reina Tanaka | Category: AKB48, Morning Musume, Personal, Reina Tanaka | Comments (1)

(Graphic borrowed from Daily Kos)

Back to normal fun here at TGML and So Hot She Shits Fire on Thurdsay. My Wednesday night is spoken for (last-minute TSO tickets for tomorrow night’s show in Wilkes-Barre); it’s a good thing that I subscribe to both the audio and video podcasts of Countdown.

November 5th, 2008 | Tags: Barack Obama | Category: Personal | Leave a comment

A couple of months back, Alternative Tentacles Records held a contest where they invited their customers/followers to send in a story about the most prized vinyl record in their collection. Top prize for the contest was a set of Alternative Tentacles’ latest vinyl releases. Alternative Tentacles said that they would print every story they had received after the contest.

Apparently, they got a whole shitload of entries, as it took awhile for their small staff to read through every entry and decide on the winner of the contest, but they kept to their word and posted every entry they could - including mine. It’s up on Alternative Tentacles’ website at this link, but I’ve also reposted it here at TGML, behind the jump: More »

October 25th, 2008 | Tags: Minutemen | Category: Personal | Leave a comment

Back in 2006, when he wrote, composed, recorded, and released in rapid fashion the songs that compromised his Living with War album, he saw fit to drop two names in the lyrics of “Looking for a Leader”: Barack Obama and Gen. Colin Powell.

In the wake of Colin Powell’s appearance on Meet The Press yesterday, it’s safe enough to suggest that Mr. Young must at least be in the running for, if not qualify entirely for, Nostradamus status.

(The above video with Gen. Powell “right(ing) what he’s done wrong” comes from the DailyKos blog. Check them out.)

October 20th, 2008 | Tags: Neil Young | Category: Neil Young | Leave a comment

For a Sunday, I was up a bit early already – you can thank the anticipation of Colin Powell endorsing Barack Obama on Meet The Press this morning for that.

After watching Gen. Powell give his endorsement, I grabbed my laptop and started hitting up my usual news and political haunts to see the initial reactions, then started going to my usual other haunts to see what else was going on, to discover this statement from Tsunku:

I have important news to share.

All members of H!P Elder Club, namely Morning Musume OG (Nakazawa Yuko, Iida Kaori, Abe Natsumi, Yasuda Kei, Yaguchi Mari, Ishikawa Rika, Yoshizawa Hitomi, Tsuji Nozomi, Konno Asami, Ogawa Makoto, Fujimoto Miki), Inaba Atsuko, Satoda Mai(Country Musume), Melon Kinenbi, Maeda Yuki, Matsuura Aya, Miyoshi Erika, Okada Yui and Ongaku Gatas, will be graduating from Hello!Project on 31.3.2009.

Most of these girls have already graduated from Morning Musume and other groups. They have been appearing on stage since their teenage years.

After the 10th year anniversary had passed, they have realized that it is necessary to smash through the stereotypes they have built by now, and find courage to begin a new trip towards their future careers.

Personally, I have big expectations to see their future efforts, and I would like to announce my support for these girls.

I also hope you will keep supporting both current Hello!Project members and the members who are going to graduate.

(Translation from Hello! Online, grammar-nazied here by yours truly)

While there is some initial shock at reading of what seems like a mass purge, with the shock and bits of sadness comes the realization that this had to happen.
More »

October 19th, 2008 | Tags: Hello! Project | Category: Aya Matsuura, GAM, HANGRY&ANGRY, Hello! Project, Hitomi Yoshizawa, Melon Kinenbi, Ongaku Gatas, Rika Ishikawa, Viyuuden, Yuki Maeda | Comments (2)

MESHIBE OHORI (Megumi Ohori of AKB48)
“Amai Kokansetsu” single
(VAP)
Available on CD
Rating:

According to legend (well, actually the news as reported here), AKB48’s oldest member, Megumi Ohori, was alleged to be “struggling” to be a popular idol within the band. Her age, 25, is being used as an excuse as to why. AKB48’s creator and lyricist, Yasushi Akimoto, reportedly put forth the challenge: sell 10,000 copies of a CD single under an assumed name, or be next to graduate from AKB48. The reason for an assumed name is said to be insurance for the rest of the band in case the single flops. The single is also released on a label other than AKB48’s new label, King or their previous label, DefSTAR/Sony Japan. Talk about covering your ass! Members of the band seem to be behind her, given that a reproduction of a note of support for Meetan-hime is being given to buyers of the single. Will she get those 10,000 sales (well, 9,999 more, since a copy sits on my desk)?

If she doesn’t get those sales, there’s something wrong. The song, a Latin-infused number a la Sexy Otanajan’s “Onna, Kanashii, Otona” (only several beats faster in tempo, very sexy-sounding, and not so bossa-nova’ed), is very well written and played by an all-live band, and Megumi/Meshime’s voice reminds me a lot of Kaori Iida’s.

The only caveat? No coupling track. I would have liked to have heard a B-side that complimented “Amai Kokansetsu”, because I was left wanting more than just the A-side and an instrumental version.

Hopefully Megumi/Meshime will still be a part of AKB48 after this single reaches its sales target, because I want to hear more.

Five stars.

ETA: When I got home from work, I had a chance to see the PV on the single’s bonus DVD. Let’s just say that it’s been a long time since I had difficulty picking my jaw up off of the floor…

October 14th, 2008 | Tags: AKB48 | Category: AKB48, Reviews | Comments (2)

Some time ago, another blog covered by IW (I tried to find the link through IW itself but couldn’t locate it – if anyone knows what entry I’m talking about, let me know and I’ll replace this part of the text with that link) asked about the buying habits of fellow bloggers. Given that over a year ago I wrote an entry on Stuck In A Pagoda v2.0 that pretty much lambasted people who rely primarily on pirated mp3’s for their music, and that I practice what I preach, I started to calculate how my buying habits went for new music this past year.

Obviously, my intake of Japanese CD’s has continued at a steady rate this year – loyal grabbings of Morning Musume/Hello! Project releases, Koda Kumi’s most recent album and singles, EPs by The Husky and SCANDAL, the best-of anthology from The Possible, Mai Kuraki’s newest effort, and some initial forays into the world of AKB48 (which is going to be an article in and of itself soon) all come to mind. My interest in enka has also taken a turn towards mostly digital works (both CD and legal downloads – another reason to keep the account balance up on my Japanese iTunes account), which is a good thing.

Then I tried to think back to what non-Japanese CDs I’d bought this year. That was harder, as I tried to recall what was the last non-J-Pop CD I bought.

I kept trying to think it was Metallica’s Death Magnetic, given their having Rick Rubin replace Bob Rock and do some music that harkened, if not to their Ride The Lightning/Master of Puppets days, then at least to …And Justice for All. And kept thinking that I was wrong. It’s on my iPod – that much is sure as I went right to AmazonMP3.com for that one. Why am I thinking that the last American CD I bought was Hawthorne Heights’ new release?
More »

October 14th, 2008 | Tags: AKB48, legal downloading, Morning Musume, vinyl | Category: AKB48, Conor Oberst, Digital Downloads, Dir en grey, Elvis Costello, Enka, Hawthorne Heights, Morning Musume, Puffy AmiYumi, SCANDAL, The Husky | Leave a comment

Some self-proclaimed “pure” punks probably screamed “sell-out” when they heard Johnny Rotten was going to to a butter commercial in his native England. Well, this 41-year-old punk rocker says that it’s too bad they didn’t wait until the ad in question (seen below) ended up on British television and worldwide YouTube before making their snap judgments. A very, very entertaining advert, indeed.

This had to be a British ad producer’s dream. When you’re doing a commercial and you get a certifiable legend whose mere presence can command every camera in a 100-yard radius to star in it, you’ve already scored major points before you shoot a single frame of film or DV tape. The fact that the butter company the ad represents openly supports its country’s farmers doesn’t hurt either.

October 7th, 2008 | Tags: Johnny Rotten, Sex Pistols | Category: Johnny Rotten, Punk Rock, Sex Pistols | Leave a comment

MORNING MUSUME
Pepper Keibu (single)
(Zetima)
Available on CD, CD/DVD and iTunes US & Japan
Rating:

This is the way I like to review a single - not from a torrented download, a PV soundtrack, or a radio rip, but from the actual CD.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the idea of Morning Musume doing a Pink Lady cover appealed to me greatly. I liked MoMusu’s version as heard on the PV, but waited until hearing the actual CD before formulating a final opinion on it for the purposes of this review. I am definitely not disappointed.

Morning Musume’s cover of “Pepper Keibu” starts off rather deceptively with a slow keyboard ending before going into an almost-note-for-note, beat-for-beat copy of the Pink Lady original. When the first verse starts, however, the rhythm changes and we get a suitably rigid-yet-swinging 21st Century dance/pop rhythm. The band could have done the song note for note and it would have been an enjoyable listen, but it wouldn’t have been a true Morning Musume single. In other words, the song as performed here sounds like it should be a strong A-side; a 100% copy of the original arrangement wouldn’t have rated more than a B-side or album track (and probably come off as filler amongst an album of Morning Musume/Tsunku originals).

The B-side, “ROMANCE”, is a song I’m not familiar with - I don’t know who did the original song (someone else in the IW blogosphere mentioned it, but I forget who). It sounds like the arrangers may have stuck a little closer to the original recording’s Showa Era-arrangement, albeit with a few more modern production touches like a sequencer pattern, audio strobing (i.e. in this case, the backing track cutting on and off rapidly and rhythmically), and the like.

The vocal performances are top notch - the A-side in particular has some of the best harmonizing the present lineup has ever done. Nothing wrong with Reina’s solo lines either. There’s a reason why she’s up front on this single and on “Resonant Blue” - the woman can sing!

This’ll be a nice tide-over until COVER YUU drops.

Four and a half out of five.

September 24th, 2008 | Tags: Morning Musume, Pink Lady | Category: Morning Musume, Pink Lady, Reviews | Leave a comment