General Music Thread

glennmagusharvey · 2017-06-18 07:13:32

So I have had AKB48's "Sakura no ki ni Narou" in my head for the past two days and I really like the song and I feel I particularly like how it feels "wholesome" to me. Like, a well-written song that gives me a feeling of warmth.

I tried to describe it to a friend (in a private section on another forum) so I ended up posting the following. I figure some of you may be curious to read it too. Note: it's a bit long.

A sort of "analysis" (with my opinion of course) of AKB48's "Sakura no ki ni Narou", and trying to figure out why I like it so much. This will just cover one verse and one refrain, but similar comments may apply to the rest of the song.

(I suggest taking a listen to the song, and maybe contemplate your own reactions to it, before reading this. Convenient link: youtu.be/kFgiapUYNPM )

Just a few quick terminology comments before we start: the song is in G major, therefore do re mi fa so la ti respectively correspond to G A B C D E F# respectively. The most important chords are G major (the "tonic" or I chord), C major ("subdominant" or IV chord), and D major (the "dominant" or V chord). You don't have to know exactly what I mean by the stuff above, but you might just see terms like these come up in my commentary.

0:00 instrumental intro, which foreshadows a few elements present in the rest of the song, specifically the beginning motif of the refrain (with its octave leap), and how it starts on a IV chord.
0:17-0:41 the first "sentence" of the verse, consisting of two phrases which are similar. A few things to point out:
1. The verse starts on a IV chord, which is a little unusual -- a lot of good songs start on a I chord, which is sort of the home chord for what key it's in. But that's not to say this song has a problem -- the chord progress goes with the bass line that just goes down from C ("fa") to G ("do"), going right back to that home chord, in both phrases. This ends up with the effect of starting the verse with a little gentle bit of tension, and then letting it go.
2. The first phrase of this sentence has a relatively small range, going just from G to D ("do" to "so"). This is also in a relatively low register relative to the singer's vocal range (it's the bottom of a standard alto range). The first phrase, while it ends on the I chord to give a sense of stability, doesn't give a perfect sense of stability because it ends on a B in the melody ("mi") rather than a G ("do"). It also has a relatively weak cadence from A minor to G major (a "plagal"-like cadence).
3. The second phrase has the same chords and starts the same but takes a different tack, going up to an F# ("ti"). But after two downward scales it ends on a G, ending the sentence more conclusively. The chords also end with a D major to G major pair, which is a strong cadence (the technical term being "authentic" or "perfect").
So this result is that the first phrase feels sorta like it's just there, with intervals in the melody (moving between notes that are close together), but the next phrase goes a little further and then ends back in a comfort zone.
0:42-1:04 the first sentence is repeated again, but with another singer joining in.
1:05-1:16 (first phrase), 1:17-1:29 (second phrase) The next musical sentence opens much more dynamically -- an arpeggio (G B D ^G) going up to the "do" of the next octave higher. The melody goes down and back up to that G and then dwells on it a bit. The chords are also different -- E minor, A minor, D major, G major for the first phrase. The feeling this creates is there's a lot more "motion" going on -- things are less settled. They do gravitate back toward a strong cadence (D major to G major) in the middle, but the motion starts up again immediately. But the second phrase of this sentence keeps that motion going, again starting like the first phrase in this sentence but going elsewhere. You may be able to hear the melody making more and bigger leaps -- each phrase in this sentence begins with a series of leaps spanning a whole octave, and the melody, after coming down, goes back up with leaps of a fifth and a seventh respectively in the two phrases before coming down again in stepwise motion (like a scale downward). The second sentence of this phrase also introduces a chord that doesn't normally occur in the key of G major -- the A major chord. It's the "secondary dominant", a dominant to the key of D major, which is itself the dominant of G major. So to end this sentence we have a "half cadence" ending on the dominant of G major -- the chords of the second phrase are E minor, A major, D major, and then stops there, as if leaving a question mark. This sets up a feeling of wanting to go back to a G major chord, as we head into the refrain.

1:30-2:02 Refrain. This refrain, like the first sentence of the verse, is four phrases long, but each phrase is half as long (only eight beats, as opposed to sixteen-beat phrases), except the last phrase. It starts with the four-note motif (containing an octave leap) that we heard in the instrumental intro, and puts a IV chord on the first downbeat. Several things are notable here:
1. The melody goes quite high, hanging around the high G and the A above it for the first and third phrases, and all the way up to the B above the higher G, in the third phrase.
2. The melody also goes as low as it went in the verse -- down to the low G. In fact, it has the biggest leaps ("do, re, mi do ^do...") we've heard so far, so it's a very dynamic refrain. The first and third phrases take place mostly in the higher pitches, while the second phrase is mostly in the lower pitches, creating a sort of call-and-response effect.
3. The last phrase uses that octave leap twice in almost succession creating a sense of anticipation, which ends with the melody on the higher G. It also
4. The chords change faster in the refrain than in the verse, giving more of a sense of motion.
5. Remember how we had a "tonicizing" of D major when the music was made to sound a little bit like it was in D major, by introducing an A major chord that functioned as a dominant to D major? The refrain tonicizes E minor and C major a bit, as it has the following chords: C major, D major, G major (with B in bass), E minor, A minor, B major, E minor, G7, C major, D major, B7, E minor, A min7, D7, G major (with a 4-3 suspension). B major is the dominant of E minor, and it goes to E minor. G major is itself the dominant of C major, especially in its G7 form (which introduces an F-natural, not part of the G major scale), and G7 indeed goes to C major. (D7 is another form of D major as the dominant, with more notes to tie it to resolving to G major. The 4-3 suspension at the end is what sounds vaguely like you could sign an "Amen" to it; it's another release of tension.)
6. Just before the end, when we get two octave leaps in a row, we also get a sort of "stretching" of the time by adding two extra four-beat bars to the rhythmic pattern of the phrases -- the last phrase is twice as long as the other three phrases in the refrain.
So we have a refrain that's more melodically and harmonically adventurous, resolving onto a long tonic note in the melody and the tonic chord in the harmony. Back to home, for eight beats, before we start up again at the beginning of the verse.

It's like we've basically started from something relatively calm, and gradually introduced more elements to the music and built on it, and we arrive at a climax which uses those big octave-leaps almost twice in a row to ramp up the tension...and then it's finally resolved.

My favorite part of all this is probably the second sentence, which uses a part of the circle-of-fifths progression, which is one of my favorite chord progressions, but honestly, without the context to put it in to make it feel special, it wouldn't quite be the same thing.

(I think the circle-of-fifths progression is one of my favorite progressions because it's basically like an overlapping series of those dominant-to-tonic (V to I) chord motions, but all of them are not quite perfectly dominant-to-tonic, except the last one (and the first if you write the whole eight-chord sequence). The strength of the dominant-to-tonic cadence is a very big feature of most classical music, and a lot of other chord motion is used to set up this cadence in various ways, to play with it, to subvert it, or otherwise work with or around it. This cadence always suggests a strong sense of direction, which means that you can use (or not use) it to control the feeling of tension in the music, as a composer. And this is probably why, when I hear stuff in pop music that doesn't use this sequence as a sort of tension control mechanism, such as anything that involves "the four chords of pop" in their typical I V vi IV order (notice that the dominant cadence is V to I, not I to V), I feel a distinct lack of a sense of direction.)

But yeah...I don't actually think consciously about these things as I'm listening to the music. This is all after-the-fact analysis to try to figure out why it is that I like this. Rather, what I do get from the music is a feeling, a feeling that changes over time as the music progresses. Like how it starts from stability and then goes into more turbulent waters, with some slightly darker colors (such as minor chords) and some brighter colors (such as that strong dominant-to-tonic motion set to major chords), and it culminates in a refrain that's got those octave leaps that span the entire vocal range of the melody and then settles in a way that feels like it goes back to that sense of stability and comfort that characterized the beginning of the song. It's a journey of emotions.

lrdgck · 2017-06-21 20:55:05

For a change I'll post something in here, I'll add a comment so it's not just a link.

The song is curious. Listen to it at the beginning, then around the third minute point, then about fifth, and then about the sixth minute. It's like, if you spliced a fragment at each point you probably could convince people it's three different genres. It's some sort of black metal in general, of course, but it piqued my interest in which directions it went. Heh. Being kvlt and trve is more flexible than many think, looks like.

Naas_Human · 2017-06-21 21:02:59

lrdgck wrote: »

three different genres

I just remembered that I found this:

fourteenwings · 2017-06-22 04:50:24

I've been listening to a whole bunch of DJMAX songs from the new game, RESPECT, as they're posted on YouTube. I like almost all of them, but I didn't really feel it was notable to share any until an MV about pay-to-win smartphone games came out.

glennmagusharvey · 2017-06-22 06:36:11

lrdgck wrote: »

For a change I'll post something in here, I'll add a comment so it's not just a link.

The song is curious. Listen to it at the beginning, then around the third minute point, then about fifth, and then about the sixth minute. It's like, if you spliced a fragment at each point you probably could convince people it's three different genres. It's some sort of black metal in general, of course, but it piqued my interest in which directions it went. Heh. Being kvlt and trve is more flexible than many think, looks like.

I like how it's unified by its rhythm and tonality.

Naas_Human wrote: »

lrdgck wrote: »

three different genres

I just remembered that I found this:

Is this a mashup of several different versions of Bad Romance or is this just one thing that was made? I'd like to listen to the different versions separately if possible.

Naas_Human · 2017-06-22 06:58:48

That YT channel makes different style remixes of assorted pop songs, so probably one thing.

glennmagusharvey · 2017-06-23 02:11:54

I have basically no attachment to the lyrics -- or the music video visuals -- of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance", but I really like the music. Especially the part where the chords go Fmaj, Gmaj, Amin, Cmaj, Fmaj, Gmaj, Emaj, Amin.

glennmagusharvey · 2017-06-23 20:32:36

https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Romance-Piano-Version/dp/B004A3ITTM

hahaha
it's like someone knows how to tease me
the sample ends right in the middle of the best part of the song

Naas_Human · 2017-06-23 21:03:52

It's only .99, no harm in just getting it, surely.

fourteenwings · 2017-07-01 16:08:56

Lately I've been thinking about how I just don't like fripSide as much as I used to. I don't know if I don't love their stuff, but lately I've been listening to them way less. I don't have memories that are as fond for fripSide music as for like... KOTOKO or Hatano Wataru.

I'm also concerned with Nanjo Yoshino's sudden takeoff as a solo artist. I didn't pay attention to her career at all because I thought she'd turn out like the rest of u's, but I also don't want to start. On this note, I have to admit that I think she's been phoning it in on some B-sides as of late, which makes it way less worth listening to the whole single.

Similarly, unlike GARNiDELiA, fripSide doesn't feel like a genuine collaboration? Like, it's sat's music and a lot of the time sat's lyrics, and ALTIMA really showed that sat was limiting himself when he wrote for fripSide. With GARNiDELiA, I genuinely don't feel like the unit is toku with MARiA vocals, they both feel like equals, possibly because MARiA has such a strong, unmistakeable voice. Similarly, when they produce songs for other artists, they tend to do so together; with toku providing the music and MARiA writing lyrics.

Then there's this whole issue of seiyuu just being into singing to boost their careers or to make some side $$$. There are genuine J-pop artists that I like again (lecca, Amuro Namie, Hirai Ken, KiyoShun) who focus 100% of their time on music, and like... they have genuine points of view in said music.

I think aside from the seiyuu that have a strong association with Elements Garden in some way (Nana, Miyano, Hatano and Aoi Shouta) or are signed to a real label (Numakura Manami at Flying Dog) there isn't really a strong message to their music? Like... it's genuinely disposable and there isn't a career to chart or grow along with and love.

I feel like this sort of style is creeping into fripSide music with Nanjo's career blossomming?

glennmagusharvey · 2017-07-01 17:22:44

Your way of appreciating music seems so alien to me and I am very curious about it but I'm afraid if I ask I'll do it awkwardly that I'll come off as arrogant or something.

Naas_Human · 2017-07-01 18:09:49

Considering all the videos I find of them rambling at public events, being a voice actor probably entails delving into the entertainment equivalent of random odd jobs. So it's not really surprising.

fourteenwings · 2017-07-02 05:03:07

I think the weirdest seiyuu "job" is how they keep getting companies like Marine Entertainment to pay for their vacations by turning them into "documentaries" (most recently I think Okamoto Nobuhiko went to Hawaii, and Hatano+Terashima Takuma have a whole ongoing series).

appreciating music seems so alien to me

I mean, if you listen to singles by Minase, Ogura and [random third seiyuu], they are all literally the same.

I ask I'll do it awkwardly that I'll come off as arrogant or something.

Well now that I know you don't mean it that way, ask away~

Vorpy · 2017-07-02 06:44:36

i feel like the only person who enjoys Pink Guy

glennmagusharvey · 2017-07-02 07:37:16

slightly unfortunate way to quote me there? lol
anyway

I mean, if you listen to singles by Minase, Ogura and [random third seiyuu], they are all literally the same.

I recognized that those two are names associated with ViVid Strike and so I am familiar with Yui Ogura's "Future Strike" and ~~Iori~~ Inori Minase "Starry Wish" and...I can't tell what's similar between the two aside from the fact that they're both J-pop songs in a basic pop song form (which is shared with basically all of J-pop), released around the same time, used with ViVid Strike, and have pop instrumentation. But the two songs' moods (at least to me), tempos, tonalities (one shifts a lot more than the other and uses different keys), exact instrumentation (one is more metal-based and other is more strings-based), harmonies, the way they end, etc.. Even their voices are different.

Like, if you give me a snippet of one there's nearly no way for me to confuse that with the other because they just feel so different.

So I just don't get what sounds so same? I guess. I mean I can understand someone thinking they sound samey the way that someone who doesn't know classical music will think that a neatly and articulately elegant Mozart piano sonata sounds anything confusable with a timbre-rich and lushly harmonic Rachmaninoff prelude. But you aren't an outsider to J-pop, so that just confuses me. It's like the way you listen to J-pop is, like, strangely orthogonal or oblique to the way I do. (And maybe other people think that of my taste?)

Like, it's sat's music and a lot of the time sat's lyrics, and ALTIMA really showed that sat was limiting himself when he wrote for fripSide.

I agree to the extent that fripSide sounds noticeably similar from song to song, but the three ALTIMA songs I know, strike me as having the same melodic and harmonic structures and even the same dancepop/trancepop (which is the right term?) driving rhythm as the fripSide songs I know -- and incidentally those are the reasons I like them too. The main difference is that he adds a "rap"-like (i.e. rhythmic unpitched speaking) feature to ALTIMA songs. I guess that could be the key difference is that's what you like about them?

With GARNiDELiA, I genuinely don't feel like the unit is toku with MARiA vocals, they both feel like equals, possibly because MARiA has such a strong, unmistakeable voice. Similarly, when they produce songs for other artists, they tend to do so together; with toku providing the music and MARiA writing lyrics.

I can kinda understand this comparison cognitively but I'm not sure I can "feel" it. I guess one can think of this as "this composer/singer can do more things but this/these song(s) don't do all those things and only do one or a few things so they're less using the composer's/singer's full potential"? Far as I can tell, I don't really think of a given musical piece this way though. I mean I can tell when a piece is in a style that is unusual for the composer (e.g. Bela Bartok's "Study for the Left Hand", which entirely uses traditional functional tonality, not the modalness he's much better known for), but I guess there's just no place in my interpretation for "oh, it's an early work, before the composer's style matured" or something like that. Like, even if I know that was truly the case, that still doesn't really affect my interpretation of the piece as a performer or listener. And sometimes even a "crappier" piece can be just as meaningful -- many people criticize Chopin's first piano sonata for being kinda rambly and disorganized which it seemed to me at first but then after a few more listens I started realizing just how the musical ideas flowed between each other and I even had the piece stuck in my head for a while because I really felt that I'd uncovered its beauty and meaning.

Maybe part of this has to do with you following an artist over a period of time, gaining a longitudinal familiarity, while I largely don't know the biographies or careers of J-pop singers (or composers, more relevantly) or the evolution of the styles of songs they sing? But I don't think it really factors that much into my "feeling" (my emotional "understanding") of a piece even when I do know this info...

I can agree that I'd prefer the ALTIMA singer over the fripSide singer but that's mainly because she doesn't quite sound as (I feel it's inappropriate to use this word) shrill? Like, maybe I can listen it for longer with sat's apparently signature long flowing melodies before I get tired of it. But then again I only have ever heard like three ALTIMA songs.

*has been listening to said three ALTIMA songs this whole time*

Y'know, I guess there's just more stuff going on in the ALTIMA songs I've heard than in the fripSide songs I've heard. Like, more features, like key changes, the rapping voice, the random guitar in -Indefinitely-, and I guess there's also that part of -Indefinitely- where the voice sings for a while in a lower register while the chord doesn't change at all. There are may be more small features like this with regards to instrumental details and extra features and such, though I still think the songs largely sound similar, being of the same feel (a style of J-pop characterized by long, passionate, flowing melodies, a style also shared by, say, a good number of Nana Mizuki's songs) and genre (pretty fast dancepop with a strong beat) and basic instrumentation (lots of synth instruments I think). (Same way some Mozart piano sonatas can sound samey, so it's definitely not just a sat or just a J-pop thing.)

(Incidentally, -Indefinitely- is growing on me now that I've heard it a few times. But now I'm also realizing why it didn't feel distinct originally -- because it's the same key and feel as Burst the Gravity, and the harmonies are structured similarly because it's still sat at the controls. Like I've listened to it a few times and I still can't independently bring up -Indefinitely-'s verse or refrain in my mind after hearing Burst the Gravity.)

Then there's this whole issue of seiyuu just being into singing to boost their careers or to make some side $$$. There are genuine J-pop artists that I like again (lecca, Amuro Namie, Hirai Ken, KiyoShun) who focus 100% of their time on music, and like... they have genuine points of view in said music.

I think aside from the seiyuu that have a strong association with Elements Garden in some way (Nana, Miyano, Hatano and Aoi Shouta) or are signed to a real label (Numakura Manami at Flying Dog) there isn't really a strong message to their music? Like... it's genuinely disposable and there isn't a career to chart or grow along with and love.

Putting aside lyrics, which I don't understand in J-pop because I don't understand Japanese, I can't say I've ever been able to read a "message" or "point of view" from a J-pop singer's output.

I mean I guess I can and have with classical composers -- e.g. Beethoven's pushing the envelope of the neat classical style by expanding its dramatic scope, Liszt using extremely difficult but very flashy piano figuration to make "virtuoso" performances a thing, and so on.

But these are all sort of "outside" the music I guess? Like, these are metacontextual information that is like a "behind the scenes" familiarity with the production, like those extra segments in movie DVDs. They're fun to know and often very enlightening, but it's not that common for them to really influence the way I "feel" the music.

(Sometimes my interpretation is way off the mark, which makes for strange but interesting results. Like, I maintain that I can read Liszt's Dante Sonata as a fantasy of romantic feelings, with the second theme's F# major instance being a glorious representation of the girl zooming skyward into a glorious blue daytime sky, just because I felt so darn strongly about it when I first learned the piece and I'm not about to give up these feelings for anything, the original intention of that part -- something along the lines of Satan in the Divine Comedy, I think? -- notwithstanding.)

Anyway, back to J-pop: I guess to some extent I can take their "message" or "point of view" as a sort of summary of the "feel" I get from their work, on average/as a whole. Like, Ritsuko Okazaki is in this way "about" a peaceful pleasantness and appreciating the little joys of life and a strong and humble sense of compassion. But then again this isn't quite the feel of her work in melocure's lone album, so...it seemed that she was going for a grander feel? Or maybe Megumi Hinata's influence made her go for a splashier style? I dunno.

And I guess if I were pressed about it I could say that Nana Mizuki's songs often feel like action tunes with lots of emotion in them? I dunno how much of that is influenced by simply my knowing her anime voice roles, though I think this holds true even for songs of hers that I don't know from anime series. Perhaps because I basically associate flowing melodies over appealing chord progressions with strong emotions I guess? And her songs certainly have a lot of those.

Well, heck, that is in a nutshell the two reasons I prefer J-pop to western pop. I mean when I contrast the two the most immediate examples that come to mind are the awkward and/or repetitive melodies overlain on what feel like stagnating chord progressions, in songs like James Blunt's "You're Beautiful", Beyoncé's "Single Ladies", (the refrain of) Matchbox 20's "Unwell", Smash Mouth's "All Star", Donna Lewis's "I Love You Always Forever", etc.. (Admittedly "Single Ladies" is rather different from the other three.) Contrast western popular songs I like, I guess, such as Hilary Duff's "What Dreams Are Made Of", Whitney Houston's "All at Once", Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance", Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven is a Place on Earth" (whose refrain sounds interestingly similar to a part of the Magic Knight Rayearth SNES JRPG's boss theme), Weezer's "Island in the Sun", Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer", Owl City's "Fireflies", etc..

lol i got derailed again. now where was i...

...I guess I didn't really have much more to say about that anyway lol.

BTW I just want to add that "samey" is not necessarily a bad thing. Mozart sonatas are perennially popular, and I'm also a fan of a number of fripSide songs. Novelty for the sake of novelty is not a guarantee of a meaningfully entertaining product that retains its meaning over a long-term relationship.

(If anything I think my favorite songs include a good contrast of elements, such as contrasting the rhythmic and the lyrical, the calm and the stormy, the subdued and the flashy, and so on.)

fourteenwings · 2017-07-02 08:05:27

ALTIMA's lone album, TRYANGLE, is an exploration of lots of styles. I'm also betting since you skipped B-sides you've never heard the grunge-explosions ALTIMA can have in their stuff (NOADRENALINE), or the song with no frills (the title track TRYANGLE), or just the siller stuff (CYBER CYBER, Mission Dispatch).

I don't know how I can explain a musician "meaning it" to you, but judging a seiyuu by the songs of theirs that are used as anime OPs is a terrible way to do things. Like Minase's Yume no Tsubomi and Ogura Yui's Charming Do! are very good examples of "oh, I guess it was time to release another single".

They are definitely not on the same level as people who take their time to craft their art, even if their art is pop music.

To use GARNiDELiA as an example; they have a style, a style they explore with every single. toku and MARiA are very much individuals, but when they come together to write a GARNiDELiA song, they write a GARNiDELiA song. An evolution of that specific pop vibe that they want to make the body of work that is GARNiDELiA.

If Utada decides it's time to write a single, she writes it her own way. It's a style that I believe, even if some other artist performed pre and post hiatus, you would hear the evolution of.

When you listen to seiyuu music, it's just a mishmash of whatever was left on the producers cutting room floor (I don't like being this obvious). As much as I like Kakihara Tetsuya, I haven't liked a lead song of his since... R.O.N* (STEREO DIVE FOUNDATION) wrote one.

*speaking of R.O.N, I wasn't surprised to find that the song in the first episode of StarMyu S2 that caught my attention was written by him.

Naas_Human · 2017-07-02 08:26:23

Even with anime music, Minase is way below say, Takagaki in my experience. With the exception of GENOCIDE AND GENOCIDE.

glennmagusharvey · 2017-07-02 09:15:54

FWIW the only Inori Minase song I know is "Starry Wish" and the only Ayahi Takagaki song I know is "Meteor Light" (and a little bit of "Brand New Smile" which is hilariously jarring when it follows Meteor Light).

I'm also betting since you skipped B-sides

I actually didn't in the case of ALTIMA -- I just only have three tracks of theirs (not including karaoke versions).

They are definitely not on the same level as people who take their time to craft their art, even if their art is pop music.

Unless the composers are also the performers, there'd arguably be two different kinds of "crafting" involved, one with regards to the vocal delivery quality and the other with regards to the construction of the song as a whole.

To use GARNiDELiA as an example; they have a style, a style they explore with every single. toku and MARiA are very much individuals, but when they come together to write a GARNiDELiA song, they write a GARNiDELiA song. An evolution of that specific pop vibe that they want to make the body of work that is GARNiDELiA.

If Utada decides it's time to write a single, she writes it her own way. It's a style that I believe, even if some other artist performed pre and post hiatus, you would hear the evolution of.

So basically you're talking about a songwriter (or songwriter+performer team) having a coherent style, and the evolution of that style. So you mean that there are some artists who...like, is your objection to these other artists that their style shows no evolution over time? Or there isn't enough of their work to show a coherence of style or at least you can't find one when listening to them?

I guess maybe I don't feel much of this because my exposure to J-pop/anisong is often in isolated song-by-song experiences, so my focus is much more on the song itself than the artist over many songs.

That said, while it's interesting when an artist's style becomes a coherent thing and evolves over time, I don't really see anything wrong with using a more "generic" style, or using someone else's style. (e.g. "Future Strike" sounds like something Nana Mizuki might sing, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.)

When you listen to seiyuu music, it's just a mishmash of whatever was left on the producers cutting room floor (I don't like being this obvious).

While I can picture this happening, I don't really know how you tell this, nor why this is objectionable per se. I mean, maybe the result might be interesting, just like the flipside where Hikaru Utada's songs (which you seem to say have a coherent sense of style) are very hit-or-miss with me (based on my experience so far).

Naas_Human · 2017-07-02 09:21:56

(e.g. "Future Strike" sounds like something Nana Mizuki might sing, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.)

Ogura is too wimpy-sounding to pull off anything like that. Especially compared to Mizuki in recent years.

glennmagusharvey · 2017-07-02 10:43:22

Naas_Human wrote: »

(e.g. "Future Strike" sounds like something Nana Mizuki might sing, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.)

Ogura is too wimpy-sounding to pull off anything like that. Especially compared to Mizuki in recent years.

???

I'm talking about the style of the music, like how it feels to me, and the melodic contours, etc., not the voice timbre.

fwiw i don't really think that nana mizuki's voice is that great? at least it's not quite my favorite kind of voice. i mean she's clearly good at singing, but she's not on my faves list despite my knowing a number of her songs and liking a good chunk of them.

then again my faves list is probably based on composer rather than artist anyway

i'ma actually not sure who'd be on my fave voices list as far as jpop/anisong singers go. maybe asami imai? but even then i'm not sure if it's simply because i like chihaya kisaragi a lot.

Naas_Human · 2017-07-02 15:55:02

If you get Ogura to sing an actual Mizuki song, especially a topically relevant one to Vivid Strike, it will definitely be underwhelming with her voice.

fourteenwings · 2017-07-02 16:38:53

I bet she'd shred her vocal chords.

I don't know about Ogura, but Minase showed with Carol that she could actually sing. She just chooses not to.

Mizuki Nana is clearly great, you liking her specific voice or not doesn't change that.

glennmagusharvey · 2017-07-02 19:12:02

fourteenwings wrote: »

Mizuki Nana is clearly great, you liking her specific voice or not doesn't change that.

I can basically tell her singing style, like how I can tell the singing style of atsuko (angela's vocalist), though I'm not sure how it's "clearly great".

I mean, it's not a bad style in the sense that I don't really have any objections to it, though it by itself doesn't make me write home I guess? I mean, what draws me to her songs is more so the musical songwriting than her voice. And I do have some preference toward whoever writes her music (though sometimes it can get a bit too "busy" sounding) but I don't think that should be confused with a preference for her voice.

With respect to just their voices, I probably prefer Rie fu's, atsuko's, and Asami Imai's voices (and maybe Maon Kurosaki's?) to Nana Mizuki's voice. This has to do with how they sing -- for example, Mizuki uses a bit more vibrato than I'd like. (To some extent atsuko also uses some distinctive features that I'm not always a fan of but oh well.)

fun fact: thanks to writing this post I currently have a playlist with consists of songs sung by Nana Mizuki, atsuko (angela), Yoshino Nanjou (fripSide), Aa (savage genius), Rie fu, Misae Sasaki, Aoi Eir, AKB48, Asami Imai, Ayahi Takagaki, Maon Kurosaki (ALTIMA), Sally Miura, Maiko Nakamura, Tenjo Chiki, Shion, Jya Me, Chelly (Egoist), Saori Gotou, Megumi Hinata, and Ritsuko Okazaki.

I mean, all these people sing at least acceptably, by which I mean that what they sing is in tune. (Maybe some of them are auto-tuned, and if so, whatever, the product ends up being acceptable.) So, once we get past that standard, we start to get into the more subtle things, such as dynamic expressiveness, and that's not easy to hear in just any song, and unfortunately there are very few instances of people singing the same songs (atsuko and Asami Imai have both sung angela's "Shangri-La" and that's one of the few exceptions) so it's hard to make apples-to-apples comparisons. But I think that at least Rie fu, atsuko, Asami Imai, Nana Mizuki, and Aa all have that skill (and others probably do but it really depends on the song how well it's exhibited), and if anything I think that Aa, atsuko, Asami Imai, and Nana Mizuki do it most prominently. Above that I think it's just a matter of taste. And at that point things like my preference for alto voices and slight preference for more straight-tone singing come into play, so when you have Asami Imai doing these beautifully pure straight tones it's just awesome, and atsuko also uses vibrato like Nana Mizuki does but atsuko has a slightly deeper voice which is thus also a preference for me. Meanwhile atsuko sometimes does this weird falsetto thing which is sort of hit-or-miss for me -- it's certainly distinctive, but I'm not sure how much I like it.

glennmagusharvey · 2017-07-02 21:43:47

BTW in case I'm coming off as pushy, I don't mean to do that and I'm sorry. I'm just spouting my opinions, and I invite everyone to share their opinions too.

Vorpy · 2017-07-03 02:23:26

Wow way to kill the convo GMH

glennmagusharvey · 2017-07-05 18:29:07

https://protodome.bandcamp.com/track/theres-always-next-week

Vorpy · 2017-07-05 23:24:44

I was kidding btw

glennmagusharvey · 2017-07-06 00:20:37

I just like protodome fwiw

glennmagusharvey · 2017-07-07 21:55:31

OH that's why I keep on crossing the two in my mind. The verse of "Scarlet Ballet" by May'n (OP of Aria the Scarlet Ammo) sounds like some more recent Nana Mizuki songs, and this song is in B minor, so I end up thinking about Sacred Force, and both songs have verses that start on the same note and run around the same low-ish register at the beginnings of their verses.

Vorpy · 2017-07-07 23:05:05

Kiss Kiss Fall In La

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