THE BIG CATCH-UP… In which the wearied webmaster of this here site gives some quick capsule reviews to recent albums he’s liked but hasn’t gotten around to writing about.
I usually don’t like to do capsule reviews. In my view, they tend to be written by lazy hack writers who only seem to skim through the promotional copies of CDs they obtain for review before piling them up in a box somewhere for them to sell off at a used CD store somewhere – if they bother to listen to them in the first place. But since I’ve been doing a whole lot of listening but no blog-related writing over the past few months – thanks in part to all of the preparations I’ve been going through for my wedding this Saturday – this particular format will have to do. After the honeymoon and once I’ve gotten settled in, I’ll go back to my regular reviewing style. This’ll be part one. Part two I’ll be completing and posting after the honeymoon.
AKB48 – Kami Kyokutachi (You! Be Cool/King) – While there’s a whole pile of albums out there with the AKB48 name on them, they’ve all been, with the exception of the Set List – Greatest Songs 2006-2007 compilation, basically “original cast albums” of all of the separate teams’ shows – lots of good songs and good singing, but nothing that could cohesively be called a studio album. Fortunately, although billed as a “best-of album”, Kami Kyokutachi comes off as close to a coherent studio album as the group has ever come. All of the band’s King A-sides plus their interim digital-only indie single “Baby! Baby! Baby!” get supplemented with a few random B-sides (no Undergirls/Theatre Girls material or Erena Ono’s beautiful solo cut “First Kiss” though) and some new tracks and make for the most cohesive – and long overdue – long-playing experience to be released under the AKB48. Now if they could put out a single A-side that is a hell of a lot more exciting than the last couple of singles they’ve released since the year started… Rating:Available on CD/DVD combo and on iTunes Japan.
DEVO – Something for Everybody (Warner Bros.) – When it was first announced that Devo had gotten back together full-time, resigned to their original American record label Warner Bros., and started working on a new album, I saw a couple of skeptical tweets from people who wondered why anyone would want a new Devo album in the first place. Well, not only have Devo debunked Thomas Wolfe’s old yarn about not being able to go home again by returning to Warner Bros., they’ve also followed in the tradition of the Stooges, New York Dolls, Mission of Burma and Ace Frehley and handed in an album that was worth both the multi-decade wait (two decades, in the case of our beloved spudboys), but they’ve made their finest album since 1983’s Oh No! It’s Devo. Simply put, they’ve redeemed themselves after the debacle of their Enigma Records period and made an album that stands up as tall as their classic back catalog (most of which has been very nicely remastered and reissued by Warner Bros.). (Also, in my opinion, Warner Bros. should surprise the hell out of casual listeners and service the ballad “No Place Like Home” to radio.) Rating: Available on CD, LP, and in three different iTunes/Amazon MP3 editions; this review is based on the highly-recommended 16-track deluxe edition.
HANK WILLIAMS III – Rebel Within (Sidewalk/Curb) – This is the last album Hank III is doing for Curb Records, and once it was announced earlier this year that he had completed the album and handed it in to the label, people wondered how much of an effort he’d put into it, given his open disgust with how the label handled his music. Given his intentions to continue as an independent artist for all future albums onward, III could not certainly squander his hard-earned fan base for the sake of kissing off his soon-to-be-former-label. Thus, Hank hands in a set of mostly country material closer to Lonesome Broke and Driftin’ than his seminal Straight to Hell, but changes gears in a few places with the title track’s touches of Assjack-style hollering in the chorus, the eerie “Karmageddon” with its lyrical allusions to the plight of Native Americans, and – the true highlight of the album – a raucous country/punk/metal hybrid in “Tore Up and Loud”, where III’s “Hellbilly” style gets kicked up several notches with personal lyrics, power-metal double-kick drumming (done by III himself – like “Punch Fight Fuck” on Damn Right Rebel Proud, anytime you hear Slayer-style drums behind country guitars, III’s sitting behind the kit), and Pantera-esque electric guitar riffing, culminating in a blatant, obvious, and long-overdue Declaration of Independence capped with a “Fuck all y’all” to the Curb Records staff. Fuck Curb, indeed – and a big “fuck, yeah” for Shelton Hank Williams. Rating:Available on CD, LP with bonus CD, and on iTunes and AmazonMP3.
Again, part two comes after the honeymoon… see you then! Until then, one can follow our exploits via Twitter.
WE ARE THE FALLEN Tear The World Down
(Universal Republic) Rating:
To a lot of people, it probably sounded promising but likely to fail. Three former Evanescence members hook up with a former American Idle contestant and make a song that sounds almost exactly like early Ev. Great tune, many said, but a whole album of this stuff?
The reality of the situation, as reflected not only in the wake of Evanescence’s second album (2006’s The Open Door [Wind-Up]) but in the end result of We Are The Fallen’s first album, speaks volumes. Without guitarist, songwriter and Ev co-founder Ben Moody involved, The Open Door was less of a follow-up to Evanescence’s first album Fallen and more of the debut of the Amy Lee Project. Talk in the Fallen days of diva-like behavior on Lee’s part intensified in 2007 when, without warning or reason and with a co-headlining spot on that summer’s Family Values Tour looming, Lee summarily fired guitarist and founding member John LeCompt. Ev’s drummer, Rocky Gray, quit in disgust in the wake of LeCompt’s seemingly uncalled for dismissal, joining his fellow ex-Ev in a project called Machina, which self-released a CD EP several months later.
Yes, We Are The Fallen’s Tear Down The World sounds remarkably like Evanescence did on Fallen. Then again, given that four of the people primarily responsible for that album’s sound (one-time Ev keyboardist David Hodges contributes to the album as a session keyboardist) are involved and in the same studio for the first time since the sessions for Fallen ended, it’s a no-brainer. Without a note or a song wasted, Tear Down The World proceeds to be the true follow-up to Evanescence’s Fallen. Amy Lee’s imitations of Tori Amos are long gone, allowing the Moody/LeCompt/Gray triumvirate and new bassist Marty O’Brien to get down to rocking. A few faster tempos are thrown in, Moody and/or LeCompt even throw in a couple of guitar solos (the CD’s liner notes don’t identify who is lead and who is rhythm) and, capping it all off, Carly Smithson provides a much more fully-bodied voice to fit the music, making Amy Lee’s own vocals seem weak in comparison.
Simply put, this is what The Open Door should have been like.
AYUMI HAMASAKI Rock’n'Roll Circus
(Avex Trax)
Available on CD, CD/DVD, and limited edition collector’s set. Rating:
Actually, I’m merely endorsing how good this album is. There’s no review I could write of this that could do as much justice as Vee’s review at her new site, Microphone Fiend. Go there. I’ll be back later with a few other reviews.
I almost forgot to post something today, but I have a good excuse: Today was also my fiancee’s bridal shower, and guess who had to schlep gifts back and forth in his car? Yep…
I should note that for the past few weeks I’ve been – on top of planning towards the wedding and subsequent move into mine and my wife-to-be’s new apartment – finishing up the novel (yeah, still… but then again if I didn’t have to hold a day job it would have been finished already), working on a screenplay for Script Frenzy, working on a couple of reviews for this blog (they’ll be up this week), and working on my guitar.
And last night, boy, did I work on my guitar… I got this thing (Epiphone Les Paul) a few months ago, but I never changed the strings until last night. Such was my Saturday night:
And to keep things J-pop related, here’s another part of what helped keep me sane, especially today:
Besides, I couldn’t figure how to equal or better the live MoMusu and Stooges clips from last year! But what I can do is (even though I didn’t get this finished until after midnight when the 11th became the 12th) update a list I posted two years ago on my second blogging anniversary at MotokoAoyama.com, which would make this “A List That Took Four Years To Make”: Read the rest of this entry »
For the first Cake Day in 2008, I posted two MiniMoni baked-goods-related videos – and a naughty pun that Brother Ray Mescallado appreciated about the kind of “pie” two lucky bastards were getting from Ai Kago and Nozomi Tsuji at the time – at this blog’s predecessor MotokoAoyama.com, and a YouTube clip of Reina Tanaka working in a restaurant for a TV skit at So Hot She Shits Fire.
For the second Cake Day in 2009, I posted a different kind of baked good: my smoked paprika chicken thighs recipe here at TGML, and some “cheesecake” (i.e. some bikini shots of Reina) over at SHSSF.
For the third Cake Day, I didn’t know what to do. I cook, but I don’t usually bake (my sole baking attempts have been a couple of instances of buying Pillsbury Snoopy Christmas Cookies and following the package directions), and I could never top my blogging BFF and fellow Cancerian VeePinku’s Yuke Yuke Monkey Cake. Then my fiancee Tara came to the rescue with something she makes on the regular… Read the rest of this entry »
MORNING MUSUME
10 My Me
(Zetima)
Available on CD. CD/DVD and from iTunes and JapanFiles.com Rating:
If there’s one thing for sure about Morning Musume, it’s that they’re markedly consistent – and then some. Equally at home dishing out solid studio albums as well as top-5 singles, it’s the one constant in the career of a band whose lineup used to change from one album to the next. I know that when I get a new Morning Musume album out of my PO Box and put it in my CD player and iPod that I’m going to get a good album. Eleven studio albums (yes, I count the unnumbered Cover You) in, I wasn’t expecting to get surprised, but I did – not only did they live up to their artistic reputation, but with 10 My Me Morning Musume put their balls (OK, ovaries) on the line.
An unexpected sample – an English-speaking voice with a European accent saying “Electro-convulsive therapy, part one” – splices into the final seconds of an orchestra playing the final bar of a piece. A sudden shift of gears, and driving analog synths kick off “Moonlight Night ~Tsukiyo no Ban Dayo~” before the group makes with mock-operatic vocalizing and then back into their more recent group harmonizing. Musically, the song goes all over the place in an indescribable manner but makes perfect sense from section to section and as a whole. I want to keep scrolling the music file in reverse on my iPod to try to identify the different elements, but I can’t because the song compels me to listen to it as a whole.
Their final single with Koharu Kusumi, “Kimagure Princess”, follows – and the high-register vocals that the group starts off with serve as a delayed reminder that it’s not going to be business as usual all the time this particular go-round with Morning Musume, emphasizing the experimental tone that permeates 10 My Me’s core.
“Genki Pika Pika!” finds the group mining 80’s pop influences again, this time around delivering a vibe reminiscent of Sheila E’s “The Glamorous Life” by way of The Jets’ “Crush On You” – a perfect musical arrangement to accompany some beautifully breezy vocals from the group.
“Namidacchi” starts with some George Winston-esque piano and gentle bass, acoustic guitar and percussion before another sudden musical shift, whipping out punk guitar powerchords and some drum fills worthy of Flipper’s Steve DePace in the choruses. A little DJ scratching (something used to sublime percussive effect in their classic ballad “I Wish” way back when) slips in during the second verse as well. The song’s bridge goes further forward and backward (backward in a good way, of course), as the members trade off some rapped couplets a-la “Do it! Now” over the punky guitars.
After the band’s brilliant 2010 kickoff single “Onna ga Medatta Naze Ikenai” – which proves that you can play powerchords on acoustic guitars and have just as much of an impact on an uptempo rock song, “Ookii Hitomi” – the first of only three splinter-group efforts on this album, here highlighting 6th gen members Reina Tanaka, Sayuri Michishige and Eri Kamei – delivers a great match of European house rhythms and chugging electric guitars. A little AutoTune vocoder effect pops up in the verses, but, like some more tasteful, creative and honest uses of the effect (reference points again: Cher’s “Believe”, Bob Mould’s “Shine Your Light Love Hope”, and more recently Somaya Reece’s “Tramp” – the first truly good pop single I’ve heard from an American artist in close to a decade, by the way), it’s done to serve the song; In other words, it’s there for decoration, not for a burial. (Late bloomer Sayumi already proved she could sing on Platinum 9 DISC’s “It’s You” and Cover You’s “Ringo Satsujinjiken” – she has nothing else to prove to anybody but herself.)
The band’s leaders, Ai Takahashi and Risa Niigaki, take the spotlight on the second splinter track, “Anohi Ni Modoritai”, over a musical style that Morning Musume has been pretty much owning of late: urban contemporary R&B in the style of TLC, Mary J. Blige and early Destiny’s Child. “No Scrubs”-style acoustic guitars, G-Funk synth bass and a string quartet provide the musical setting for Takitty’s and Gaki’s mutli-layered harmonies.
The band’s 40th single, “Nanchatte Renai” (with the much-missed Koharu delivering the most mature vocals she ever did… to date) provides the album’s next recap moment, setting up the listener unawares for the next track. “Osaka Umainen” – the last of the splinter tracks, featuring 8th-gen members Aika Mitsui, Li Chun and Qian Lin – starts with a simulated 78RPM big band “sample” before some 8-bit synth blips kick off the song proper and compete with 60’s soul horns and plinking early rock’n’roll piano. The song itself comes off like a cousin of earlier MoMusu album tracks that provided what some bloggers referred to as some of Koharu’s more “cracktastic” moments like Platinum 9’s “Guru Guru JUMP” and Cover You’s “Ping-ping Pan Taisou”. This time around, without Koharu being around to throw into the mix, the song actually comes off more mature, especially when LinLin gets some solo lines.
“Loving You Forever” is a great power ballad in the “I Wish” tradition. Classic MoMusu harmonies and Beatlesque strings are propelled by an arrangement that recalls The Raspberries’ “Overnight Sensation”. The next time some armchair critics complain that Morning Musume hasn’t been the same since the departures of longtime members like Kaori Iida and Natsumi Abe, play them this cut.
The album closes with a great one-two punch: The band’s chart-topping Summer 2009 single “Shouganai Yumeoibito” followed by a version of Platinum 9’s “Ame no Furanai Hoshi de wa Aisenai Darou?” sung in Chinese (Longtime fans will recall that the closing of the original version has JunJun and LinLin singing in their native tongue.) The recording is not a complete port of the original recording’s backing track; instead a slightly extended intro of nylon-string acoustic guitar and strings leads into the group accompanied only by piano and strings at first, before a variant on the original arrangement takes over. Hearing the entire band sing in Chinese seems to add a noticeable degree of delicacy and fragility to their vocals. “Shouganai Yumeoibito” itself would have been the perfect closing track to the album; the addition of this “alternate version” of the song makes for a great encore.
I concluded my review of Platinum 9 DISC last year with the statement, “The streak of solid Morning Musume albums continues.” That statement, while it holds true for 10 My Me, isn’t enough. More to the point, 10 My Me is Morning Musume’s equivalent of Pet Sounds or Double Nickels on the Dime – an instant classic album to many, and something that will grow in stature as the years go by to many others.
KODA KUMI BEST ~third universe~/8th AL “UNIVERSE”
(Rhythm Zone/Avex) Rating:
I am of the suspicion of late that a couple of years ago, Lady Gaga had to have caught find of some Koda Kumi videos on YouTube, because in what few Lady Gaga songs I’ve heard, I’m swearing she’s snuck traces of recent Kuu-chin tuneage like “FREAKY” and “TABOO”. And I am certain that Kuu-chin knows this as well, as while Gaga leans heavily on programmed arrangements in her work, Kuu-chin has pretty much gone organic [save for the reliance on drum machines throughout – there’s nothing wrong with having precise beats behind you!] with her instrumentation on much of 8th AL “UNIVERSE”, the studio portion of her new double-disc set. [Quick side note: I won’t be reviewing BEST ~third universe~, the "greatest hits" portion of the package, outside of saying it’s a highly recommended compliment to your collection if the only Koda long-players you own are her previous BEST compilations ~first things~, ~second session~ and ~Bounce and Lovers~. In fact, if you can swing it, go for the edition that also has the DVD of video clips from both portions of the album.] Perhaps we should have seen this coming – her 3 SPLASH EP, released last summer, was primarily guitar-oriented, save for the cut “ECSTASY”.
“UNIVERSE”’s opening cut, “Step Into My World”, doesn’t give much of a hint as to this direction, as it starts off the album much like her most recent LP’s, Black Cherry, Kingdom and Trick kicked off. After those potboiling three minutes, Kumi grabs herself a rock band and kicks into “Can We Go Back”. Between this, Black Cherry’s “Ningyao-hime” and Trick’s top-notch cover version of Shocking Blue’s “Venus”, Kuu-chin seems quite comfortable with Marshall-amped guitars behind her. This shouldn’t be much of a surprise, however – Kumi has always been a vocalist who doesn’t hesitate to slip into any musical arrangement that serves the song. Much of the first half of “UNIVERSE” is dominated by organic instrumentation, and her vocals float like butterflies over those arrangements.
Halfway through “UNIVERSE”, Kumi glides back into digital keyboard territory, but that is OK. Koda Kumi is a vocalist who has never been married or completely linked to one particular set of instrumentation, whereas someone like Gaga would probably seem out of place singing over anything not synthesized or without any AutoTune filtering on her voice.
Not counting the bonus live version of “Moon Crying” on some copies, Kumi closes out the album with “Alive”, yet another classic Kuu-chin ballad. Kumi always shines on her ballads (and someone at Avex must have thought as much to devote an entire compilation, BEST ~Bounce & Lovers~, to them a couple of years ago) and while that’s nothing new, it’s also always welcome, and you can’t ask for more than that.
Last week, I decided to go a little old school, pull out my old KISS albums (even though I have them on more recent formats as well), and spin those old favorites on my turntable. After a few hours, though, I stopped. And I blame what KISS has become lately and how much it has bugged me of late for that.
Last year, the coincidental back-to-back release of Ace Frehley’s fourth solo album Anomaly and KISS’ first studio album in 11 years, Sonic Boom found themselves in my CD player and in review form here on TGML. Granted, Ace’s album was the one I was more interested in, and it got a well deserved five-star review here because of the contents. But I found myself compelled to spring twelve bucks for the KISS album in spite of what was an iffy track record in the wake of their post-Dynasty releases, and I felt compelled to give an honest review of the album that I too, still hold to six months later (In short, Paul’s songs are the strongest, Gene’s are a small improvement on his post-’78-solo-album auto-pilot output, and Tommy Thayer can emulate Ace’s soloing style well, having imitated him in a KISS cover band years and years before, but can’t sing worth a fuck.)
A few weeks ago, after a little overindulging in the first two KISSology DVD collections, I decided to man up and add the third one, since it was loaded with footage from the reunion gigs done by the original lineup. Out of curiosity, I took a peek into the DVD’s commentary tracks done by Paul and Gene – and got immediately pissed off. So pissed off that I ejected the DVD from my player and shelved the set along with the first two volumes. What pissed me off? A lot of commentary downplaying Ace’s and Peter Criss’ role in the success of the Reunion Tour.
I suspect that Paul’s part of the commentary in question sounds somewhat forced compared to Gene’s tongue-wagging. Furthering this theory is something Paul said a little more off-the-cuff in the same set’s commentary track: That Paul was all for bringing Ace and Peter back into the fold, while Gene was rather reluctant. This should not come as any surprise to longtime fans of the band. Gene was the one most reluctant to record a new album after the Psycho Circus debacle – a debacle spurred by the absence of Ace and Peter on all but three cuts on the album – and on only one of those – Ace’s sole songwriting contribution to the album – did they play their assigned instruments (a session player filled in for Peter on the rest of the album, while Thayer played uncredited guitar solos). [And with the exception of noting that Sonic Boom’s relative quality made up for how shitty Psycho Circus was in my review of the former album, the only time I’d thought about Psycho Circus in recent times was when Vee referenced it in a recent post at Pink Wota – and in conversation she agreed with me that Psycho Circus was a lame album, too!]
Gene also falsely accused Ace – who in reality honored his five year contractual commitment and chose to step away and decompress before restating his solo career – of “shooting himself in the foot again” in his second book Sex Money KISS by not participating in what became the Alive IV: Symphonic KISS album. In short, Gene is out to make himself look good and the rest of his associates (at least the ones who aren’t willing to kiss his ass) look bad for the sake of his own ego:
Despite a post-Hollywood, self-proclaimed “refocus” on KISS around the time of Revenge’s creation, Gene Simmons is still interested in putting his ego and interests ahead of the group. Granted, at times, he is willing to make himself the butt of a joke – witness his first Dr. Pepper Cherry commercial, in which his son Nick interrupts his characteristic bombast, as well as many of the setups portrayed in his A&E TV series – as long as it’s for a profit. It’s highly doubtful a blooper like this would have ever made an installment of KISSology, even as a hidden Easter egg:
I am of completely mixed emotions about the band that first led me to want to pick up a guitar back in 1978. All of the classic-era albums are on my laptop and iPod, but only a few random tracks from the albums since then are there. I went AWOL from the KISS Army and started waving the Black Flag bars, but I still owe the band that much credit. But I will say without a shadow of a doubt that I will run, not walk, when Ace Frehley – the man who directly influenced my choice of instrument – comes around my neck of the woods on tour, as opposed to seeing KISS themselves live because I don’t want to see someone else wearing Ace’s makeup and playing his songs and solos.
NOTE TO LONGTIME READERS: Reviews coming of a few albums over the next week. I had to get this shit out of my system first. Thanks for your patience.
I don’t think I could add any more insight to what has already come out from Hello! Blog and Selective Hearing in the wake of much of Anime Expo’s staff getting up and leaving in what is apparently justifiable disgust. I will say this, however:
Although others in the blogosphere have said that the most likely place for popular Japanese acts to bond with their Western cult audience is at conventions like Anime Expo, this is an aspect that I have disagreed with for years. The incidents referred to in that ‘silenced staff members’ post really disgusted me – how the hell did that douchebag think he could get away with disrespecting Morning Musume like he did? I came away from reading that more convinced that Japanese music acts should not rely on the conventions for their American performance venues.
Instead of dealing with anime con organizers, Up-Front Works and other agencies should hook up with established booking agencies outside of Japan and start organizing tours for their acts, much like they should avoid the quick-hit-oriented, throw-against-the-wall approach of most major labels when looking for Western labels for their recorded product in favor of a big independent label like Matador or Merge, or an independent-minded major-label imprint like Warner Bros.’ Nonesuch or A&M’s Octone.
Dir en grey, Puffy AmiYumi, and the many acts that have participated in the yearly Japan Nite package tours certainly don’t need the anime conventions – and wisely bypassed them entirely in favor of performing in more music-centric venues. Neither do Morning Musume or any other J-pop act that we all love. Given that MoMusu drew 7,500 last summer for their sole US show to date, it’s a no-brainer that American J-pop fans would go see their idols at a venue closer to home.
—–
On a vaguely related note (well, related to MoMusu, anyway) – the MoMusu/AKB48 singles “comparison” will resume shortly, and I’ll explain briefly in the next installment why the series has been taking longer that I would have wished to come to further fruition.
Available on CD/DVD combo and on iTunes Japan. 
Entries (RSS)