Just What about Your Star, Do Tell?
Grats to the Anime Blog Awards for finishing relatively successfully. I ran across a couple interesting blogs (which I promptly now have forgotten…they’re bookmarked somewhere) in the process of participating in it. I mean, I’m kind of surprised–I never really am that interested in popular blogs on the whole, and was surprised to see some interesting blogs on the same wavelength as mine. The “rookie of the year” category is a telling example–the winner is a blog that I don’t know and I still pass over; but the other nominated entries in that category bring something original to the table that I value.
The ABA tie-in is pretty simple when as applied to Macross. Who is Sheryl? Who is Ranka? The latter will totally lose in a ABA-like contest in context of the show, but she’s the star in the show. And she’s the rising star in Nyan Furo.
[insert awkward transitional sentence here]
First–What ’bout My Star–for me that is the defining track on this CD, only because it appears twice and it gets lodged into my head easily. I hate it when songs get stuck in my head, because it sort of contaminates the experience for latter tracks. Nonetheless, the repetitive pop is just the right softness to be pleasant and the right sharpness to be catchy. I can’t really decide if I like Sheryl’s Live version more or the @ Formo version more–I like how the Sheryl only version is integrated into a live setting (with the appropriate arrangement!), yet I really dig the May’n/Nakajima duet.
It’s like Get Along.
But I think my favorite track overall on the CD is Welcome To My Fanclub’s Night. I don’t know why–probably because of the arrangement and the appropriate amount of energy as a fake live version. Without any kind of emotional attachment to the actual show, it’s easily the best produced idol power pop song on the CD. It’s just got corny lyrics, but it’s not that bad for an anisong.
Infinity is pretty good too, that said, but Diamond Crevasse puts it to shame.
Anyways, the past half year we’ve heard some more “LOL Kanno is a plagiarist” stuff and I think while it is always good to fish out where Kanno is getting her mojo from, it’s just outright ludicrous to jump to conclusions when most people don’t even know about what it means to be a plagiarizing musician. But man, Klaus Badelt much? And also some Zimmer?
Overall I’m sort of amused by this entire CD. The selection of the BGM tracks to be included on this CD is a very clever mix. A lot of the very impressive tracks go right along with the not-serious-business pop vocals (Triangular is still a LUL-tastic comeback for Maaya x Kanno), and they mix well 1:1 with some of the Hollywood-inspired mood-setters. If you don’t take Kanno’s pandering seriously (as you shouldn’t), I think you’ll really enjoy the tracks they have selected.
And thankfully, even so we get some more subtle tracks to go with both versions of Aimo. Track 20 (Kirakira), specifically, was very nice. And necessary. It’s just a little too much to have the whole soundtrack be full of lulz and awesome, right?
Speaking of lulz, though, nothing beats Ninjin Loves You Yeah. Or if you’re really bold, you can try this version.
And in the context of this CD, the Nyan Nyan song is just down right sinister–beckoning you to the pretty girls, gorgeous, delicious, deculture. It mixes Chinese, Japanese, and English to create this bizarre, meta-cultural experience. And appropriately it’s smack in the middle of this very fun soundtrack album. It’s no longer East meets West, or some postmodern display of lulz. It’s a glimpse of the humble reality about anime as a form of entertainment.
It’s not easy to play a flute for two separate audience and make them both sing–the East and West; or in the context of this blog, the good and the popular. When you’ve micromanaged the soundtrack release for a cartoon TV show to include promotional material for aspiring idol talents in the form of a fake live show, while delivering a potent payload to appease die hard fans of the composer, AND at the same time weave a coherent narrative, in line with the theme and concept of the anime, that adds to the enjoyment of the show’s intended audience, it’s hard to not call it “best soundtrack <insert time frame>.”
[Note: If you ever want to do the Nyan Nyan Dance, you can get a glimpse of the full motion in episode 10…sort of.]
Yet I’m hesitant to call it that. Nyan Furo’s intrinsic qualities take a back seat in terms of epic composer epeen, compared to some of the more sublime works from Yoko Kanno. Basically, Nyan Furo is all about pandering. But that’s why we are all going to buy copies of this CD and be like giddy fans, because you know OST2-3-4-whatever will have more of this, and hopefully more of the Kanno score that made her the fan favorite today.
For a more detail breakdown of Nyan Furo, check out this entry from the premiere YK fan blog. I think DarkMirage is going crazy with the translations too, if you want a crack at it (as he translated none of the songs I wanted to look up).
I just added Ninji-n loves you yeah! and What ’bout my star if you’re interested.
Translate the silly fanclub song already!
Nooooooooo!
Nothing beats EXILE’s songs :P
“Basically, Nyan Furo is all about pandering. ”
Pretty much what I thought, with some variation of “I’ve heard some of this somewhere before!” while I was listening to it. And it’s no problem at all. :P
I’m a fan of Aimo, Alto’s Theme, and Big Boys… so… yeah… :/
Susume susume SMS?
I don’t pay much attention to the music scene, so I’ve never heard Kanno being called a plagiarist, but damn if one of those songs didn’t sound exactly like the Pirates of the Caribbean theme :P
Favorite song is definitely Aimo. Well, pretty much anything Megumi sings.