Electric Guitar Sounds in Anime
One thing that I love about anime is the music–only if manga had music maybe I’d read more of it…
At any rate, the good o’ #MALKeionbu is doing an electric guitar theme week so I took a few minutes to dig out from the rusty grey matter of some notable guitar tracks of the past. It’s a broad category since electric guitar is a popular instrument, and even if we only focus those tracks that have notable guitar sections, it’s probably a bundle to choose from.
The nomination is ending very soon (1-2 slots left) so definitely stay tuned next week to see what everyone picked. I selected one of the action BGM tracks from Geneshaft, since it still is kinda the default rock anime BGM set out there… Maybe Needless can take that mantle now? Is there another challenger? What are some great riffs in anime that I’m missing out on?
Speaking of relevance, there’s this Saimoe E8 video done to Geneshaft OP. Remember, the finals begin tomorrow 10/17 Japan time (well, technically you can start to get your code on 11:30 pm 10/16 but w/e). I’ll eek out a brief shoutout at the animesaimoe.org guys who kept this year’s Saimoe very streamlined for us gaijins, and maybe it swayed the outcome some! I wouldn’t have guessed to see a Yui x Taiga final, at any rate.
One thing that I do like to do is curl up with a manga volume, pop in a CD and/or put some headphones on, and read with the music in the background. It works in creating that atmosphere when I read say… the YKK manga while listening to the music. Same thing (and then some) when I read ARIA. Then again, I’m the kind of person who will watch anime and then read the manga rather than the other way around so I’ll usually have the music from the anime to listen to while I read.
Needless is looking like quite the winner in the electric guitar dept. I’ve been enjoying the tracks quite a bit, though your recommendation in checking out Geneshaft is one I’ll have to look into.
NEEDLESS has some awesome guitar riffs, thanks to Masaki Iizuka. The man’s so flexible, he can do anything, from Minami Kuribayashi’s ballad’s to GRANRODEO’s harder stuff and you wouldn’t know it was the same person on the guitar.
But interestingly enough, I get the same vibes from Kampfer as well, in terms of the BGM, and lo and behold, Tatsuya Katou’s the music director behind both shows.
This was yet another week that made me wonder what exactly is it that constitutes good electric guitar. I tend to shy away from the speed metal and symphonic metal of the sorts like Cautionary Warning and Zzero’s guilty gear piece. They may be more technically difficult where speed is concerned but my preferences definitely lie in the long drawn out solos that really give me an impression that the songs are being played with feeling. Every individual note/distortion is laid out there. Those are the solos i want to thrash out on air guitar to. The mahou tsukai nom and Shell both are like that. All the distortion effects really come out in those pieces.
I also wonder about riffs throughout vs. one really awesome riff that i like. If the rest isn’t guitar based does it still make it count as a guitar track? In terms of popular music it’s like if I were to nominate “Let it Be” (the Spectorized one), which doesn’t have a ton of guitar throughout but has an awesome solo thrown in.
I can’t just think of technical aspects I have to think of feeling, distortion and appropriateness of the sound of the guitar. I wish i knew more of the technical terms for the differentiation in the sound of guitars. Some guitars have just the right sound, like Dire Strait’s Sultans of Swing the guitar improvisations and riffs of guitar are subdued somewhat with less distortion. Another example might be Cream’s White Room with Eric Clapton’s mini-solos mid 2nd verse and the main solo at the end. The guitar has such a harsh sound that really fits the somewhat dark tone of the song. I also wonder about the tracking as well. Whether the volume is turned up on the guitar track or it’s more in the background. Improvisational aspects also make me wonder and don’t get me started on slide guitar. I think I like the idea of voting based on the songs most want to air guitar to so I think I’ll stick with that.
I highlight Needless and Gene Shaft because almost the entire BGM set is guitar wailing. The quality vary from piece to piece of course, but by necessity BGM needs to convey a variety of moods and feelings that it probably address to your concerns to a degree.
Nah I wasn’t debating your post. I was just going off on a little tangent of my own. One of the reasons I stopped visiting regularly the MALKeionbu was it was becoming a real chore to decide what was good and not feeling comfortable with my noms or my votes. I just posted it here in lieu of posting it there. I can’t hold my own in a debate and don’t want to bring controversy. I just can’t help thinking controversially. :-P
@taka
Heh, I’ll admit a bias for stuff that’s difficult to perform and requires some virtuosity to get a good handle on. You’ll see the same pattern if you were to ask me to list out my favorite piano pieces :p
Also, I’m not sure what you’re so worried about with controversial thoughts since people react to music in different ways. So I’ll just repeat what omo said in the nom thread and say this: “you should post more taka, I missed you” :p
I would definitely watch an anime about a guitar-playing witch.
[…] – Electric Guitar Anime Title: Geneshaft Track Title: IDENTIFICATION Comments: Omonomono had blogged about this particular week with the note that as far as anime soundtracks go, rock music doesn’t actually feature […]
[…] be hard-pressed to name a soundtrack in which electric guitar riffs feature prominently. Geneshaft will usually be mentioned as one of the few that do, and now comes NEEDLESS’s soundtrack, which sports an excellent […]