Music post

[petronia]

This week has been all about the fannish-analysis conversations on lj. :P Insights have been tossed about that I feel I will have to digest at length.

...Apart from the fact that monkeys constitute an important leitmotif in GetBackers, which is self-evident if you count the number of times they play an active part in the series - even taking Ban's nickname for Shido as a single instance.

Where was I? Oh yes, music. Very PopJustice-style this time, with a dollop of Bowie.



Alizée - J'en ai marre

Alizée, image de jeune fille délurée par excellence (no, I can't translate that properly), delivers a... "upbeat" is meaningless these days, isn't it? Say rather that only Pop can do wonders for one's mood in this fashion, when Pop is the opening theme to a dorky clichéd 50+ episode anime one was obsessed with, years ago when there was no such thing as dorky or clichéd anime - remember that? - and OMG I haven't heard this song for ages SAIKOU. I mean, it isn't. But it sounds as if it could be.

It's about bubble baths, and making a list of things that annoy one. And (I can't shake the feeling that it's also obliquely about) politics. But that's the French for you.

Bon Bon Blanco - White

Actually the B-side to the second GetBackers ED theme (the "we let our intern play with flash mx" ending). Dl'd both songs a geological eon ago off a regular jpop mp3 site; back when I was still doggedly downloading the music of anime series I didn't know, just in case I get into them later. ...Well, I did, so there!

Egregious idol jpop, which you knew. Catchier than the A-side IMO, though.

Ali Project - Water Drop

Posted this on the pitasblog more than two years ago, so it doesn't count as a repeat. Still ridiculously cute and squishy. Still good. Still love the lyrics. I'd say I'm thinking Shido x Madoka, but after you hear it you'd feel obliged to kill me.

Bright Eyes - Lover I Don't Have To Love

Contribution from Killvern. I know nothing about this band except for the internal evidence of three songs, to wit, they're... kind of emo. Except I'm really no good with defining the musical perimeters of emo, so we're talking my gut reaction.

It's such a debauched song - that's the only word. XD It's the way the vocalist is singing purposefully a bit out of tune and out of sync, and the organ synths.

Faye Wong - Chesspiece

(Or go, or shogi - pretty sure it's supposed to be shogi, actually.) Orchestral, lyrical, melancholy. Gold star for employ of extended literate metaphor if you can understand the words; you get three guesses as to what pairing it makes me think of, and the first two don't count.

David Bowie - New Killer Star

In all seriousness, my new favorite song. And I know why: the melody and progression are archetypally Bowie, but the way the bottom end is put together reminds me a bit of New Order. XD Tight dance-rock drums and the bass that thinks it's a lead guitar.

I've been going about for the last week saying to everyone I meet: buy this album. Listen to this album. EFFING GET THIS ALBUM.

Westlife feat. BoA - Flying Without Wings

*gleefully* It burnses! It burnses!

New Order - 60 MPH

It's been stuck in my head lately. Shades toward the happy dorky rock song end of the New Order songbook (which in my head I kind of blame on Barney Sumner) - I mean, it doesn't sound like them until that glorious unexpected synth bridge cuts in. But is a fun song, and that's all it fundamentally takes.


That was long. @_@ May not do another one of these for a while.

Comments

[ayabai.livejournal.com]

hooray! i get a gold star. n_____n
see, i'm bad at guessing games though.... the first part made me lean towards ban/raitei but... neither of them manipulate each other and both control their own fates, and, uh, really, neither of them set traps for each other (and, well, duh, neither of them is the pawn) so i don't think that's it. so i really don't know ._.

[ayabai.livejournal.com]

ps, that boa/westlife song was on my little brother's MD player, and i was wondering what the hell it was u___u;;;;;;;

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Eh? Hikaru/Akira, j0. XD

There are other boys in the world. XD;;; *runs from Wen*

[ayabai.livejournal.com]

would you hit me if i told you i had no idea who they are...? ._.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, you don't actually get involved in all that many animanga series. XD Hikaru no Go, which was my ongoing shounen-manga fandom until it, well, ended. (I like many shounen manga but try to limit myself to following one at a time; ongoing shoujo series don't seem to be as time-consuming, somehow.)

[ayabai.livejournal.com]

go, like the game go...? *laughs* that would explain you tying it into that particular song, then XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Seriously, no one ever tried to sl0re you on Hikaru no Go?

Because of the way I come across these series, I tend to think of them as one group - HikaGo, Naruto, GB, Trigun, TeniPuri - "yeah yeah, everyone's into those." XD Well, I'm not into Prince of Tennis or Naruto, because as previously stated I have a shounen series quota. Or I'd be into Bleach, because I'm mysteriously in love with Ichigo.

(...Okay, not so mysterious. He's a punk, he's a redhead, and he's named Strawberry. Clearly Tite Kubo is God. Also, GB is overdue for a redheaded bishounen; even HikaGo developed one circa the 18th or 20th tankoubon. ...Sorry, did I just go off on a tangent? XD)

[ayabai.livejournal.com]

nope ._.

i'm more of a gamergrrrrrrrrl actually, i sort of got sl0red into getbackers completely by accident (and goddamn it look where it got me u__u;; ) i'm pretty good at resisting sl0ring, usually.... so other than GB, i know close to nothing about those other series ^^;;; except, well, trigun, which i only saw the first few and last few episodes of~ (at my first con of.. well.. the two that i've gone to) ._.

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can't really contribute meaningfully, but my those conversations that you and the Ack have been having on Getbackers are interesting. I'm more about the smrtXsmrt recently, and am so behind on Getbackers....

And kudos on that excellent Getbackers review. A real pleasure to read just as an essay on The Confusing Nature of Homoerotic Shounen, not only as a READ GB NOW!!! slore.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

They're the epitome of amiable after-dinner-ish fan bickering. XD "We've settled that they're doing it, now we're onto the finer details."

I had to take an Angle. It was either authorial intent, or the concept of romantic friendship as it exists in Japan and has become obsolete in North America.

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and I was shocked recently to see that you've decided she is more yaoista than slasher. Which does mess with things, indeed. It's all relative, ain't it?

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Like I wrote in that other thread, I'd pretty much always considered her more yaoista than slasher - for the very good reason that even in Teh Time Of Teh Kerfuffle Long Past, she was the only one out of all of tCoB to understand from the get-go why being called a slasher could be pejorative. And in fact said no, darnit, I'm not.

It's somewhat ironic, yes. Ironic, but not particularly serious, being as it's All Wank In The End. XD

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

Why must you always supply music that immediately makes me its bitch? Am loving "J'en ai marre." Do not grok French but can at least sing along with the "ba da ba da bum bum" parts. ^^;

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Heard any early Mylene Farmer, then? :D

(Would translate the lyrics for you but it semi-relies on puns >_>)

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

'Sokay. I'm convinced that foreign pop (and domestic pop, for that matter) is often better enjoyed in a state of lyrical no comprende.

Don't think I've heard any Mylene Farmer, early or late. My exposure to French-language music has been limited mainly to a song about Asterix by Plastic Bertrand. ^^;

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Mylene however (and by extension Alizee, for whom she writes songs) has rather excellent lyrics. So clever, in fact, that they foil me in their virtual untranslatability. ^^;

Will do you some of her music. Stay tuned.

[halcyonjazz.livejournal.com]

Finally had the time to download the songs n__n

The french one is oddly uplifting (even though I'm fluent in the language, I don't seek out songs for it at all, so I don't mind adding some to my growing collection of mp3s~ n__n) and ai, you weren't kidding about the sheer pop of it all o_o

I think my favorite is the New Order song (I'm sloowly gaining more songs by them, maybe I should catch a hint and look at the rest they have .__.) and Faye Wong. After looking up the translation it was... gaah *__* Chesspiece is extremely pretty <3

Thank you~~ <3

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Heh, New Order will eat your soul. <3 (It's a Ban-and-Ginji song, BTW; they've had it since vol.3 or something, before I was into the series as such. That and a few songs from the first Elastica album, reason unknown unless it's because Elastica's the sort of music they'd like, and... Ban's Sissy Spritz numbers. "Opportunities", "Sunglasses At Night", "World In My Eyes". Ack suggested "If I Had A Million Dollars".

...Clearly a tracklisting is in order. XD)