B'z as hell !! It's Showtime !

Hi everybody ! I'm SO sorry for the lack of updates... I've been working my @SS off lately; actually I've been so busy that I thought about posting something from jrock/power pop duo B'z ! (Get it ? Bu-sy... B-Z...? Ok, nevermind... :-S).

B'z is formed by Tak Matsumoto in guitar and heartthrob Koshi Inaba on vocals. They kicked off their career in 1988 with the release of their self-titled debut album. By that time they showed off a promising sound that mixed hard rock with pop at times, with the guitar expertise of Tak on the forefront and the brilliance of Koshi's vocals shining in each rock song.

Still, that first period wouldn't prepare the guys for the MASSIVE success they would achieve starting a couple of albums later. I mean, this guys RULED the 90's and are already LEGENDS, having put out 36 singles that went straight to the top of the Japanese charts on the day of their release ! I think this is something, to my knowledge, really unheard of in any other point of the planet...

The album I'm posting today is "B'z The Best: Pleasure", which compiles 14 of those # 1 hits and is a perfect introduction for the newcomer to the music that this duo makes. Released in 1998 together with a second Greatest Hits called "Treasure", the album below has songs varying from the euro-pop infused "Bad Communication" of the early 90's (sung in English), to the rock balladry of "Alone", to the loud energised hard-rock of "Samayoeru Aoi Dangan".

There's a little something for everybody in this album, but you have to go pass the kitsch and absurd intro to the first track, "Love Phantom", which to this day makes me laugh like mad... ^_^. My favorites here are the three I just mentioned, plus "Hadashi no Megami", "Be there" & "Easy come, easy go". Both members of this group have also developed successful solo careers.

Here you have the official video of "Easy come, easy go", courtesy of cubdukat @ YouTube. It may look dated (and silly... specially Koshi's moves when he dances) but the music's still good:

The guys have collaborated with animation projects in the past, most notably contributing the openings "Giri Giri Chop" & "Shoudou" to the TV series of Detective Conan, and the ED "Mienai Chikara" (featured in their "Treasure" compilation) to TV series Jigoku Sensei Nube. Koshi on his own extended his partnership with "Conan" by adding his song "Overture" to the list of ED songs of that anime. Take a look at Conan's 20th OP, Shoudou, uploaded by coolish 17 @ YouTube, and then to Nube's ED, courtesy of nuonemeisuke @ YouTube:

Fortunately for all of their fans around the world, like me, these guys happen to be complete workaholics, and don't show any intention of retiring. Their last album, "The Circle" was released last year and it's great to see they are still popular and growing strong in their artistry just as their career is about to turn 20 years old ^_^.

Here is the album, enjoy it in a loud volume !

And check the comments section for a little p.s. ...

Vintage Soundtrack: "Windaria" OST + Bonus

Hi, peeps ! This time I wanted to upload for you the soundtrack to the 1986 anime film "Windaria", a.k.a. "Once upon a time". This music really takes me back. I must have seen this film when I was around 12 years old and I still remember how "shocked" I was when it was over: I had just seen an intense drama with an actual message... in animation ! Watching that film on my own one boring Sunday afternoon on TV is one of my earliest memories of realising that animation can be a means for narrating ANY story and that anime existed under many other guises than Giant Robot series...

"Windaria" tells the story of two pairs of young lovers who become embroiled in a war between two rival kingdoms. The action takes place in a fantasy world where haunted woods and legendary animals are commonplace, yet the issues dealt with in the story are very real and regrettably close to human nature. Topics including greed, loyalty, love, betrayal, etc are carefully balanced in this tragic tale of the consequences of our weaknesses. It is not an uplifting movie at all. You get to see the outcome of a senseless war in every level -from the ecological to the personal- but as harrowing as the script is, or as outdated as the animation may look, I recommend it. Don't be fooled. There are some harsh reviews on it around, but those are for the Americanized version of the movie. In fact, the same company that bought "Macross" and rewrote that series (turning it into "Robotech" once pasted to two other unrelated anime TV series), performed the same kind og "makeover" to "Windaria". The results were less than spectacular...

The soundtrack to the movie was composed by Satoshi Kadokura, whose other credits include the music to the Gundam F91 movie and the Wataru TV series. You can tell that Windaria is an anime from the mid-80's by listening to Kadokura's use of synths -typical of the period- turning some of the tracks into video-game sounding pieces of music. I enjoy a lot more the instrumental tracks with orchestra on them, such as track 1 -"Theme from Windaria"-, which sets from the start the tone for the whole movie. Other nice tracks are 6, 7, 10 & 12. You have here the original 14 tracks of the score released in 1986, plus 4 others that were released some years ago in a reissue of the soundtrack in a double CD package together with the OST of the OVA film "Birth". Tracks 4 & 14 are an IS & the ED song of the movie, sung by my girl Akino Arai. This would be Akino's first work in an animation project and actually "Yakusoku" would become the first single of her professional career. Her voice sounds a bit different from what you hear now, but of course this is the case for anybody that has been singing non-stop for the last 20 years ^_^.

Here you have the clip of the scene where the IS "Promise" is playing, courtesy of amyj17uk at YouTube:

Kadokura is still active as a composer. One of his recent projects was the soundtrack to the J-horror movie "Shikoku", which I also recommend in case you dig ghost stories à la "Ringu" or "The Grudge"...

Enjoy the album and leave your comments below !

Fire Bomber ready to take off !

Hi everybody ! Today we have an album of Jrock/anime rock courtesy of fictional rock band "Fire Bomber". The members of this band, specially the two singers, are the main characters of the TV anime series "Macross 7", sequel to the CLASSIC (yes, in capital letters) TV series of 1982, "Super Dimensional Fortress Macross". The original Macross was a cultural phenomenon in and outside Japan, and it achieved massive popularity worldwide when it was bought by Harmony Gold, rewritten and pasted together with two other unrelated TV series, and then aired for western audiences under the name of "Robotech".

Macross is still being broadcasted from time to time around the globe, harvesting new fans. The reason is simple: it was just a great script intertwining a love triangle with a serious sci-fi story. Sequels to Macross had been done before Macross 7. There was the movie retelling the events of the TV series, the mediocre (except for the soundtrack by Shiroh Sagisu) OVA series "Macross II" -which was quickly wiped out of any continuity- and the gorgeous OVA series "Macross Plus" that counted with a score by Yoko Kanno.

Macross 7 was the return of the Macross saga to the airwaves. Though it didn't get the same response from critics and viewers as the original cult favorite, it was a decent work and produced its own spin-offs in the form of a movie and two OVA series. Something that has always been taken care of in any product entitled "Macross whatever" is the music. In the original story, music played an important part and so it did in this sequel in particular. The soundtrack was composed by Shiroh Sagisu and Yoko Kanno, and for the singing voices of the main characters -Basara and Mylenne-, they got Yoshiki Fukuyama (of JAM Project) and Chie Kajiura respectively.

What you have right here is the BEST OF CD of the rock band they are members of: Fire Bomber. You have the OP & EDs of the TV series (tracks 11 & 13, 10, 8, in that order), the OP & ED of the OVA series Macross 7 Dynamite (tracks 14 & 5), plus other remarkable songs such as the monster ballads "Light the light" & "Angel voice". Despite being a group that existed only on celluloid, Fire Bomber released singles and albums that were big hits in Japan, and they performed in sold out concerts nationwide. Their sound is anime rock fusioned with acoustic and pop at times. I hope you like it.

To give you a hint of how the album below will sound, take a look at the following clip, the OP of the series set to the music of the song "Seventh Moon", courtesy of Angalus @ YouTube. And right after it, the OP to the OVA, "Dynamite Explosion", uploaded on YouTube by laputabx.

A special mention goes to Haruhiko Mikimoto, the character designer of the original Macross and of Macross 7, who did the artwork for this album. He's one of my favorite manga authors and he even did a manga set in the same universe, called Macross 7 Trash. Check it out if you can. Here's the album !

You gotta love the Japanese...

Oh-HAAA ! ^_^

This song was actually # 1 in Japan some years ago !! Addictive beat, weird artist, insane choreography, hectic clip directed -let's say- "under the influence"... of course it had everything needed to become a hit ! This video (courtesy of hughsafer & YouTube) comes with karaoke in romanji so that you can follow the lyrics and sing along... Click under your own risk...

If this doesn't motivate you to leave comments, then nothing will !
I want this song as my next ringtone !!

Here's the mp3 for your hearing pleasure...

And if you wanna know who the hell this guy in drag dressed up as a doll is, click here.

I'll have an album up for the weekend, until then... mayo tchu-tchu's to everybody ! :-P