Zeus 7997 Posted May 31, 2014 Score: | I don't know how I feel about this one. Shiina Ringo may have written these songs, but there's a lack of Ringo-ism here. Gwakuyunyu~Kowankyoku~ is a self-cover album and is not a continuation of Shiina's current musical style. It is a collection of songs she has written for many popular artists in Japan such as PUFFY, Chiaki Kuriyama, and SMAP that she has now decided to re-record and sell for herself. I have never heard any of the songs in their original state, so all of these songs sound "new to me". This will help keep my opinion as neutral as possible. The first thing I must mention is that each of the songs are fantastic when taken out of the context of this album. When put together, these tracks don't work together. They do not share a consistent mood or style and all lack that Ringo vibe that makes her music so addictive. However talented Ringo has proven herself in working with different genres, she struggles to make it work this time. The eleven songs she has chosen to cover were written anywhere between 1998 and the present and the genres range from pop to rock, digital hardcore, jazz, and a ballad with accompanying orchestra. The album shifts moods too often and the work one track does in drawing you in is immediately undone by the next one. There's only so much I can get into each track before I decide I'd rather listen to her sing something else. The sterile production puts the final nail in the coffin. It stays uniform across the album instead of adapting to the needs of each track. For such a varied album, this is bad. It works when songs lean towards the harsher sounds like 渦中の男 or 決定的三分間, but fails when tracks feature real instruments. My would-be favorite track on the album, 望遠鏡の外の景色, features a brass section so sibilant it's painful to listen to at moderate volumes. The contrast is even greater when there are tracks that feature both electronic manipulation and actual instruments side-by-side. In those cases, the music gets lost in itself. Take 主演の女 and it's almost absent drums and perpetually off-by-one orchestra as the best example of this. Gwakuyunyu is disappointing in that regard because the individual pieces are great, but the album as a whole is not memorable. It lacks what made Kalk Samen Kuri no Hana, Shousou Strip, or ADULT so memorable. It makes me question the motives behind the creation of this album. This feels like a quick cash-in for some money disguised as an artistic experiment that doesn't always work. As a not-so-casual Ringo fanatic, this doesn't do enough to fill the void Tokyo Jihen left behind. It's also not a great place for people new to Ringo to begin listening. Unfortunately, this album will be one of many of her albums that has a couple of great tracks, but ultimately will be forgotten in lieu of her stronger, more consistent offerings.Which is a shame, because I was looking forward to The One True Queen putting the rest of the pop scene to shame this year. Maybe she has something planned up her sleeve with NIPPON... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Pretsy 1343 Posted June 3, 2014 First of all, I've always welcomed Shiina trying something ~out of her borders~, unlike many jazz fanboys/girls out there - and this ain't exception at all. I like how each arrangement gave a different perspective to what Shiina would try next after this album - and no, I don't mind the general inconsistency, considering that this ("unfortunately") is not a proper full-length (she hasn't released one since 2009). I can feel the pain of fans and alike, but let's get a bit more patient and optimistic about Ringo's slow-ish efforts. TJ disbandment traumas aside, the first track starts with a huge bang - big band-like, majestic arrangement by the courtesy of Otomo Yoshihide, which surprised me more than I thought it would. The guy truly deserves a good tap on his shoulder - good job, Yoshihide. I like how the track still retains its "Shiinaistic" approach from the mild original, but now with more grandiose direction. Pretty much the biggest highlight out there. Then we have three electronic tracks - 渦中の男 , 真夏の脱獄者 and 決定的三分間 . I don't really care about the originals of the first two at all, knowing that they've had that "necessary" Johnny's atmosphere surrounding them. Here, thanks to Osawa and Ueda, we have a chance to listen to the "proper" continuation to Shiina's first-timer electro collab. Despite the unfortunate case of having Shiina using engrish in both songs due to "discomfort around male pronouns", I like how brave those songs are really - ESPECIALLY the former (despite its typical "gabba-gabber-brotherly Amen breaks"). Osawa's effort in the other hand resorts to the most familiar element/genre people have heard in Shiina's work, ESPECIALLY during TJ era: funk, and disco-like funk this time. Some might find this way too safe experimentation-wise (if we assume that arrangement idea is solely based on having Shiina experiment around genres), but nothing wrong with going around very familiar, always welcomed choices! When it comes to the last one though, this is where I want Shiina to base her further stuff on - Nobuhiko's Shouso Strip friendliness is somewhat audible here, and at the same time, he gives new colors to this femme fatale-ish song which might throw you back to...well I said, some moments of Shouso Strip (heh). All three are quite solid 8,5-ers to me The 90s strikes back and hard with Private/Cappuccino - The former is along with Ueda collab, hands down, one of the bravest Shiina experiments ever - I mean, how could you really expect to hear Shiina in such disturbingly upbeat atmosphere? As an earlier Mayeamada enthusiast, I appreciate this kind of effort too - along with various Dempagumi songs *coughcough*. Cappuccino in the meanwhile is really respectful towards the original (which is not a bad thing in this case), and retains many elements from it - including the horn section. It has that kind of typical Shiinaistic pop approach we have heard in (I apologize beforehand...) various TJ pop songs, a la 閃光少女. Consider this to be a solid radio pop hit you will hum along to while driving etc. One of the rare cases where I actually CARE about originals in Shiina's repertoire, btw. Many listeners, like myself, had some skepticism going on when 雨傘 / 日和姫 kicked in. Why? During the first listen it felt pretty odd from my perspective to have 30-something old woman singing in Avril/pop-punk-esque like manner, but sheesh - talk about growers. The former gets minuses for having oddball Engrish going on (sorry, R. Clarke), but that doesn't really distract you from some sweet good ol' Cocco/"good" Puffy atmosphere you get from this song - oh you, Takamune . Then there's the latter one, arranged by the dude from BEAT CRUSADERS - I don't really care much about their work but hey, this is some sort of SS-era "punk" throwback too (with a tinge of radio-friendliness) - and very rocking one! I prefer this to the original by miles, definitely. Good job. I must say that I started to care less and less about calmer tracks in this album (aka those I haven't mentioned yet) - Tomiita's effort would've been better if that D'n'B-esque intro was carried on even during the verses but eh, nothing really different from Chiaki's lousy effort. AT LEAST IT DIDN'T HAVE AUTOTUNE, thank god. Then there's 望遠鏡の外の景色, which is unfortunately 95% instrumental - and why? I don't know it myself either. That aside, I don't really feel this arrangement, compared to what kind of joy I had from the first track, which had the same-ish concept in the performance...and oh, of course - 幸先坂, which might leave many listeners with quite stale feelings about the album in general. We have heard much better piano ballads by Ringo, right? Nothing worth pinpointing around here. All in all, despite some small-ish downsides, which are (if we were to sum up): - English in some tracks (well, just a tinge of uneasiness) - Slower efforts just lack something... - Inconsistency (but I will exclude this prolly tho - just as I said, I don't think of this as a ~proper album~) Thus, by calculating, and rounding some things up - we get a solid 9 for this album, out of 10. My apologies afterwards for possibly weird ways on reviewing - and I really hope that people start caring about reviewing non-vk artists too Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
