Moved to tears

I randomly listened to a piece by the Korean pianist/composer Yiruma called River Flows In You and... omg, it's gorgeous. It's only about 3 minutes long but it's amazing. And it's probably the only song/piece that has moved me literally almost to tears within the first 5 seconds.

I've heard of Yiruma before, just by name, but I've never heard any of his music or Wiki'ed him. Turns out he's well-known worldwide and River Flows In You is one of his best-known pieces (I can see why). After hearing this piece I'm definitely going to check out more of his stuff.

The initial "moving me to tears" feeling has gradually faded after looping the track like 5 times in a row (oops) but it's still an amazing piece.

On a related side note, I thought it was weird and mildly interesting that according to Wiki his two pieces River Flows In You and Kiss the Rain are "widely misattributed as Bella's Lullaby from the soundtrack to the 2008 film Twilight." Umm, what?
(And no, I've never watched any of the Twilight movies.)

Listening to right now: Yiruma - River Flows In You

Jumping on the bandwagon

So the GazettE seems to be ridiculously popular (am I just stating the obvious?) and since I've only heard a few songs from them (again, back in 2004/5) I decided to Youtube 'em and see why it is that I never jumped on the omg-the-GazettE-is-awesome bandwagon.

I still don't know the answer to that because I'm pretty sure the songs I've heard recently from them were post-2005 songs (Cassis is late 2005, so still after I stopped following J-rock) and thus were released when I stopped listening to J-rock on a whole anyway. I started off with Cassis, Filth in the beauty, and now DISTRESS AND COMA... and... I'm not gonna lie, I don't particularly like Ruki's voice. I know there are probably thousands, maybe even millions, of fangirls who will vehemently disagree with me but I'm sorry, his voice just doesn't float my boat. It's growing on me (i.e. I can tolerate it enough to actually listen past it to the music) but it almost turned me off the GazettE completely. Which would have been a shame because I do like their music. I haven't listened to many of their songs yet but they seem to be incredibly versatile in their styles of music. I've also liked their PVs so far; they're actually visually worth watching (and not just because of the members).

They've been around since 2002 and have always been visual kei as far as I know. I'm not ashamed to admit that a motivating factor for me to keep watching their PVs and staring at their pictures is that I really like their appearance. I find that a lot of the newer visual kei bands are just over the top or are much darker and scarier than I personally like. But the GazettE's style is much simpler comparatively, without the crazy outfits that look like they're hell to move in much less perform in.
Don't get me wrong though, there are some bands who wear crazy outfits that I also love watching, haha. Of course, I'd only watch them if their music was worth listening to.

Anyway, I can see why the GazettE is so ridiculously popular. Even though I didn't really like the vocalist's voice initially, I can still get past it and really listen to the music which as it turns out... is pretty awesome. So consider me as having jumped squarely on the GazettE bandwagon.

Listening to right now: the GazettE - Cassis

Aki likes shiny pants

I happened to come across a random Youtube video of some amateur visual kei band covering SID's "Watashi wa Ame" in Harajuku (well, supposedly it was a band... there was only one guy playing guitar and singing in the video) and I remembered just how much I used to like SID. Before seeing this video the only two songs I really remembered were "Ajisai" and "Alibi"; I had forgotten how many other awesome songs they have.

I'm not that familiar with their more recent stuff (recent being 2006 onwards) since I haven't kept up with J-rock since around 2005. This makes SID a little unique for me in that most of the bands I like have been around a lot longer and so I'm more familiar with their later, non-indies songs, whereas I'm much more familiar with SID's indies stuff than their later work. So I rummaged around and found their Renai album, and I'm beginning to re-familiarise myself with them.

So far, I've noticed that a lot of their later songs tend more towards the mainstream pop sound, with a lot less of that jazzy yumminess that was so prominent in their earlier songs. This doesn't mean that their current sound is bad; just that their style has changed pretty significantly, imo. Maybe the bass is also more prominent in their earlier songs? (Haven't listened to enough of their newer songs to say this for sure.)
Two of their recent songs that I've been looping are "Uso" and "Memai"; I especially like "Memai" because it's a little harder (rockier?) than their other stuff, even compared to their indies songs, and very very catchy.

They've also de-visualised for the most part, and unlike some other de-visualised bands they actually look pretty good. I watched a 2009 interview with them though and apparently they still consider themselves to be visual kei? I don't know if they're referring more to their music or to their appearance or both but I wouldn't have called them visual kei. In fact, I was under the impression that they didn't want to be visual kei anymore. This is all hearsay of course, since it's just stuff that I read online. And really, it doesn't matter to me whether they (or anyone else for that matter) consider themselves to be visual kei.

I just watched a video of their live performance of "Memai" and there are a few things I noticed:
a) the lyrics are awesome... I've never looked up their lyrics before but I definitely will now.
b) Mao would sound great in a screamy song and
c) Aki rocks out so hard... harder than I would expect from a bassist. o_O
d) Oh yeah, and Aki likes shiny pants.

Listening to right now: シド 「眩暈」　(SID - Memai)

Good taste in music...?

What defines good taste in music? Doesn't it ultimately come down to one's own subjective idea of what sounds good and what doesn't?

I've always had that annoying little problem of caring too much about what other people think of me. I love the music I listen to, regardless of the genre or the musical awesomeness (or lack thereof). And I'm willing to try almost any genre because I know that there will always be at least one or two songs that I'll like even if I don't lean towards that particular type of music. Yet I always find myself defending my "taste in music" as though what I listen to is something to be ashamed of.

As is evident by the majority of my posts on this blog, I've been heavily into Korean pop music for the last few months, and I like it. I like the catchiness of the songs, I like singing along to them, I like the melodies. Yet whenever someone puts down my choice to listen to K-pop I feel this inexplicable need to laugh and agree that my taste in music is questionable, or even go to such lengths as to say that once upon a time my taste in music was much better, like when I was more into J-rock.

But why do I consider J-rock as being better then K-pop? Okay, I do consider J-rock to be better than K-pop (for my personal tastes) because I can immerse myself in J-rock in a way that I can't (or don't) do with K-pop... even though I do really like K-pop and would be able to loop K-pop forever. I suppose the right question would be... why should K-pop be considered inferior to J-rock? The impression that I've gotten from other people who have called my taste in music "bad" simply because I listen to K-pop is that 1) it's pop, and 2) they don't play instruments. As if being an actual instrument-playing band makes someone's music better?

I'm not gonna lie though. I'm a hypocrite because I also look down on certain genres (and by association the taste of those who like them). American teenybopper pop, for example. Maybe I just have a god complex where I think my taste in music is absolute and infallible? Lol.

I know that this isn't something restricted to just J-rock and K-pop... it's applicable to any genres of music, and to anybody in the whole world. I guess in the end this is just a long-winded rant about people criticising my own taste in music, haha. And I suppose it doesn't help that I have the exact same stereotypes (otherwise why would I call my choice of K-pop a "questionable" taste in music?) as the people criticising me.

I love the music I listen to. And that's what makes my taste in music good.

Listening to right now: Dir en grey - Akuro no Oka

Bored at work...

So I decided to listen to Pandora while playing some Solitaire (which I keep losing for some reason, btw), only to realise that I had no idea what artist/song/composer I should create a station based on. I started off with Sara Bareilles first then tried Rain (I don't think it's the same Rain as Bi though because the station kinda sucked wasn't what I was expecting) and finally settled on L'Arc~en~Ciel. I didn't try them off the bat because a year ago it kept giving me crappy music but this time the first song turned out to be by Asian Kung-Fu Generation, and I thought hey, maybe it'll give me some good stuff for a change.

Anyway, long story short, I'm on the 4th song and so far the playlist is fairly good. And seeing as I'm still losing in Solitaire, I figured that a better more interesting use of my time would be to write a blog entry about the songs while I listen to my L'Arc~en~Ciel station and wait for my western transfer to finish.

Asian Kung-Fu Generation - N.G.S. [whoo haven't heard AKFG in so long!]
Gackt - Farewell [of course, must have Gackt in here somewhere -_-; not a fan of this particular song though]
MUCC - Saishuu Ressha [omg I freaked out when this song started playing... I love this song!]
Gain commercial [sigh]
Yoko Kanno - Inner Universe [I really like this song too; haven't heard it in a while]
Asian Kung-Fu Generation - My World [not sure I've ever heard this one before... but not bad]
Gackt - Noah [instrumental? kinda nice, actually]
the Pillows - The Sun That Will Not Rise [I think I've only heard like 2 songs from the Pillows before, and this wasn't one of them. Very mellow, I like]
High and Mighty Color - Over [I remember hearing this a while ago on Pandora... okay song, it has its moments but kinda boring]
Yoko Kanno - Stamina Rose [somewhat interesting... somewhat]
Venus Embrace commercial [siiiiigh]
Yoshida Brothers - Red Bird (Akai Tori) [ooooh, instrumental? First time I'm hearing about the Yoshida Brothers but wow I really like this song... especially whatever old-sounding instrument is being plucked throughout. Edit: It's the shamisen.]
the Pillows - March of God [catchy ^^]

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the selection of music. Good job, Pandora. Much better than last time when you didn't even play Japanese music on my L'Arc~en~Ciel station.

Listening to right now: the Pillows - March of God