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Wota Wonderings 004 – Are You In The Shallow End Of The Pool?

Welcome to Wota Wonderings! We are a group of English-speaking Japanese music bloggers brought together once a month to answer questions posed by johpan. We strive to be creative and entertaining, and we may even shed a bit of new light on interesting musical and cultural topics. Any questions about how we work should be directed to johpan. Don’t forget to check out the other posts from this month at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!

This month’s topic is a hard one.

Hoping we’re not all shallow wotas, imagine your favorite idol (or musical personality) switched bodies with someone you don’t find “visually pleasing”, would it affect your love for that idol in any way/shape/form?

Wow.  I’m not sure how to answer that without making myself sound like a self-centered, superficial jerk  but I’m going to try.  So here goes…

I’m still relatively new to the whole idol world.  Before I discovered anything J-Pop related I was very much a hardcore (90’s) Hip-Hop/R&B type of dude.  Image didn’t matter to me so much with that music.  I was more concerned with whether the tracks were good & if I could mix them into a DJ set.

But somehow I ended up getting addicted to J-Pop & the culture that comes along with it.  It’s quite the trip going from listening to stuff like Ice-T & N.W.A. to something somewhat more tame (in comparison) like Morning Musume.   I find it fascinating just how much image counts in Japanese music.  Well not just Japanese music, I guess the Asian pop music scene in general.  It’s quite different from I’m used to here in North America where people are still want some sort of  “musical integrity” to go along with their pop.

Yet I hardly listen to a lot of North American music these days.  I tune into the video stations and radio and suddenly feel out of touch.  I watch the award shows & I’m constantly asking (out loud) “Who the hell is this and why are they so popular?”  Of course no one’s around to answer me, but yeah…  Whatever scraps of North American music I listen to are usually just results of being faithful to an artist or label or some unknown force compels me to care.

Anyway… To actually answer the question… Uh… Well… As much as I hate to admit it,  my love for any particular idol would be affected based on their “visual appeal”.  I wouldn’t go as far as to say I would stop liking an artist just because I think they look like they need to be wearing a paper bag on their head on stage or anything like that.  It would just take me a bit longer to warm up to them outside of whatever musical talents that person or persons would have.

For example, one of my favorite members of the current Morning Musume lineup (& I don’t say this much) happens to be Kusumi Koharu.  I know her vocal abilities are limited (something I tend to always point out) but her constant sugar high personality combined with her looks (I’ll sound like a perv for saying this, but she’s fucking hot yo!) actually got me on her team so to speak.

Kusumi Koharu Nikki 20

I’ll be honest & say if that she wasn’t so attractive I would think that she’s extremely annoying.

I guess what really counts in the end is whether the music someone puts out  (either solo or part of a group) is worth listening to or not .  If it’s some good stuff I’m willing to forgo the whole image thing  as long as their output continues to be consistent.  But it doesn’t hurt to be nice to look at.

Does that make me shallow? Yes, but I’m not blind. =)

Other Wota Wonderings Articles

Wota Wonderings 4 – Are You a Shallow Wota (Solo Space)
WW04 – Are Looks Everything? (Tsuyoki de Yukoze!)
Wota Wonderings: On looks versus abilities… (boylikesmusic)
Wota Wonderings 004:Looks Or Talent? you decide (take off is now!)
[Wota Wonderings 04] It’s what’s outside that counts. (Renai Revolution 21)
Wota Wonderings 04 – Case of the Body Snatchers (fields of maiZe and berryZ)
Wota Wonderings 004 (H!P Fangirling like Nobody’s Business)
[WW] Would I love Airi if she weren’t adorable? (Tsuugaku Vector ☂)

Wota Wonderings 003 – The Ties That Bind

Welcome to Wota Wonderings! We are a group of English-speaking Japanese music bloggers brought together once a month to answer questions posed by johpan. We strive to be creative and entertaining, and we may even shed a bit of new light on interesting musical and cultural topics. Any questions about how we work should be directed to johpan. Don’t forget to check out the other posts from this month at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!

This month’s topic is the following:

The music industry has had many tie-ins with animes and doramas. Of those tie-ins, did one manage to capture your interest and get you hooked on their music? Or, did one manage to change your perspective of a musical act?

As a 2nd part, did you end up watching the anime or dorama in its entirety or give up once the musical act’s tie-in ceased?

And for you non-anime/dorama watchers, have there been any CM tie-ins that had a similar effect on you?

Inu Yasha

Ah, the many fond memories watching anime such as the various parts of the Macross & Dragonball series, Sailor Moon,  Ghost In The Shell, Gunsmith Cats, Bubblegum Crisis (etc, etc…) & more recently Beck.  For most of the anime I’ve watched I never really cared too much for the opening or closing theme songs.  The only exception to that was Inu Yasha, paticularly the ending themes.

Do As Infinity PromoThere were many great tracks that have played over the ending credits of that show such as BoA’s Every Heart, Ayumi Hamsaki’s Dearest & Namie Amuro’s Come.  For me the best ending themes were the ones that introduced me to the music of Do As Infinity.  I especially like Fukai Mori.

It may sound strange, but when I was watching Inu Yasha on TV I couldn’t wait for the episodes to end so I could hear Fukai Mori for the short 30 seconds that it lasted.   Not that I hated the show, in fact I like it a lot (I’m collecting the DVD box sets) but that that song was (& still is) so damn good.  It was sung with such raw emotion that it was hard to not get caught up in the track.

Before Inu Yasha I had no idea about DAI & would have been blind to their awesomeness had I not stuck around for the entire show.  That exposed me to a band I would have otherwise ignored or forgot about, but thankfully I did neither & now I’m a very loyal fan of theirs.

Did I stop watching Inu Yasha once DAI’s affiliation with them stopped? No.  As I stated before there were other great songs associated with  the show.  My 2nd favorite ending theme is Ayu’s Dearest.  That was my gateway into her massive catalog of music.  Her works have probably taken me the longest (after H!P) to acquire but it was worth every bit of effort.

Ayumi Hamasaki Promo

Her early material reminded me a lot of the same pop fluff that I could hear anytime on MuchMusic or MTV & I was about to write her off.  But as I went through each of her singles & albums I realized she was much more versatile than I had initially thought.

Anyway, I would have kept watching Inu Yasha  had it not moved time slots & days so many times.  Eventually I ended up losing track of when it was on, so my lack of viewing was not by choice.  I’m grateful for the DVD box sets, even if they are a little on the expensive side.

I haven’t had a tie-in experience like those since.  Maybe because I don’t watch too many anime or drama’s these days.  I guess if I find another show that fancies me I’ll discover a new band or solo artist that way again one day.

Other Wota Wonderings Posts

Wota Wonderings 002

Welcome to Wota Wonderings! We are a group of english-speaking Japanese music bloggers brought together once a month to answer questions posed by johpan. We strive to be creative and entertaining, and we may even shed a bit of new light on interesting musical and cultural topics. Any questions about how we work should be directed to johpan. Don’t forget to check out the other posts from this month at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!

Some may notice that it says 2 in the title of the article.  Well technically this is the 2nd of this group of postings (I didn’t participate in the 1st round), so for me this my first dip into the pool so to speak.  Should I feel successful in covering this month’s topic maybe I’ll answer the very first Wota Wonderings question at a later date.

Anyway, this month’s topic is idol love.  Not the creepy stalker kind of love but a fans devotion to a musical act or singer.  In this case, love of someone in the Japanese music world.

To be honest, I had a difficult time writing about this topic.  I was unsure about what would constitute a show of love for ones favorite artist(s).  There are so many things.  In the end I decided to focus on one area that I knew I could talk about without sounding totally lost, so here goes…

Fan remixes.  Some are great, some are okay, some are just downright horrible.  But they’re all a form of expressing ones love of their favorite artist(s) by re-interpreting their works.  Doing these kind of works makes one feel closer to the artist they chose to remix in a way.  It’s like you’re making some sort of small contribution to their body of work.

It’s difficult for the average listener to get a hold of an acapella of a Japanese song & even harder to get a hold of the stems from the studio masters.  With that said, what the following people have done should be considered true labors of love.  A lot goes into making a remix from basically very little or nothing to work with.

  • DJ Amaya – I found out about this dude randomly.  I was looking for some J-Pop remixes & came across his MySpace. His productions mainly lie within the Trance genre & usually are of Ayumi Hamasaki songs.  His mixes are definitely interesting interpretations.  Trance isn’t exactly my cup of tea but I respect the amount of work & effort that goes into each of his productions.
  • DJ Kirarin Snow – The content on this site deals with a version of the remix called a mashup.  When you think of a mashup you may think it’s just putting a one songs vocal over another songs instrumental, but it isn’t that easy.  There are many factors to consider when putting these remixes together & it takes true skill to do it like K does.  I really dig these kind of mixes, they kind of remind me of the idea behind the Refix on BBC 1xtra.  There’s a lot of great stuff on here, the Planetaria mix is an amazing piece of work.
  • boylikesmusic|Remix – Yes, this is the site of the originator of the Wota Wonderings postings & while it may be an odd coincidence that that his site is in this list, it deserves to be so.  There’s a mix of mashups & original remixes to be found here.  I was particularly fond of the re-working of A Sisters Lullaby from A Tale of Two Sisters (wicked movie by the way).
  • Evil Morning – If you’ve ever wondered what H!P would sound like if they went Metal this is will give you a good idea of what could be.  This is probably the most unique interpretation of H!P that I’ve heard.
  • DJ Cheun – Here’s a dude from Hong Kong who has taken H!P tracks & transformed them into Hard Dance tracks.  Maybe a little too hard as some of the tracks are are a little too hot when it comes to levels.  But even with that small flaw, I find this guys interpretations to be some fascinating  listens.

While these sites show varying viewpoints on Japanese music it’s obvious that all these people put a lot of time & care into their work because of their admiration for a specific artist.  I think it’s cool that they were gracious enough to spread the love with the rest of us.

Other Wota Wonderings Posts: