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Wota Wonderings 002

February 15, 2009 By

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:

Filed Under: Wota Wonderings
About Greg

Greg is the creator, administrator, editor, code monkey, overlord and general jack of all trades at Selective Hearing. He can be found lurking among the overseas Asian pop fandom and at most major conventions and events where a J-Pop/K-Pop act (or Gashicon) appears.

  • http://solo-kun.com solo-kun

    As with those who sing and dance to their favorite idols tune, with varying results, these mixes are a great way to showcase your love. As you said, it creates a sort of a personal connection, which can also be shared with others. Taking a skill, the ability to remix which is awesome in its own right, and applying it to your idols is wonderful.

  • http://www.intlwota.com/boylikesmusic johpan

    Thanks for the shout out :) I’m glad you enjoyed my mixes! The weird thing is that my favourite remix also happens to be A Sisters Lullaby. To be honest, I’m not sure about the title of the original song. I think it was called Lullaby but I always just thought of it as the theme for the movie.

    I was actually thinking about doing this as my topic but that didn’t solidify. Great job :) Hopefully we get another contribution this month!