Gackt's 12-Gatsu no Love Song rerelease just came out, so let me talk a little about that first. The Japanese version is pretty much the same as the original, but more...dramatic (more cymbal crashes, dramatic pauses...etc)? The string orchestral accompaniment is more pronounced, and the second verse has less instrumental accompaniment. That's pretty much all I can find that's different with this version.

Now. The English version. Hmm. *thinks* Uh...well, it doesn't sound like English. It doesn't really sound like ANYTHING...except lots of vibrato. I think Gackt is trying to do a little R&B here, but I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at his attempt. The second verse of the song especially has the little R&B beat to it, ending in a "whoo-hoo-hoo" that could put any pop singer in the US to shame. The only part where Gackt is remotely understandable is the chorus of the song, where he loses the wavery vibrato. It's also the part of the song where he sings loud enough for me to make out anything. Then again...what did we expect? XD

The English vers. mp3 is for download if you want it. I'm going to take it down soon because of bandwidth concerns. So if you want it, grab it now.

MORE JROCK NEWS:

Might be old news, but former Lareine members Mayu, Emiru, and Machi "assisted" in the recording of the newly released Lareine single, Chou to Hana. They are "assisting" Kamijo in recording on the next Lareine release, Etude. Let's hope they continued to do so...^_~

Tetsu just announced his next single: a "ballad" version of White Out (first track on Suite November). He'll also be rereleasing Shinkirou and 15 1/2. Thanks to Perdita for the info. You can preorder at HMV...though I notice that this info is not on his official page. Yet?

Baroque is going major! They'll have a final indies single in February of 2003 and their final indies tour in April. Check out their homepage at http://www.pigmy.jp/ [thanks to Insanity for info]

Check out Insanity's review of Klaha's Nostal Lab on the Shiroi BBS.

2002.12.04

• THE BRILLIANT GREEN album The Winter Album [12 tracks | preorder]
• KLAHA album Nostal Lab [12 tracks | info]

• B'Z compilation album Love and B'z [preorder and info]

• GLAY video Live in Beijing and Documentary [preorder VHS | DVD]
• MIYAVI single Jingle Bell [official site]

• LAREINE mini-album Etude
• VIDOLL album Occult Purpose

• JANNE DA ARC video (Untitled-100th Gig Live in Budokan) [preorder VHS | DVD]
• TOMOYASU HOTEI tour album Rock the Future 2002 "Scorpio Rising" [preorder]

• JANNE DA ARC single (Untitled) [preorder]

WARNING! The following is a RANT. On GLAY. If you're offended by rants or if you're offended by Glay, or both, please don't read it. And please don't flame me. I really don't have the patience to put up with flames right now and I will just laugh if I get one and delete it. Thank you. Now on to your regularly scheduled rant.

By now, if you're even remotely interested in Glay, or even I guess remotely interested in jrock, you'll probably have heard a lot of Glay fans grumbling about how their favorite band has deserted them. How Glay has "sold out" to popular music and is doing it all for the money. How they've just gone and deserted "their" music style and "their" fanbase and completely just thrown everything away for money, money, money.

I can't help but think that this is the biggest piece of stupid fan (excuse my language) crap on the planet. Pardon me for speaking my mind here, but since every other fan on the face of the earth has gone ahead and started ranting about how much Glay SUCKS now, I think I deserve a chance to go ahead and say my piece. And personally, I do not think Glay sucks. I've never thought that they sucked. And I don't think I ever will.

Because, you see, Glay isn't a "fan's band." Glay has never been and never will be a "fan's band." People have a tendency to classify bands they like as "their band" and begin to expect certain things from them. Especially with a band as big as Glay, they're EXPECTED to perform to certain levels and to produce a certain type of music. Even anything innovate is EXPECTED to automatically contain the same elements with perhaps a little different style. And you know what? That's all right. I expect certain things out of bands I like, such as L'Arc~en~Ciel and B'z and, of course, Glay.

They began as a band that played fast, loud, fun songs with some pretty ballads mixed in, and they were a band that continued to deliver. Over and over and over again. In fact, Glay is the ONLY band that I can really think of that has stayed incredibly consistent with their music style for pretty much their entire period of existence. It's so consistent that it's crazy if you think about it long enough. Scary, even. And because of this, they garnered the type of fanbase that knew what to expect from their style of music. Fast. Loud. Fun. Glay was not a "polished" band, but they had fun with their music.

But Glay had a vision. Sure, it changed over the years, but I think Glay has always had this vision. You can trace it even through from their indies days, in a rougher form, perhaps, but still the same. I think that the best term to describe Glay is the title of their first album, Hai to Daiyamondo, "Ash and Diamond". Glay began from the ashes and has depended on their vision to form and mold themselves into the diamond that they one day hope to become. They're not there yet, not by a long shot, but by their standards, no one is. But that hasn't stopped them from trying to get there.

What's this vision? I believe that is "One Love."

Glay has never been and never will be a "great" band in the sense of being a polished, professional, artistic, and multi-talented band. Their vocalist is not the best ever and in fact is out of tune most of the time. Their lead guitarist has no flashy solos or front-man marketing. Their songs don't involve any showy parts for their bassist. And their leader is a quiet, rather unobtrusive, soft-spoken man who prefers to stay in the background. In fact, based on their talent alone, yes, I can well believe it when people new to Glay say that they "suck." But it is Glay's music that sends the message, and what they have always said with their music is that love and music and family are one and the same.

If anything, I prefer to think that their single songs are the market friendly ones, and actually their older ones have been even more market-friendly than the current ones that everyone is ranting about. Someone tell me that Be With You is not market friendly. But it's their rougher songs that show what Takuro and Glay have believed all along. That's what if ~hai to daiyamondo~ is all about: "it's never too late, find your everything." You May Dream. Biri Biri Crashmen. It's Dying ~It's not Dying~. I'm In Love. I could go on and on. The Glay before Heavy Gauge was a young Glay, a happy Glay, a Glay focused much more on just LIVING.

But something happened and Glay grew up. Heavy Gauge is the first instance of this, and fans didn't like it. Then came Global Communication. Then Stay Tuned. One Love, and finally now Unity Roots & Family, Away, which is being denounced across the internet as the worst album ever. I rather expected this, but someone please tell me how on earth Unity is "pop friendly." Unity isn't pop. It's not listener-friendly to the Japanese music world, who is too busy cheering on the latest Morning Musume spin-off groups or waiting with breathless anticipation over Kinki Kids' or Zone's newest works. No, Unity definitely isn't rock either. It's...different. It's....unique.

The difference between the Glay of Pure Soul and the Glay of One Love and Unity Roots is...well, they're NOT the Glay of Pure Soul. Plain and simple. People change. Bands change. It's hard for a band to stay together for as long as Glay has, especially in the fickle Japanese music market, and I believe that they've come as far as they have because they have a vision. "One Love." "Global Communication." Is it cheesy? Is it too "pop"? I don't think so. Glay has always been the "feel good" band, but there is a time when just feeling good isn't enough anymore. I believe Takuro saw that. I believe that's what inspired Heavy Gauge.

I don't know if any of the above makes sense, but in the end, really I think what I'm trying to say is that it doesn't matter if it's rock, pop, country-western, R&B, techno, folk, rap, whatever. I believe in Glay because I believe in their message. I've always believed in their message. And as long as they keep making music with that message in mind, I don't care WHAT they put out. I love Glay for what they are trying to do: change the world. It might seem an impossible task, and I do believe Takuro realizes that he's losing fans over this. But...something like that shouldn't matter to Glay. And it doesn't.

The bottom line is, Glay grew up. It was inevitable. And I think that instead of wanting the "old Glay" back, we should just try to understand the message of the new Glay's songs. Because Glay will always be Glay and Glay will always, in my mind, mean "one love."

My copy of Tetsu's album came the other day, and I suppose it's not too hard to put up a review for it, considering it's only 8 tracks long. (well...ok 69 tracks long...but 61 of those don't really count XD) I have the first press, which comes in the "digipak," which is just a fancy name for a fold-out cardboard CD case. There are 4 singles on here (Wonderful World, Tightrope, Shinkirou, 15 1/2) and 4 new songs. The booklet's centerfold is particularly interesting because it features a picture of the four "Tetsus" sitting in a lounge, with Engrish descriptions of each of them. If you go to the official site, you can see the picture by clicking on the Suite November link at the bottom of the main page.

[1] WHITE OUT
The beginning of this song reminds me of none other than Still I'm With You from L'Arc~en~Ciel's "Heavenly" album. It has the same bouncy, catchy, feel to it, and Tetsu's falsetto vocals in the background. The drumming is slightly heavier than Sakura's drumming style, but till Tetsu comes in at 00:28, it's eerily similar in rhythm and even chord progression. The verses of White Out are definitely lower than most of the other songs on this album, and it's nice to hear Tetsu sing in the lower register. The chorus features some nice falsetto...Tetsu is a MUCH better falsetto-ist (is that a word?) than he is a vocalist. This is probably the only happy-sounding song on the album (not including Wonderful World), but the lyrics to this aren't exactly the most cheerful thing ever. On a side note, Tetsu plays all the instruments on here except percussion and sings all the vocals. o.o

[2] WONDERFUL WORLD
This is a little different from the single version...he lengthened the ending I think, changing it from the fade-out ending that was on the single. But other than that, it's the same old song.

[3] PRETENDER
Stylistically, Pretender is a lot like Shinkirou and has the same basic layout, though it's lighter on the instrumentation without as much bass. It's very much in a minor key. I really like the percussion in this song and the guitar line is pleasant to listen to, and Tetsu stays in a comfortable voice range throughout except for the lead-in to the guitar solo at 2:43, where he tries to go up to a middle A with...dubious results. I can't really think of much else to say aside from that. It's somewhere in between light and heavy rock, and the guitar solo/instrumental bridges are probably the best parts of the song.

[4] TIGHTROPE
I don't think this song is any different from the single version.

[5] 蜃気楼 [SHINKIROU]
I promised someone on the Shiroi BBS I'd review this and I kept putting it off, so I'll do it here even though you all have probably heard this a million times by now. As I said above, this is a much heavier version of Pretender (or Pretender would be a lighter version of this, I guess). It took me a while to get into this song because everything is so heavy...guitar, bass, percussion, everything. Everything is turned up really high with tons of overdrive, and this is definitely a power chord-friendly song.

Because Shinkirou is so heavy instrumentally, Tetsu's voice sounds like it doesn't fit. He doesn't have a strong voice to begin with, and because he's trying to match the heaviness of the instruments, it loses a lot of center and fuzzes a lot around the edges. The high point of this song is definitely the bass. Tetsu plays bass here, both 4-string and 6-string, and the 6-string bass solo is a highlight, though it is a little hard to make out around all the clanging percussion. Again, this song takes a little getting used to, but after a couple listens, I really like it. Even if the lyrics are probably the most depressing thing I've read in a while.

[6] SCARECROW
Begins with some bell-like, eerie keyboard effects and then the guitar enters on a single note F#. Very haunting and distant-feeling overall. The lovely intro segues into a medium-paced, light pop-rock beat, and in comes Tetsu, still trying to reach for the highs. Because he's singing a bit softer here, his range is even more limited. He also goes flat very slightly on several ending notes. My overall impression of the song is that it's very similar to Laruku's Time Slip, especially rhythm-wise and overall "feel" (sorry I'm making so many Laruku comparisons here, but it's really the only way I can think of to describe these songs). It's a soothing, slightly pretty song that fits well after Shinkirou and before the next track, Empty Tears.

[7] EMPTY TEARS
I suppose this could be considered the "ballad" of the album. It begins with a dribble of random notes and electronic effects and then bursts into a very lush string accompaniment. It's also in 3/4 time, something that's not very common in jrock. There seems to be some kind of female vocal over the instrumentation...it actually sounds rather opera in style, but in the booklet credits there's no listing for it. It doesn't sound like Tetsu though. ^^;; I prefer to think of this song as Tetsu's tribute to Malice Mizer (*snort*) This is probably my least favorite song on the album, since I really don't like songs in 3/4 time and I really don't find anything interesting about this song otherwise. Who knows, though, you may like it!

[8] 15 1/2
We already reviewed this here.

After 15 1/2 are a whole bunch of blank tracks...61 of them, to be exact. What's the point of this, you ask? Well, Tetsu apparently decided that his lovely album wasn't complete without giving us a rendition of Tezman no Teemu, which is track #69.

[69] TEZMAN'S THEME
If you have the 15 1/2 single, you'll have heard this song already. At least, you'll have heard the shorter version. The album version of this song reminds me of something out of Cowboy Bebop, but all that's different is really that the instrumental parts are longer and in 4/4 time instead of cut time as the original song was. The piano that opens the song is particularly cool. The rest of the song is just a mix of different percussion/rhythm/effects, with some random voice work by Tetsu (I can't tell what he's singing...anyone know?). The song also repeats, just in case you didn't get enough of Tezman the first time.

ALBUM INFORMATION
SUITE NOVEMBER
Release date: 2002.11.20
HDCA-10121 [2500 円]
Sprouse/Dream Machine [Warner Music Japan]