patrickds's Last.fm Journal

2007 in review

Fri, 4 Jan 2008 07:05:27 +0000

Well, it's that time of year again. Time for the list of the best albums of 2007. I have never done any such list. Not for music, nor anything else. So be gentle.

As far as music was concerned, 2007 did not impress me much. I discovered a lot of great music in 2007, but most of it was not made in 2007. So I will exclude those albums for this list. Most of the music released in 2007 that I was looking forward to was really pretty medicore in the grand scheme of things. The things that I did like, were not anything really note-worthy. So this was a tough list to compile. But I digress. Let's just get on to the albums.

Best newly-discovered music:
Wir Sind Helden - Soundso
favorite tracks: Stiller, The Geek (Shall Inherit), Kaputt, Labyrinth

An old high school friend had moved to Germany a few years ago and he was about to come visit Florida for a bit, so we decided to meet up. He told me about Wir sind Helden, and I decided to check them out. They had just released a new album in 2007, so I gave it a listen. And wow. It was pretty damn good. There were a couple songs that I couldn't really get into, but most of the album was very nice and interesing. It was a real mixed bag of different styles, but it did well in each area. They turned out to be a really great band, and Soundso came out of nowhere to become a favorite of last year.

Best unexpected hit:
東京事変 - 娯楽
favorite tracks: OSCA, 黒猫道, 私生活, 復讐, 月極姫

I was actually very surprised at how much I liked this album. I have not really liked Tokyo Jihen that much since they first debuted. Their first two singles were pretty good, but then I kind of lost interest after their first album. That interest came back full force with OSCA, though. That song rocked, and the video rocked even harder. Killer Tune was rather good, but I was worried the album would be more in that big-band, old-sounding vein. Thankfully, the album rocked pretty hard anyway. I did not think I would ever like a Tokyo Jihen album. I was proven wrong with this release. There were still a few songs that I didn't suit my fancy, but the album as a whole was very enjoyable.

And I guess that's about all for last year. Seriously. In my opinion, there was just nothing to get that excited about. But I'll talk a little bit more about a couple of other albums, just for the sake of argument.

Chara - Union
favorite tracks: This is my car, Amai amai

I really liked a few songs of this release. "Amai Amai" and "This is my car" are really great, heart-felt songs. "UNION" and "watashi o mitsumete" were also pretty good overall, but lacked that special something that makes a Chara song a timeless classic. "Crazy for you" and "Sekai" were very fun and nice songs too, but those actually came out in 2006, so they don't really count. So while this album is nice, and is a solid release, it just wasn't anything note-worthy, exciting, ground-breaking, or the like. Whereas, her last two albums, A Scenery Like Me and Something Blue, were just that. And much more. So as a follow up to those two albums, this release just seemed to be a step backwards maybe. Her moving to Universal Music probably had a lot to do with it. Oh, well. Here's hoping her next album is a bit better.

ART-SCHOOL - Flora
favorite tracks: SWAN DIVE, hikari to shintai

This was a really disappointing album. The lead-up released were so good! And there was so much new material! But it didn't really live up to my expectations. There were a couple of good songs, a couple of okay/catchy songs, and a whole lot of "meh" songs.

Sigur Rós - Hvarf
favorite tracks: Salka, Hljómalind

Well, this is the only Sigur Rós music released this year. (Excluding the song "Heima" which was featured in the DVD release of the same name.) It came with another disc titled "Heim" which only had live versions of already released material. So this was esentially a three track single (or four if you count the new version of Von). And the new songs weren't anything spectacular. "Takk..." is one of my most favorite albums ever, so I was really looking forward to a new release from them. While the three "new" songs were actually written years ago (just not recorded or released), I was still expecting a lot from this release. While I really like all three songs, they just aren't all that great. And there's only three of them. It was still a nice release, and I whole-heartedly enjoyed it, but it wasn't anything note-worthy in my opinion.

鬼束ちひろ - LAS VEGAS
favorite tracks: everyhome, Bokura Bara-iro no Hibi, Sweet Rosemary, Angelina

This album is kind of like Chara's UNION. It's pretty good, but it's not that good. Not as good as her other works, and not as good as expected. But "everyhome" is a real classic. It's just an amazing song. "Bokura bara-iro no hibi" was fantastic as well, so that just made the anticipation for this all the higher. But it ended up being kind of folksy and weird in places, and it's just a little awkward all around. It's a mixed bag, but not in a good way. It has some great songs, but also some songs that just feel out of place. None of the songs are that bad really, they're all pretty good, they just don't seem to sound well together.

椎名林檎 - 平成風俗
favorite tracks: ギャンブル

This was an okay album, but there was a lot of old material on it, and a lot of covers, so it just felt like a hodge podge of odds and ends rather than a true album. And I did not really enjoy it that much, but I must say GAMBLE is a truly awesome song. PAPAYA MANGO is pretty good too. But overall, this one was pretty "meh." Suprisingly the Tokyo Jihen album was a lot better than this. Something I could not have foreseen.

And I liked Björk's song Earth Intruders. And that was about it.

So that's my take on 2007. I will end with my last.fm statistics for last year's most played artists, albums, and songs, although the majority of those albums and songs were released long before 2007.

The number at the end represents the number of times I have played songs by the artist, within the album, or the song itself.
* indicates that I first heard of this music in 2007.
+ indicates that the music was released in 2007.

Top 12 listened artists of 2007:
01 Chara 1,529
02 Cocco 1,425
03 Spangle call Lilli line 778
04 Sigur Rós 617
05 Triakel* 592
06 Andrew Summers 479
07 Aco 461
08 The Channels* 430
09 Wir Sind Helden*+ 427
10 椎名林檎 424
11 Garmarna* 408
12 Windy Hill* 404

Top 10 listened albums of 2007:
01 Cocco – サングローズ 492
02 The Channels – The Channels* 352
03 Spangle call Lilli line – 68 SCLL 335
04 Radiohead – The Bends 280
05 Triakel – Triakel* 256
06 Windy Hill – 無風* 222
07 少年ナイフ – Let's Knife 205
08 Cocco – ブーゲンビリア 175
09 Harry Belafonte – The Essential Harry Belafonte* 169
10 Sigur Rós – Takk... 159

Top 10 listened songs of 2007:
01 Chara – いっしょに暮らそう 361
02 Windy Hill – Windy Hills* 276
03 Sigur Rós – Olsen Olsen* 190
04 Cocco – 卯月の頃 180
05 The Most Serene Republic – Stay Ups* 157
06 Garmarna – En Gång Ska Han Gråta* 151
07 Feist – 1234+ 148
08 Chara – 甘い甘い+ 139
09 The Channels – couldn't be worse* 127
10 Cocco – アネモネ 115

Preliminary thoughts on Spangle call Lilli line's new album, since.

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 10:48:25 +0000

I think the cover is nice. It's simple, but not too simple and seems fitting for a best-of album.

I am pretty disappointed with the tracklisting, though. :/ It seemed to me like it would have a lot more rarities besides just kate and 39.4, but I guess not. The 39.4 is off of the WS compilation CD which is out of print, and that seems to be their reasoning for including it on the album, but what about the studio recording of Super Star that is also on the compilation? And there are a few other SCLL songs that are on compilations. So I was thinking they would include those too so that a fan wouldn't have to buy an entire, expensive album just for one song.

I also think the album tracks included on the album aren't the best choices. :/ normal star, E, and ice track are totally awesome and deserve to be there, but the other songs don't seem up to snuff. There are plenty of better songs available on each album. For example: error slow, under north sour, new crawl, Crawl, Veek, Circle, Low Light, Asphalt, metro, soto, mila, sugar, rappearing rig, and SSS*urp...?. But I guess they just have different opinions on what their best songs are. And it's unfortunate that they are so wrong. Although I guess B.P. and "telephone" are decent enough.

I will get the album and I will be looking forward to hearing kate and Until the end of time, but I am not sure it will be worth it._.

At The Rising Sun Rock Festival

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 03:28:06 +0000

On August eigthteenth I went to the Rising Sun Rock Festival 2006 in Ezo, which was held in Ishikari. All the bands were Japanese. And when I went to the RSRF I brought my sketch book with me and this is what I had written in it while there:

"Well, I'm sitting right in front of the Sun Stage an hour and fifteen minutes before the first act begins. Not really excited about them. I'm just here for Quruli who plays after them. Should be awesome. This morning was pretty nice. Woke up at eight am, but accidentally fell back asleep. :/ Was up really late, until three am, so was really tired. Then thankfully Andy woke me up at eight thirty am with an email. Phew. Took a shower and off I went to the subway. The line for the buses was crazy long, and then after I took the bus and arrived at the entrance to the festival grounds, the line to get in was a million times longer, wider, and crazier. :/ But during the whole thing Ii emailed back and forth with Andy and Lora, so it was pretty nice. Although I hadn't eaten anything other than a few cashews, so I was starving. Got something to eat/drink and feel okay now. Just waiting for the show to begin."

Shortly afterwards the place got packed and the show began. First up was Three Samurai, which was made up of Yamazaki Masayoshi, Okuda Tamio, and Char. They're all kind of older guys, and they played a lot of classic covers, like a Beatle's song and Sukiyaki (ue wo muite arukou). They were actually a lot better than what I had expected. And after them was Quruli. I don't like Quruli that much except for a few of their songs. And they played my three favorite songs by them, so that was pretty cool. I really, really enjoyed 'bara no hana,' but it may have just been the way I was feeling then... And it was at this performance that I got the wound on my foot. :/

After Quruli I went to see Angela Aki for a bit. She was really good. I didn't really like any of her studio recorded material, but she was pretty good live. She plays the piano and sings, and that's it; just her and the piano. But she's very talented and her songs are nice. But I didn't stay long. Had to make my way all the way to the other side of the grounds to get to where GO!GO!7188 would be playing. I got pretty close to the stage, but had to stand around for like thirty minutes for it to start. And I had been standing all freaking day. My legs were killing me at that point. But I stuck it out.

And soon it began. Yuu and Akko got on stage, and as soon as they started playing the first song, Jet NInjin, the crowd went nuts. Everyone started jumping around and singing along. And there wasn't anything for me to do but join in. It was a lot of fun, I'll give you that. It lasted about and hour, and everyone (including me) was jumping up and down pretty much the whole time. And it was pretty hot... it was under this tent like thing. And with all the jumping around... it got crazy hot. Akko said she could see steam coming out of the crowd... and I don't think she was lying. It was so nasty, gross too. Everyone was sweating, and because of the jumping around, and being so close, people were getting their sweat all over other poeple. :/// But nevertheless, it was a lot of fun. A little gross, but a lot of fun. And they played their new song, and it was awesome. So much better than the studio version of it.

And after GO!GO!, I was just going to head home, but as I passed the Sun Stage, I noticed Zazen Boys were playing (I don't like them) and there was a girl singing. They don't have a female vocalist and I thought it was kind of weird, and she was good so I decided to check them out for a bit. And it turns out the girl was Shiina Ringo! Holy crap! I couldn't believe she was there. There was no mention of her going to be there... so I guess she was a surprise guest vocalist. The song wasn't that good, but I could hardly believe my eyes, heh. So awesome. <3

And it had been raining all day. It never got too heavy, and was just mostly just cloudy, so that was a blessing. I was afraid I was going to get sunburnt really bad and just be sweaty and hot the whole time. But it was actually nice because of the rain. And I still got a little sunburnt even though there wasn't any sun the entire day! I guess some UV must've been getting through clouds... But it wasn't that bad of a sunburn, so not a big deal.

After the festival, I went to go pick Andy up from the station and help him carry his stuff back to his dorm which was pretty far from the station. He had been in Osaka for the past week or so and just got back that night. He hadn't eaten anything that day, so we stopped by a convenience store and he got something to eat. We were planning on going to see Lora that night, as it was her last night in Japan, but Andy wasn't feeling too well, so he just decided to go to sleep. Although, I did go out with Lora and some friends to karaoke and it was a lot of fun. After that just wemt back home and went to sleep... And that brought my day to a close. The End.