Tag: music

  • [The Jukebox] #64 – The GazettE – Ganjisuni Akai Bara

    [The Jukebox] #64 – The GazettE – Ganjisuni Akai Bara

    Over the last 10 or more years, I discovered a Japanese band that I fell in love with, and something that I have never highlighted ever on The Jukebox and while I will doing a featured special about them one day, today, I wish to introduce to you all, my 2nd favourite Japanese band.

    Background

    The GazettE were formed in 2002 featuring the band members: Ruki, Uruha, Aoi, Reita and Kai. I have a hard enough time trying to keep track as to who is who in the Japanese Visual Kei and Rock genre.

    The band members of The GazettE with one of the members sitting on the bonnet of a car which has partial damage to the front of it.
    The GazettE band members

    STACKED RUBBISH is the bands 3rd studio album which released in 2007 which reached 3rd in the Oricon album charts (Oricon is similar to the Billboard in the US or IMRO in Ireland)  

    On May 26th 2021, the band released their 10th studio album titled: “Mass”

    While this album has some greats tracks, the first one that I want to highlight is their 5th track, Ganjisuni Akai Bara.

    YouTube & Spotify

    Lyrics

    When speaking figuratively you seem to be
    A crow that wanted to dive on the water’s surface with spread wings
    What are the eyes seeing that pretend to be innocent?

    Please give ease to the girl who’s thin hands are pointing to the sky…

    A rosary made of brass hangs around your neck
    And was replaced by a light brown leather rope
    The hymn mixed with a smile is interrupted and at the same time you lose your footing

    While watching the trembling shadow, rationality is mutilated
    Understanding has no meaning in this scattered cult like the tone of a bell that’s ringing coldly

    February is decorated in taciturnity, palms put together in a deep prayer
    To God, unable to save, please answer me…

    Experiencing life’s value in death, this death lets the flowers of life bloom
    A colorless God and a sleeping withered rose
    I hold onto the drowning you, let’s face the beautiful darkness

    In order for wax to melt, it’s shape was taken
    When tomorrow is left without shadows, what is there more than reality?

    I want to aknowledge you, please don’t be sad, even if there’s nothing reflected in these eyes anymore

    February is decorated in taciturnity, palms put together in a deep prayer

    To God, unable to save, please answer me…
    Experiencing life’s value in death, this death lets the flowers of life bloom
    I’m singing those deserted words

    Your birthday is decorated in taciturnity, no matter how many times the celebrating of this day was continued
    You were born and raised here, at the place you loved

    Weakly it continues trembling and flowing, this eternal sleep in beauty.
    Your journey was decorated by red roses.

    What I asked peacefully is to never entrust the language of emotions
    Can you laugh from your heart, I wonder if there is any happiness?

  • [The Jukebox] #63 – Masayoshi Soken – What Angel Wakes Me

    [The Jukebox] #63 – Masayoshi Soken – What Angel Wakes Me

    This is the 4th song from Final Fantasy XIV that I have written. The other 3 can be viewed here.

    At the start of Final Fantasy XIV’s 3rd expansion, ShadowBringers, it brought a truck load of new content including dungeons and trials.

    One of the first trials that you encounter is at Level 73, Titania. Titania is not a name, but rather the title of “The King of Pixies” – The pixies are small fairies who fly around and play with their friends and enemies.

    Did I say play? I mean, play tricks on them because they are evil little things!

    READ MORE (STORY SPOILER AHEAD)

  • [The Jukebox] #62 – Dress Down – Kaoru Akimoto

    [The Jukebox] #62 – Dress Down – Kaoru Akimoto

    In March of 1986, Akimoto released her one and only album Cologne under the Victor record label but went under the radar when it was initially released.

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  • [The Jukebox] #60 – Masayoshi Soken – The Reach of Darkness

    [The Jukebox] #60 – Masayoshi Soken – The Reach of Darkness

    Staying with Final Fantasy XIV and back in 2015, which was about a year and a half after the game re-launched, Square Enix launched the final major patch for the A Realm Reborn expansion titled Before The Fall.

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  • [The Jukebox] #59 – Weight of the World (Prelude Version) – Keiichi Okabe

    [The Jukebox] #59 – Weight of the World (Prelude Version) – Keiichi Okabe

    I am a huge fan of Final Fantasy XIV and it’s music. It’s main composer Masayoshi Soken has created some fantastic music in the last 6 years of the game’s existence and he knocks it out of the park each and every expansion.

    At the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival in Paris (which I attended), it was announced that the dev team had collaborated with another Square-Enix developer, PlatinumGames, to bring a new 24-man raid with a crossover between Final Fantasy XIV and Nier: Automata titled YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse.

    (more…)

  • [The Jukebox] #58 – Rick Takeuchi – Never Gonna Give You Plastic Love

    [The Jukebox] #58 – Rick Takeuchi – Never Gonna Give You Plastic Love

    In my previous post, I wrote about listening to a new genre of music, Future Funk for the last couple of years. There has been a sub-genre of Future Funk though which has had a resurgence in the last 10 years, known as City pop.

    City pop is a loosely defined subset of pop music that originated in Japan in the late 1970s.
    …
    Since the 2010s, city pop has gained an international online following as well as becoming a touchstone for the sample-based microgenres known as vaporwave and future funk.Wikipedia

    One of the more popular songs that define the genre is Mariya Takeuchi’s – Plastic Love.

    Mariya is a Japanese singer and songwriter who has been performing since 1978. Her latest studio album, Trad, was released in 2014 reaching Number 1 on the Japanese Music Charts.

    The 65-year-old recently re-released one of her singles, Inochi No Uta (Song of Life) with a DVD of her live performance of the song.

    Plastic Love was originally released back in 1984 and was on her 6th album, VARIETY.

    Mariya Takeuchi – Plastic Love

    Mariya Takeuchi – Plastic Love

    The song became popular in the West in 2017 when a user on YouTube uploaded the song (See above) and became a frequent recommendation for viewers on the platform.

    Today, the song has amassed a whopping 31 Million views and is flying the flag as being the ‘mascot’ for Future Funk.

    I cannot count how many times I have listened to this song. I only wished that Last.FM had some sort of integration with YouTube to find out that statistic.

    More recently, I have come across some remixes of the song on SoundCloud and then discovered a load more on YouTube which brings me to the point of this post.

    Rick Astley – Never Gonna Give You Up

    3 years after the release of Plastic Love, Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up was released.

    A song that has become a staple ‘meme’ within the Internet landscape since the late 2000s, which has also held up very well 33 years after its release with an eye-popping 693 Million views on YouTube.

    Rick Takeuchi – Never Gonna Give You Plastic Love

    YouTube user, Gemosu, released a video back in August of 2018, mashing the two songs together to give this 80’s lovers treat.

    An opposite version of the song was created by Gemosu in May of 2019 titled: Mariya Astley – Plastic You Up

    The thumbnail is truly something else.

    2 absolutely stunning mashups of 2 brilliant songs from yesteryear.

    This was the beginning of a new series of ‘The JukeBox’. No ‘editions’ or ‘series’ numbers this time, just posting about music. It’s time for a change in the format and I feel that writing about the songs, rather than just posting lyrics is more enjoyable. Expect more in the future.

    This post was initially published on May 22nd 2022 and was last updated on the 6th November 2022.