The Klassic Note Spirit Part 3 – The Year 2009 and the Big Bang
Saturday, 27 October 2018
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In the previous post, we discussed on how Japanese music came to influence how I would perceive music as melodies instead of thinking of language as a barrier, and even opting for music without vocals altogether. In this part, we shall talk about the explosion of music entries in Klassic Note and what came into the list that will eventually stand as a force to putting in definition what it means to discover new melodies that have yet been released.The Klassic Note Spirit Part 3
"The Year 2009 and the Big Bang"
(*The below information is an adaptation of the original excerpt which was posted here in 2013)
ANIME INFLUENCE CONTINUES
If not for Anime, I would lose half the reason to be here listening to J-Pop. Thus, I continued to watch more Anime. From "K-ON!" to "Kara no Kyoukai" to "Hatsukoi Limited" to "Shakugan no Shana"… a whole variety of genres (somewhat only having female leads LOL) that got me to know a whole lot of artists, including "BLEACH" which is still ongoing at that time. "K-ON!" especially is the first show to have me dive in to so much into Anime songs instead of listening to mainstream. This is far different compared to Anime "Toradora!" in the previous year. As the year goes on many Anime songs end up in my list, and many have the potential to compete with the mainstream songs.
Also at that year, many voice actors were introduced into the music industry, going solo and releasing singles and albums for our fandom and idolization. Emphasizing on Anime appearances and popularity rather than their singing compared to mainstream and Anime artists, these female talents managed to catch my attention. Notables include Tomatsu Haruka (who started in the previous year but not until now do I noticed her in "Kannagi") and Toyosaki Aki-chan (mainly due to her main role in "K-ON!"), and along with this many other music labels and talents companies start to follow, creating their own divisions for not only voice talent, but a whole package of being a all-round artist in the Anime industry. Voice actor groups also start to appear, with one of the first being Sphere, consisting of the two I mentioned above, Kotobuki Minako (who started her solo debut the following year) and Takagaki Ayahi (who… I end up not giving her songs until 2014). They, unlike many others that followed, are actually groups which are created under talent company MusicRay'n which focuses on expanding their talents in various forms of media including music, and this shows how much forward planning are companies there to promote their voice talents.
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| It's going to be ten years, ladies. |
NEW ARTISTS APPEAR
Apart from the above, many new mainstream artists also start to appear in Klassic Note thanks to Anime from STEREOPONY and SCANDAL who brought out the Rock in Japanese music, to Lil’B, Porno Graffitti, SID, Kalafina and many more. They continue to complement the Klassic Note library, bringing in more great songs that I could ever imagine.
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| SCANDAL - BEAUTeen!! [2009] (Okay I can't get a legal source so this link will have to do) |
J-ROCK EMPHASIS
Since THE NANO-MUGEN COMPILATION was released on a yearly basis, I’ve been starting to listen and give many artists from it. OGRE YOU ASSHOLE is a good example of the exotic, Alternative Rock that is in Japan. SPECIAL OTHERS also has made yet another impact with their album “PB”, making it the best I’ve heard from any release even at that time.
Quirky video and voice isn’t it? Unique, I would say.
OTHER LANGUAGES IMPOSSIBLE?
But of course, that does not mean Japanese songs are everything. English songs were in THE NANO-MUGEN COMPIALTION too, and at that time I was still transitioning from watching any drama to specific Anime, so Korean and Hong Kong dramas are still in my list and keeping a song or two is somewhat necessary. This shall be rectified in the 10th year decisions which we will discuss in a future post.
CHALLENGE OF MUSIC SOURCING
With the revamping of SonyMusic Online (around that time it was my main source for audio previews I guess) and many region locks and copyrights of various sources in Japan, it became difficult to get even a listen from sources which are not as popular. Back then J-Pop is still not widely promoted (compared to what it is today) and I had to dig through so much just to get a listen to songs which are the latest in Japan. The good news is that I’ve always been able to get it through other means, which largely did not stop me from finding more songs to listen.
THE ARRIVAL OF HIGH DEFINITION MUSIC VIDEOS
With the implementation and conversion to HDTV channels in Japan and the opening of more music-based channels, this led to the community online publish and promote high definition videos of various Japanese songs over the Internet. Of course I’m glad of such a backbone in wake of such a lack of promotion as mentioned above; it just makes things looks better than before. (We don't talk about life before HD because it sucks) One of the first I’ve been impressed thanks to the upgrade in technology might be RSP and their songs, with music videos telling a stronger story each time after splitting up with their dance group to focus on songs instead. Pity they have been dormant since the following year.
(Below is NOT the HD version though; I just want to share the song with you guys)
THE IDEA OF SONG AWARDS
With song counts a record high every other year, it’s no wonder this brain of mine end up deciding on carrying on this spirit of listening to new melodies expressed wonderfully with a determination to discover and a huge language barrier. It’s also around this time that I started to think of awarding and giving recognition to those who have made my everyday life (Flat Three song title pun not intended) meaningful in an era of uneasiness and stress. And that is how I decide to come up with the "KN Song Awards" as it was initially called since I couldn't come up with a good name and used my own initials instead. ("initials", get it?)
The original Song Awards (it was an Excel) document consisted of several fundamental things you might see in in a music awards presentation: Awards, Top 20 rankings in my case because I felt this was the perfect balance between giving artists recognition and not boring myself to death over choosing who should be in it, Song of the day which has been established since 2006 when I noticed the power of diary-writing and song title dictation and some basic statistics which I picked up from my math lesson in school. This probably was the basis of understanding computer logic and basic statistics because at that time, I have no idea what I was doing. Despite that, I came up with a decent list of things to discuss about the song list that I did which wasn't that long at that time too. (I know, right? I'm weird)
As you can see from this website which is still up (although I'll be migrating to a new website soon maybe), I showed my bias towards recency (Year of Release Survey), song judgement and appreciation (Song Ratings Survey), lists and lists of music videos and translated lyrics I compiled since I had plenty of free time alone (I mean, I can't even read a word of Japanese Kanji back then, not even say the basic character set "gojuuon") and gave artists credit for making their songs stand out in many ways than other (Commendations) for what would be generally considered a mess today. Looking back, these became the beginnings of a long and yearly run for me to compile these results (manually) and share them online, though at this point it's all in private for my viewing pleasure. Well, not unless you know of my blog which was probably also secluded from the World Wide Web. You know, I'm kind of an introvert even till today.
Next up: The Klassic Note Spirit Part 4 – The Year 2010 and the Exclusion Principle
(It is meeting its downfall and bias already, after all the exploring in foreign land? I don’t think so...)
(**All linked references ago were active at time of publishing this post. They are meant for educational purposes and not are not taken directly from any intellectual property)