Wow, just looking back at these images is already making me CRINGE!!!! Haha okay me the point that you are buying CDs even in 2012 is already a joke. *laughs*

Hey and welcome back to this blog where I spend a lot of time talking about stuff that no one will care. In this post (lol), I talk about how one should be spending their money after they get their salary. *laughs* You guessed it, it's the very reason why you see CD reviews appear ever so often today, it's The Klassic Note Reviews! In a surprise to no one, The Klassic Note Review did not start with what the title might have implied, an actual review. A proper write-up. With plenty of images to showcase the product. Actually, it was more of just an unboxing. And a lot of mistakes. Most importantly, it was a lost of waste of money. *laughs* With all the stuff I review today, it all started with amazement when I delved into my first online purchase from Japan.

So behold! The darkest history of Klassic Note Reviews and its origins are going to be revealed in this very post, about 10 years after it started!! No really, get my tissues ready for I will cry puddles it won't stop lmao *sob*

HOW THIS STARTED

THE FIRST KLASSIC NOTE BATCHES

So around July 2012, I started with Klassic Note 2012 releases, the first half of the year, the CDs I have given every song in, so that includes THIRTEEN SINGLES, for a total of *REDACTED* yen haha, direct shipping into my home address thanks to a buddy we have known for so many years. And I cannot thank them enough, I sincerely thank CDJapan aka Neowing Japan's international shop website, for making all of these possible. At that time, they were the only shop that offered international shipping, their fees are still lower than many services even today, and with my half-baked decision to get these in, I truly gave my soul to them and hoped my purchase of these will pay off. I wished I had shown you the expression on my face as I received this box of surprises; Boy I could never replicate that feeling again.

As you might have noticed from the poor quality of the images even if I let you zoom in lol, from taking a photo from a tablet with thick bezels with a terrible camera to how I got that very tablet from my dad because he didn't know how to use one to how I posted all the images I took up to Facebook so my contacts can be jealous of my treasures, my bravery, my... waste of money *laughs* it was all but a fever dream to me. With a quiet afternoon and my parents out of the house, I had to secretly (yes SECRETLY) (lol) use the living room media player to play these (I now have a CD player in my room FYI), but yeah, the experience was AMAZING!!!! It was like a dream come true, supporting artists the way I know how, to listen to them with great quality (2012 had digital downloads but not hi-res OR streaming of those formats) in a huge room environment. It was as if I had my own listening room, I truly believed that. Yeah, I kept all this a secret as much as I showed it off to social media. But time and time again, I continued to add to the count. 

Every month since then, as you can see in a series of photos posted to Facebook which took how long again? *laughs* I have since then increased confidence in buying back releases from 2011 in August that year, 2010 in October, 2009 later that month and 2009 with more 2011 ones in again IN THE SAME MONTH because I remembered that's when I checked my own data to verify if more are "eligible for review" and they are haha, and 2008's releases in December along with the rest in 2012 including YUI's best albums back then. Yep, you can go ahead and count how many there are and I'll tell you the figures later hehe

THE INITIAL KLASSIC NOTE SHELF

Soon after I got all of these though, I thought of how to showcase them. Clearly the living room wasn't for me I live with my parents lol, so I knew these would be in my room. I also did not want to tuck them away in a box in a corner just like my parents did which showed zero sincerity in liking stuff they bought (they also bought a lot of stuff they do not care about now, waiting to rot), and so I cleared my bookshelf which didn't have many books anyway, and left half of the space to put my own belongings and daily necessities, and the other half for - you guessed it - a row of compact discs placed back in their initial wrapping. Well, I had to open them, I know you shouldn't be doing that but there are some stuff inside including novelties so I couldn't avoid doing that, so I tried to keep them in the best condition I can. Along the discs were those things you use to categorize your books I forgot the names of those, and I happily bought a label set just so I can put them into the years they were reviewed. I also went ahead years later and sourced a reliably large supply of seal bags overseas to wrap them CDs in, to preserve them memories. Yep, I went that far haha it brought me immense joy seeing them out in the open though, probably ever more than what I feel seeing them today. (I did try to do these again in later years but eventually ended up with the same layout, now randomized because jumbled up memories are always the best triggers)

THE FIRST CD REVIEW(S)

2013 passed by real quick, as I continued to rely on CDJapan to do the master work for me, reaching for the Japan music industry while I continued to enjoy - with the help of the Internet - Japanese songs that I like and listen which made my every single day. I think besides the one time I accidentally bought a duplicate of what I did the previous year (I'm not going to hide that, it was Porno Graffitti's 2009 single "Kono Mune yo, Ai wo Iyo" and if anyone wants a copy...) (haha), I revised my song list to ensure I did not missed anything while still being able to purchase the year's releases to put on my shelf. At this point, the time span from release to review became a lot shorter, so getting special gifts aka First Press Bonus as CDJapan would call them, became a thing. There was incentive in getting these earlier. This pushed me to be more prompt in giving new songs the earlier they arrive, even before their expected release date. That also meant that I went to the point of listening to short previews and giving the CDs prematurely so I can put more on my shelf and these are typically from idols I know, and voice actresses like Toyosaki Aki became my fuel for Klassic Note. It was a crazy time of rat and chase at that time. 

Around that time too, I continued to refine what my definition of purchasing one of these CDs might be, even giving exceptions to afterwards terrible releases with Toyosaki Aki's "CHEEKY" and SPECIAL OTHERS' 2013 live audio CD album. Also, I learnt of the facts of buying releases in Japan, the idea of market expectation for buying pre-orders which will explain my behaviour above, but also the fact that buying through online... does not support the artists directly. Apparently, and I think this was from CDJapan, that releases bought online do not contribute to the infamous Oricon music sales charts. The latter though, did not really exactly stop me from buying more, but encouraged me to buy from more direct methods. Though still through online shops, with the help of forwarding services and my understanding of Japanese, one could buy from a Japan online store, ship it to these services and they can consolidate and bring them to your overseas address!

With that knowledge, my first purchase NOT from CDJapan back in November 2013 were two singles released around the same time, and obtained from Animate - the biggest music store in Japan - with, you guessed it, First Press Bonus photo bromides of Kotobuki Minako and Hikasa Youko haha yep, FRESH from the press. This was probably the second time I got hyped after 2012, and regained my confidence in loving this process and making every purchase worth even more than they should.

THE FIRST KLASSIC NOTE REVIEW

However, I still thought that this did not bring enough justice to the songs I have loved and wanted to express my feels on what they contributed to my life, how I feel of them, etc. So in 2014 as you might still be able to find in the old blog (not this one I did not import the posts to here) I started to review releases that caught my attention. But it wasn't too long until I realized I can't do for all of them, and selectively speaking I like all of them so *shrugs* I went back to how I buy my CDs. And if I'm not wrong along with my very first purchase of Neat's 3rd album in June 2014 DIRECTLY FROM HER INDEPENDENT STORE we have gone this far already, I did a full review of all the songs as I have heard them from her livestream earlier that year... and this became what you know of today. The format may have changed, I may not have reviewed this many releases since 2018 which was mainly because I increased the strictness of my judgement of new songs trying to find the comfort zone for giving new songs, but the feels are still the same: It encouraged me to talk about the songs I liked more.

THE PERFECT ORDER: KLASSIC NOTE REVIEW TODAY

It wasn't really until 2017 where I had finalized and still use today, the current process for purchasing music releases for review: They would have to be given at least 85% of their songs to be included in the Klassic Note shelf (I have mentioned this in a post before, see "The Shelf Criteria"), they were not digital releases so I don't have to show you a screenshot of the iTunes page lol, I have given exception to music cover releases which are under their Anime credit (see "The Revolutionary Decision" lol I suck at naming blog posts), I have changed the ratings of the individual tracks to suit a new judgement criteria, and included translation of lyrics to show significance in their inherent meaning I like to mention in the reviews from time to time. Klassic Note Review has come such a long way, I would've gone back in time to mock at my mistakes of buying duplicate CDs, and opting for a local forwarding service which eventually failed to ship my orders for months but thankfully the latter did not affect music discs. Even so, it would not have stopped me from doing what I like today, receiving that very new physical media of songs to remember. That, until Japan stops selling CDs, will never change.

I would like to announce a series where I go back and review all those releases which did not appear in this blog as its own post at any point so 2013 and before, but I know I didn't have the commitment to come up with a "Klassic Note Review Redux" series or something (lol yeah came up with the title for a while tbh) because I could never, EVER, tell you how much the feels were when I listened to it back then. What I CAN tell you though, is I have never once regretted making this decision, to never support my local music (lol if there is any) and doing stuff I like even now. This, is probably why I decided to continue on the journey to supporting the artists as much as I can. I'm sorry for the terrible quality of the images I only had a smartphone end 2013 and even then those cameras weren't the best thing anyways, so pardon me for not taking them photos again just so you can relive the moments by looking at these mementos which still live in my room. See you guys again for another of these long stories and underrated memories.

- Aozaki Shouhei, on the Klassic Note

P.S. I have bought from not Japan before, mind you, when I was totally into indie duo "cozy diary" who went as far as getting nominated for music awards back in 2015, but before then I had already bought two singles from TAIWAN everybody, and is such weird reminiscence as I am Chinese and have NEVER bought any of my songs until what was mid-2013. Now you will know why I hate Chinese love songs and instead give emo songs now haha