Bad∞End∞Night - Hitoshizuku-P and Yama

This is an interesting one. Upon hearing the song for the first time, the aspect that really popped out at me was how many voices were present. In fact, there are EIGHT, once again, EIGHT Vocaloids singing this song! Very few songs have more than two or three, and eight is just straight up...um...odd.

Hatsune Miku, both of the Kagamine twins, Luka, Gumi, Gakupo, KAITO, and MEIKO  are here and all of them have a distinct role in the story of Bad∞End∞Night. Eight (well technically seven since Rin and Len come from the same voice bank) different programs are hard to manage at once, and it could potentially lead to some garbled products.

So did it? Did Hitoshizuku-P pull it off?

She did. It's damn good.

Handy YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQih8wmIn_M

Link to the fantastic art: http://static.zerochan.net/Night.%E2%88%9E.Series.full.922503.jpg

Okay, lets forget for a second that there are actually singers in this song. Just listen to the instrumentals. It's definitely not a pop beat we're hearing here. As you might have guessed from just reading the title of the song, Bad∞End∞Night tells a relatively creepy story.

There's a whole world of Vocaloid horror out there, and I'll be reviewing a few of those in the near future, but I digress. Bad∞End∞Night is one of those songs that conveys a very light and enjoyable feeling of fear. The music is upbeat when appropriate and it feels like its building up to some kind of climax...which it is. During the chorus, I felt like I was in a middle of a very classy ball and when the different verses hit, it was as if I stepped out of the party and into some dark room of the house I wasn't supposed to be in.

This is a good thing, since the story is pretty much just that.

Now lets address the EIGHT Vocaloids. EIGHT! SERIOUSLY! YOU THINK THAT'S ENOUGH? Vocaloids are very expensive. Even off Japan Amazon, the newest ones with the works price in at about $200. To buy EIGHT is ridiculous...but then Hitoshizuku-P had popular hits before Bad∞End∞Night, so that might explain her huge collection.

However, with that out of the way, I could scrounge up some money and buy EIGHT Vocaloids myself if I wanted to. Of course, I don't because I would suck with them. It takes a certain person to operate with that many voices. Its not like a human choir where each member is capable of learning and adapting to different situations. You have to tell each Vocaloid exactly what to do and when which I assume took a hella long time.

I've heard WAY MORE than my fair share of bad songs with just Miku where it sounded like the producer forced her to sing at gunpoint. How Hitoshizuku achieved such crisp tuning is truly a stroke of brilliance.

I'm not going to go into the story. That's something you have to experience for yourself. If I had to sum up the plot behind Bad∞End∞Night in one word, it would have to be...intriguing. It's definitely not a tear-jerker or a jump-scare horror, or a story that will make you sick to your stomach.

To be honest looking at the song as a whole, it gives me the weirdest "secret agent" vibe which I find very enjoyable.

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The Rating

8/10

Come on. EIGHT Vocaloids and it actually works very well? Instant 5. Add some classy instrumentals and a compelling story and I gotta bump it up to an 8...

BUT WAIT!

Bad∞End∞Night has two sequels! How they hold up?

All of them in one video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRfPe9zVlOo

Crazy∞Night is the next song and its tone is still light and upbeat, but the pace is much more frantic and desperate.

It all leads to Twilight∞Night. Twilight∞Night is crazy. It took the desperation in Crazy∞Night and multiplied it. I thought I had reached the climax at the end of Bad∞End∞Night, but I was wrong.

Twilight∞Night starts off with a very creepy and somber sounding lamentation of a girl wondering how she's going to get home. Then the music fades out and I'm wondering "What happened to the classy jazzed up feel of the other songs?" Suddenly all that and more explodes into reality and everything works.

That video link I posted is probably the best way to get a full scope of the build among all three songs.

Crazy∞Night gets a 8/10 alone

and

Twilight∞Night gets a 9/10 alone

However, as a group, if I count them all as an 11 minute song, I gotta give it a 10/10. It's the perfect example of show don't tell through music. The voices (ALL FREAKIN EIGHT OF THEM) help to bring out the mood, but overshadowing that is the music which, I feel, tells the best story.

Oh yeah, and all three have kick-ass music videos, but this review has gone on long enough.

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ROCK ON, FELLOW VOCALOCONNOISSEURS!