Cantarella - KurousaP

Oh man. Cantarella. Is there anything bad I can say about this song that won't have fans all over me?

Link to the amazing art (whoever did this, NICE JOB!!!): http://i99.beon.ru/anime-pictures.net/pictures/get_image/70881-1200x900-cantarella+%2528vocaloid%2529-vocaloid-hatsune+miku-kaito-fujie.jpg

Handy YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3U-IGxt_qU

Anyway, Cantarella is one of those songs that everybody has heard. It was made in early 2008 by extremely popular Vocaloid producer KurousaP. This man is amazing. I bought his album recently, Kimi no Iru Keshiki and I don't at all regret it. His violin work in Cantarella especially is what makes this song so iconic as few other Vocaloid songs can stand up to THIS CLASS.

Oh yeah, and a real alive singer named Gomu did a cover of this. Its damn good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij3Ka3VGSfE

I'm pretty sure you know what I'm going to say now. Its great! Its a great song!

The Rating

9/10

There you go. I mean, the violin is the PERFECT touch, and it has a very grand ballroom type feel with a beat encouraging a feeling of some urgency, but in a more graceful way. Its a weird classical/pop mix that somehow creates something beautiful that only KurousaP can really pull off (so I've heard so far). I'm always keeping my eyes and ears peeled for the next Vocaloid sensation.

So yeah.

Time to talk about the video.

The first video I posted...I find it half hilarious, half scary.

Taken out of context (ignoring the lyrics), the video starts with establishing shots of Miku and Kaito, our two characters, in their everyday environments. Normal.

Suddenly, Kaito has on this FABULOUS outfit in Miku's room in the middle of the night. WTF.

I can't get over Kaito's outfit. Its just so incredibly flamboyant. At 0:43 in the video, right after Miku wakes up and sees this strange man over her bed, Kaito strikes the best pose. I know its supposed to be serious, but its just too good.

Anyway, I'll make sure to review a song next time with a little more substance that I can talk about. If a song is perfect, it makes for a boring review I guess.

ROCK ON, FELLOW VOCALOCONNOISSEURS!

Lynne - Hachi

First, a little background on the alleged "Lynne Disease". Instead of typing it all out...I'll just give you the WikiAnswers definition: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_Lynn_Disease#slide1

This is pretty much the only definition I can find, and besides from being far from scientific, this definition can't even decide on how to spell "Lynne". That's pretty damn bad.

Handy YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYzwznQbPGg

Link to some fantastic albeit disturbing art: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vYzwznQbPGg/0.jpg

As you can probably guess, we're diving into the unstable realm of Vocaloid horror. I happen to enjoy a bit of horror now and then in my music, but unlike love songs which are quick to make and relatively hard to screw up if you're reasonably talented, horror is touchy and very hit or miss.

For a producer to make a niche in horror is a dangerous undertaking indeed. While there are some psychological elements to horror in which we can all relate, the fear of the unknown is what gives some of the best scary flicks their thunder. In that way, a mediocre horror movie automatically becomes reviled or worse, falls quickly into oblivion. However, unlike a movie, the common song is about 4 minutes. That's 240 short seconds to convey a certain feeling.

As any frequent theater or movie goer will tell you, its a much simpler job to make an audience go "Aw, that's so cute" then to be genuinely disturbed. So as genres go, I believe horror is one of the hardest to successfully pull off.

These days, the common reaction to having watched a scary movie is "Wow, that was dumb". Its a fact that for every movie that gives me some serious nightmares, there are about a hundred that would leave me laughing. Also, the reason some horror elements no longer work is because they've already become cliched. Every generation will have a harder and harder time scaring a more prepared set of people. A tactic which caused grown men to wet themselves may be considered cheesy today even by younger children.

...So where am I trying to go with all of this?

Meet Hachi: a Vocaloid producer whose music I am quite fond of. Probably his most notable work was on the song "Matryoshka" which is a true Vocaloid classic. Most of his songs have some sort of horror element, and for the most part, I find them enjoyable. Its nothing that's going to keep me up at night, but it provides that creepy chill anyway.

Lynne is a Hachi song. Now remember when I said horror is hit or miss? Yeah...sorry Hachi, but this is a miss.

Lynne isn't a terrible song...but its seriously flawed.

A common tactic I find among Vocaloid producers to create a creepy atmosphere is to dump a whole bunch of odd synthesizers together which somehow work on a different level. I've tried walking around with a few of these, notably Kikuo's "Ten Sho Sho Ten Sho", and it throws my balance off. It's a very satisfying feeling. Lynne tries this method and it fails terribly. The beat and the synth just don't mesh up like they should and when the words come in, the cacophony retreats to the background. Now, instead of being muddled, its just boring.

Boredom is the worst fear of any horror show director.

Lynne DOES manage to create an interesting story, and the music does end up working...but on a non-horror level which means the writing isn't backed up at all by the instrumentals.

I hate to cut into a Hachi song, but this really isn't his best work. The sad part is, I know Hachi can pull off the desperation tactic in a song because I've heard it many times in his works.

Anyway...

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The Rating

5/10

A very mediocre grade for a very mediocre song. There was effort, don't get me wrong, but nothing seemed to click. The concept was cool, but wasn't executed properly. The story was compelling, but the music didn't match.

...Yeah, I pretty much said the same thing three times, but that's pretty much all I CAN say. Miku's tuning was alright (for a horror song), and overall, there wasn't really anything that made me want to whip my headphones across the room...but there was nothing to keep them on my head either. Nice try, Hachi, but I think I'll stick with your "In a Rainy Town, Balloons Dance with Devils" for my daily dose of creepy.

ROCK ON, FELLOW VOCALOCONNOISSEURS!