A Jar of Narmalade

Music Recommendations – Weeaboo Edition

Originally Posted: 3/19/10

Did someone say "weeaboo?"

    As I said in my previous post, I haven't been genuinely listening to music for very long. However, in the past two years, I have submerged myself in music of all types to expand my horizons and develop my tastes. For this first installment of music recommendations, all of the music is going to be from Japan. However, not all of the songs are not going to be poppy, sugarcoated trite. So if you are averse to that type of music, then hopefully you will still be able to take something from this.

Ukifune - Go!Go!7188

    GO!GO!7188 is a band that was formed in 1998 and is currently made of Yuu (Yumi Nakashima), Akko (Akiko Noma) and Turkey (Takayuki Hosokawa). The band is influenced by surf rock, punk rock, and enka and is awesome because it cherry-picks the best element from each. Even at their worst, Go!Go! is better than most artists, because it's obvious just from listening that they are enthusiastic about their sound and what they are doing. However, I cannot recommend the Antenna album, simply because hearing Turkey sing will shave years off of your lifespan.

LOVE & ROLL - supercell

    We're only at the second part, and the poppy bullshit has already seeped in. However, in this case, supercell is actually an indie band. Formed in 2007, supercell is the brainchild of "Ryo", who composes and writes all of the music for his "band". In 2009, Ryo collaborated with "Nagi" to create music for the show Bakemonogatari and the animated film Cencoroll (both of which are brilliant), and LOVE & ROLL was Cencoroll's ending theme. Even though LOVE & ROLL is basically pop music, the different layers of sound come together surprisingly well for a typical J-pop song, striking a balance between technical excellence and what should be vapid garbage.

 Quartz and Chronometer - Soil & Pimp Sessions

    I've just recently started listening to Soil and Pimp Sessions, but I'm already in love. Launched in 2004, the group originally started in clubs and was influenced by the club mentality pretty heavily. After the group finalized its members, however, it dropped the influences and moved more towards being an energetic jazz band. The group has been releasing albums with a fairly consistent quality, but their most recent album, 6, seems to be the best thus far. It's just a shame that the band is just now starting to gain international appeal, because they are truly swell.

Tetrominon ~From Russia With Blocks~ - YMCK

    Finishing off this set is an old favorite of mine: YMCK. Formed in 2003, the group is an amalgamation of both J-Pop and the sounds and style of NES music. The combination may seem a tad bit odd, but when you hear the lyrics sung with whimsical abandon to the distinctive lo-fi sounds of a NES, it's obvious that the sound is nothing but cohesive. The group has been active for some time now, and have released several "FAMILY" albums (FAMILY RACING, FAMILY COOKING, etc.), and while all of them are great, FAMILY MUSIC, the debut album, still stands as the pinnacle of the group's work.

Why I Revere Shōji Meguro as a Demi-Deity

     I haven't really been listening to music for very long; two years ago, I wasn't entirely against music, but I certainly didn't seek music actively. However, when I entered high school, it seemed like that all changed. I actively sought out music, finding artists and songs that I either never heard of or never gave the time of day. I've been playing to video game music for even longer, and I never listened to the music playing either; I wouldn't pay attention to console game music and I would always leave the sound muted for portable games to leave anyone around me undisturbed. At the same time that I was discovering "proper" music, I was also discovering music that was always with me, but I never acknowledged. Looking back at all of the games that I've played in my lifetime, I can name a laundry list of game soundtracks that are brilliant, but only work in the context of the game. The soundtracks for Shadow of the Colossus and Ōkami are absolutely gorgeous, but I would never consider listening to them in my free time (it also doesn't help that Ōkami's soundtrack is 218 tracks long). However, there are a few game soundtracks that I can listen to wherever I am, because the individual songs work in any context and aren't reliant on the games they come from. 

    Shōji Meguro, game composer for the Shin Megami Tensei games, is not consistent with his musical style: even though he relies mainly on rock influences, he is constantly experimenting with the overall style of his songs. While one of Meguro's soundtracks may be grungy hard rock, the next might be bright and vibrant, almost to the point of becoming pop music. The most surprising thing is that Meguro has worked with multiple genres while still making something that  is still distinctively his. It is that distinctive style that allows me to enjoy his music for being so different, even when a song is not from a genre I enjoy; I may hate rap, but I love Shōji Meguro's rap. But enough talk, let us listen to the music that I have such high praise for.

Big Battle  

This song epitomizes both Meguro's roots and his ability to mix different sounds together. Never before had I heard hard rock mixed with techno to create music with tribal influences. At the same time, the focus on rock is undeniable in the overwhelming focus on the guitar, creating a song that is very much rock but is still unique in its sound.

Reach Out to the Truth - First Battle

Now, here's something different. Despite having a good emphasis on the guitar like Big Battle, Reach Out to the Truth invokes a different feel by including a vocals, and by changing the synthesizer frequency. Instead of being hard rock, Reach Out to the Truth is more of an amalgamation of punk and pop, creating a song that is significantly more brighter than Big Battle, while still keeping a lot of similarities between the two.

Mass Destruction

Remember when I mentioned rap? Mass Destruction is the epitome of what American rap is not: it is one giant mass of different sounds playing off with wild abandon. Instead of dropping break-beats based around the theme of The Magnificent Seven, Mass Destruction uses trumpets, a strong backing baseline and (hit or miss) R&B-esque vocals. The "rap" isn't entirely rap, taking influences from funk to jazz, which serves to make something that is just fun to listen to. Mass Destruction doesn't sulk in the themes that rap artists make ad infinitum, and instead makes a song that may be overly shallow, but is quality nonetheless.

So there you go. I'm running out of steam for this entry, so I'll just leave you with a few songs that may not necessarily convey Meguro's variety, but are still really damn good.

Divine Identity

Darkness

霧 ~ Mist

The Final Decisive Battle

Good Games Are Compelling

    With the recent backlash that arose from Jim Sterling’s article on why “indie games don’t have to act like indie games”, one point of contention came up repeatedly: can games be art? The game that Sterling primarily criticized was The Path, a game that promises players "an atmospheric experience of exploration, discovery, and introspection through a unique form of gameplay". The gameplay mechanics are as follows: stick to the path to grandmother's house and have your expectations "subverted" or disobey your instructions and wander through a forest with various things for you to do. Either way, you are wasting your time.

  
                        "Go to Grandmother's house and stay on the path."  That's certainly straightforward.

    The reason for why The Path is a waste of time is that it breaks one fundamental game philosophy: it wastes your time. Regardless of the quality of the The Path, as long as some degree of interaction is present, I would call it a game. The Path qualifies in an arcane sense, as your only controls are to walk and turn. However, I personally find that two more qualities must be present for a game to be good: it must respect you as a human being and it must be compelling. The Path has neither of these qualities. Some may argue that The Path is brilliant and a true masterpiece of the gaming medium. I don't care. The Path could be the magnum opus of humanity and I would be indifferent simply because it fails to be a good game, something that should be its most important goal.

    The first insult that The Path makes lies in the controls: you are given either a long path or a large forest to walk through, and your only option is to walk. This could lead to either three minutes of listening to an obnoxious song, or more than an hour trying to navigate a bastion of bullshit. This plays into the second insult: the game does not respect your time. The developer, Tales of Tales disrespects the player by assuming, wrongfully so, that the player has free time to spare. Furthermore, should you decide to walk the path, you are rewarded with the following image:

                 Oh my! My expectations have been subverted! Failure is the ultimate reward for wasting my time! 

    Please excuse my moon language, but what the fuck is this? How does "You know where grandmother lives," relate to the original goal? During the course of the three-minute trek, you have to endure an awful song and crappy flower graphics in your periphery. How does this relate to you going to grandmother's house, crawling into her bed, and making your grandmother wake up? The game developers obviously anticipated some players following the path as told, so why couldn't they make the "bad" ending a self-contained story. Instead of presenting me with a story that is unsatisfying because the game tells me a better ending exists, the ending is unsatisfying because it isn't actually an ending and the game mocks me condescendingly for spending time with it and for not understanding its important point. Masking your game's quality with a pretense of an important message does not justify it, even more so when the message itself is disingenuous. However, not all indie games fall into these trappings, and that's where Iji comes in.

                                                                     My savior

    Iji, developed by Daniel Remar, does not look or act like a game affected by the "indie" movement, but it is still an indie game in that it is both independently made and distributed. It does not act different for the sake of acting different, and it only benefits from that. In fact, I would so far as to say that Iji succeeds at what The Path ultimately failed to do: it is actually a good game. Iji can subvert your expectations: you can either play the game as a straightforward 2-D action game, or you can play differently, such as playing through the game without killing a single enemy. The game never forces you to make one decision because the other option penalizes you. Sure, you are rewarded for playing within restrictions, but the game doesn't punish you for playing otherwise, presenting a method through which a message can conveyed without limiting freedom of the player. Furthermore, the game respects you by actually giving you a sense of progression in exchange for your time investment. This allows Iji to say more, despite having less to say. 

 

    Iji actually has depth. The game is well-constructed, and it is obviously the product of legitimate thoughtfulness. Sure the graphics are inferior, but if you're playing a game for realistic visuals, then you should play a game like Red Rover...outside. What ultimately matters is the mechanics and the way the game plays; if you're using games purely as a catalyst to convey an ill-conceived message at the expense of making the game compelling, then you have failed at being a game developer. Games don't even need to be fun; a game that trivializes the holocaust for amusement would be entirely tasteless. What matters above all is that a game can actually grab an audience and keep it interested. The Path isn't entirely bad, but the messages that are conveyed are poorly delivered, and the game isn't good a being a game. If it stated that it was purely an interactive experience and not a game, I wouldn't have nearly as much criticism as I do now. However, The Path unfortunately is a game and must be treated like one.

P.S. By the way, Iji is free and The Path is $10.00.     

P.P.S.  If you want to waste your time, try re-reading this post while listening to the song I was complaining about.

Safe Song