Monday 13 November 2023

City? In the SKY? This was supposed to be about Suggoi Fever!

The other songs on Mizuki's graduation single, other than her solo Neverending Shine, are Suggoi FEVER! and Wake-up Call ~Mezameru Toki~.
I love both these songs. A lot.

Morning Musume's singles have been much better lately. For me, the weakest of the more recent singles (15ki+ onward) was Lovepedia. Even though I thought it was a great song, it wasn't *amazing*, and I ended up not being entertained by there being two arrangements of the same melody. They're both all right songs, though Lovepedia is the far better of the two, only because Ningen Kankei No Way Way samples TURKEY IN THE DAMN STRAW in the middle, and that makes me automatically dislike it quite a bit, no matter how hard I try to ignore that part. In fact, the more I try to remind myself that it's truly only, like, 5 seconds of the entire song, the more I can't stop noticing it and allowing it to ruin things for me. 

It's kind of like the OG Morning Musume album song, Harajuku 6:00 Shuugou. I freakin' looooove that song, and it's honestly and genuinely one of my very favourite non-single Morning Musume songs of all time, and yup, that includes everything in the Platinum, Colourful, and Mizuki eras. That being said, I can never let myself full enjoy it because of that stupid T-rex sound at the beginning and middle. 

Why is there a T-rex roaring in the song? It makes no sense whatsoever. I'd understand if it were, like, a Hyokkori Hyoutanjima-style song where they were hunting for dinosaur bones instead of being pirates, but no, it's a song about picking a way-too-busy spot (Harajuku station) to meet a date at 6pm. It's all about crowds and cool/hip young people hanging out in Harajuku, and nothing to do with dinosaurs or dinosaur movies. It's just so out-of-place and increeeeedibly annoying and impossible to ignore. It's really really too bad, because it is such a fabulously good song otherwise. I really, really wish there were a "non-dinosaur" version (doesn't that already sound like something Hello Project would totally do anyway?). 

That being said, there's some music where I'm totally able to filter out the parts or sounds I don't like. I don't know why. Why is brain (and my ears!) able to do that with some music, but not others? What determines that? It can't be the level of annoyance or intrusiveness, as a certain piece of Zelda music from Twilight Princess debunks that. I'm thinking of City in the Sky. Not only is it easily by favourite piece of music from Twilight Princess (and yes, that includes Midna's Lament...yeah, I know I'm weird); it's also one of my favourite pieces of Zelda music of all time, across the entire franchise. 
The thing is though, is that it's got a really annoying "honking" sound throughout. I don't know how to describe it; the first word that came to mind was "honk", but it's even odder than that. Should anyone else be reading this, here. Check it out for yourself: 



See? Isn't it really annoying? It's super intrusive, I find, yet I can somehow ignore it and just focus on the synth-y string-like melody that makes up the piece instead. And to say I adore that part of the composition is really an understatement, and it really does transport me to another place, and works as the soundtrack to the City in the Sky so unbelievably perfectly.  I remember reading a description of City in the Sky's music by someone who wrote that it sounded like a beautiful palace that you didn't belong in, it was pretty but not for you...not a place for humans (or Hylians) to step foot in. If you've every played through City in the Sky in Twilight Princess, you know that's spot-on! Or at least, I feel that it is. 

Anyway, weird how the brain works when it comes to listening to music and absorbing it as part of our listening experience and/or our gaming experience--and movie experiences too, but that's another post for another day. On that note, my actual thoughts on Suggoi FEVER! and Wake-up Call will also have to wait for another post on another day! This post was supposed to be about them, but it looks like I got side-tracked--something that happens to all of us, I think. The beauty of writing a blog for oneself is that it simply doesn't matter. Freedom! :) 


No comments:

Post a Comment

ICYMI: mask bullies = human garbage :)

Masks & distancing are INCREDIBLY helpful--life-saving, even. That's not opinion--that's just fact. I don't understand how t...