I might as well finish up my experiences and thoughts regarding that fantastic metal show I saw on March 10th. This is the third time I am bring this up, but I had a really good time at Iced Earth, Sabaton, and ReVamp, and I have already expressed my joy with the two opening acts, it would probably only be fair if I gave the main attraction some credit.
I do not know very much about Iced Earth; might as well be honest about that.
I knew of the existence of Iced Earth before my fateful evening with them, and I know I had heard a handful of their songs in the past, but I did not own any of their albums and was never overly impressed. I still hold an opinion of casual interest towards the band now, but to be fair they put on a good show, the crowd was really into them, and they appeared to be more than competent at their craft, but I do struggle to find the motivation to investigate further in any truly meaningful way to familiarize myself with their work. Still their performance, the longevity of the band, and my generally high respect for the band warrants them some attention and a review, it also helps that one song of theirs really stood out to me as fantastic, “Watching Over Me.”
Perhaps a primary reason I am not madly in love with a decent metal band like Iced Earth is that they fall into the camp of shrieking metal, death metal I believe is the subgenre, and that style has never really spoke to me, I like singing, I like melody, and I like lyrics, and that is probably why a ballad like “Watching Over Me” stood out.
Jon Schaffer
Tragically personal tragedy is an excellent source of creativity, and a lot of the best music ever created was written in inspiration of, or for, a lost loved one, and Iced Earth’s “Watching Over Me” falls perfectly into that description. I am having a difficult time verifying the specific details online, but this song was introduced live as being about Iced Earth’s leader Jon Schaffer deceased friend. From what I can discern the deceased friend was a childhood one, and apparently this friend was somehow involved in the creation of the band name “Iced Earth.” This is the sort of awful thing that happens to artist that can inspire their best work, and while I still have a lot to learn about Iced Earth and Jon Schaffer, the song “Watching Over Me” may be the best work from this creator.
The lyrics are very straight forward laying out exactly what we already know, this song is about a friend who one day tragically died, naturally this is very powerful but it is not necessarily special either. What separates “Watching Over Me” from other sorrowful songs about losing a close friend is the uplifting message of the chorus:
“I feel it once again, It's overwhelming me. His spirit's like the wind, The angel guarding me. Oh, I know, oh, I know, He's watching over me. Oh, I know, oh, I know, He's watching over me.”
This is very, very, positive turn on what would traditionally be a very depressing song. Although his friend is lost his presence is always there lingering on indefinitely as part of Jon’s music, and if rumor is true that this lost friend, whoever he was, was somehow involved with the creation of Iced Earth as a band, there persist a literal truth to this expressed sentiment. Angels and the afterlife do not actually exist but a unique sort of immortality does exist for us mere humans in the form of remembrance, the beauty of our culture, crafts, arts and of course music, will live forever and the craftsmen and artist who do such fine work will live forever through their said work, and to a lesser degree those who influence such sweet sweeping sounds, they too get to live forever in a unique beautiful sort of way.
Maybe I am a sap and this softer sweeter Iced Earth song spoke to me because of all the feelings and what not, but even if that is so, I think it would be hard to deny that Jon Schaffer has created nothing shy of something stupendous for his friend, and also he has given the best possible message to any of us who have lost a loved one could hope for, part of the person is with you always in memory and will forever strengthen you indefinitely.
Until next month keep on rocking in the free world.
A lot has happened to Nightwish in the past few years. Most significantly Tarja Turunen, trained opera singer and front woman of the band, has left to pursue her solo career. Like many Nightwish fans I was devastated, what was Nightwish without Tarja? This is and always was an unfair damnation of the rest of the band, it is not like Nightwish is a bunch of talentless boobs, they are with or without Tarja a collection of fine musicians, but it was impossible to deny that Tarja the main attraction, she was the center piece of their sound and what made they stand out as unique. What were we going to do? What was Nightwish going to do?
What they did was recruit Anette Olzon. From what I can tell Anette is not a trained opera singer, but her real sin was not being Tarja. Fan reaction to the change was very mixed, some were sympathetic to Nightwish and welcomed the new singer, while others could not imagine Nightwish without Tarja and stopped caring about Nightwish altogether. I found myself in the middle of the debate, I too struggled to imagine how Nightwish could ever be great again without Tarja, at the same time it seemed incredibly judgemental to just assume Anette was no good and give up on a band we were all otherwise loyal to up to that time.
I suppose Anette was not completely disliked and Nightwish was not completely abandoned by fans their hit “Bye Bye Beautiful” was a huge hit; still Tarja’s memory lingers since that song is obviously about her.
Anette stuck around for about four years and produced two studio albums with Nightwish, “Dark Passion Play” (2007) and “Imaginaerum” (2011). For reasons that are not exactly clear Nightwish fired Anette from the band in late 2012, she claims it was because she got pregnant, while the band claims it was an issue of personalities. Now enters Nightwish’s third lead singer Floor Jansen.
Nightwish's lead singers from left to right: Tarja Turunen, Anette Olzon and Floor Jansen
Because Floor made such a positive impression on me I decided it was worthwhile to give Nightwish’s new lineup a fair chance and pickup their newest album “Endless Forms Most Beautiful.” Wait “Endless Forms Most Beautiful” where have I heard that before?
Charles Darwin
“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” – Charles Darwin (The Origin of Species)
I have read “The Origin of Species” so I was quick to identify the reference. Then I noticed the title of the last track “The Greatest Show On Earth,” and that too seemed familiar as it is also the name of one of Richard Dawkins books. Then I began listening to the new album and the first thing I hear is Richard Dawkin’s voice speak these words:
“The deepest solace lies in understanding, This ancient unseen stream, A shudder before the beautiful.”
So seconds within listening to this new album I am looking up an explanation for all this and confirm my suspicions that “Endless Forms Most Beautiful” is in fact an ode to the beauty of biological evolution. This is a new sort of concept album, I have never previously heard of a band creating an entire musical effort celebrating the scientific understanding of life, or any other science for that matter. I instantly fell in love with “Endless Forms Most Beautiful.”
As stated a moment ago I have read “The Origin of Species,” which is not exactly the first book my fellow well read ballers across the globe tackle, but I have also read four books by Richard Dawkins, “The Selfish Gene,” “The Blind Watchmaker,” “The God Delusion,” and the “Greatest Show On Earth,” so I have done my homework before listening to “Endless Forms Most Beautiful,” but also I personally feel connected with Nightwish after this. If you recall my last review for Nightwish - “Wishmaster” focused on the band celebrating the fantasy works of Tolkien and the Dragonlance universe, that combined with this celebration of Charles Darwin with collaborating efforts by Richard Dawkins means that Nightwish and I are reading all the same books; we should hang out sometime; that would be cool.
I am particular fond of the first track “Shudder Before The Beautiful,” it is great hearing Mr. Dawkins speak some beautiful words of wisdom, but also this song starts off the album right, it is hard and fast and exciting and Floor does her part wonderfully. It seems Floor has been well received by Nightwish fans, including me, unlike Anette she was trained in opera, but also she is not Anette which I guess is a big relief to some.
What a delightful expression “shudder before the beautiful,” describing a pause to behold the awe of existence in its glorious splendor. For it is life itself that is the beautiful being so wildly admired by Nightwish in this song and indeed on this album, as Dawkins argued so poetically, life and with it the unique constant change it makes for itself via evolution, is the greatest show on earth.
I could not help but notice in the opening lyrics an interesting connection being made between the subject matter of life and the band Nightwish itself:
“Awake, oceanborn, Behold this force, Bring the outside in, Explode the self to epiphany.”
I cannot have been the only Nightwish fan to have noticed the dropping of their second album title “Oceanborn.” Literally as mammals our ancestry does tie back to the waters of this pale blue dot, but also Nightwish may correctly identify that album as their birth in some aspects. Interesting thought anyway.
The chorus, which makes up the bulk of the song comes off like the sort of poem Dawkin’s himself might have wrote:
“The music of this awe, Deep silence between the notes, Deafens me with endless love. This vagrant island Earth, A pilgrim shining bright. We are shuddering before the beautiful, Before the plentiful, We, the voyagers.”
Again we see something of a connection being drawn between the subject matter of the ever changing and evolving life of the planet and music that now comprises the beauty of this understanding. This reminds me a little of Rush’s “2112 Overture” when Getty Lee describes the discovery of technology through the wonderment of playing guitar. Basically every word is perfect in this chorus, deep silence between the notes, vagrant island Earth, and shuddering before the beautiful, this is amazing deep heavy stuff, and Floor sings it so perfectly.
It is a weird thing to admit, even to myself, but “Shudder Before The Beautiful” might be my favorite Nightwish song. This development seems almost inappropriate, how could anyone’s favorite Nightwish song be sung by someone other than Tarja? How is it even possible for us to consider the possibility that Nightwish might have produced their best album in 2015, and without Tarja? I do not expect everyone to agree with me, in fact I suspect most Nightwish fans to refuse to even pause and consider the possibility as they cling to the past glories of the band, but I have to concede, at least to myself, that “Endless Form Most Beautiful” has become my favorite Nightwish album, and “Shudder Before The Beautiful” may have become my favorite song of theirs.
Richard Dawkins approved.
Now maybe I am biased. I am a huge fan of Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins, and maybe the outlandish fact that Mr. Dawkins has now collaborated on a metal album is just such an insanely awesome thing to have happened that I will always be partial to this event in metal music history.
The version of “Endless Forms Most Beautiful” that I purchased included a bonus CD that was the instrumental version of the same album, and that too is fantastic, but also it says something about Nightwish quality that even without a lead singer at all they can obviously produce fantastic music.
Shudder Before The Beautiful - Instrumental Version:
“Endless Forms Most Beautiful,” Richard Dawkins approves and so do I.
So Nightwish, you probably heard of them. Of all the many central European metal bands I love Nightwish is probably the most successful and easily the most famous in my native Canada. Perhaps Nightwish needs no introduction, but as a quick summary Nightwish is perhaps the first, or at the very least the first famous, metal band to use a beautiful female trained in opera as their lead singer, and that kind of became a big thing.
Naturally I was on board with the idea of opera singer meets metal band, and in many ways Nightwish was a launching point for me to discover the wonderful world of central European metal which is absolutely my favorite genre music currently. However there is something else about Nightwish that makes them special, and that is fantasy, it would be difficult to argue Nightwish as being anything other than a power metal band and impossible to deny their fantasy inspirations and themes.
As someone who is attempting to write his own fantasy epic and as someone who writes his own music blog as a hobby you can imagine I have been involved in countless conversations where the two topics overlap. Once many, moons ago, a friend asked me what sort of music inspires me the most when I write epic battle scenes, as that is the best thing to be interested about in this world. This gentleman in question was rather into really heavy badass warriors and combat as well as metal and who isn’t really? So I thought for a moment and came up with a couple of Nightwish songs, the two that always stood out to me the most for this specific sort of criteria are “Planet Hell” and “Wishmaster.”
“Planet Hell” is a great song and has always been one of my favorite Nightwish songs however this is not the time to talk about “Planet Hell” just yet. Today we are discussing “Wishmaster.”
“Wishmaster” is the title track of Nightwish’s third studio album which was released in the year 2000. It was around this time that Nightwish started to establish themselves in the international market of metal due to the success of their second album “Oceanborn.” While “Oceanborn” is a great album it is the hit songs off of “Wishmaster” that really started building Nightwish’s momentum. Songs like “She is My Sin,” “Deep Silent Complete” and as of this moment, most notably, the self title track “Wishmaster” that really set the stage for who Nightwish were, what they were about, and where they were going.
With a band name like Nightwish, it does not take tremendous powers of observation to notice how a album and song titled “Wishmaster” might has some level of personal connection or involvement in its artistic meaning. What I am trying to say is “Wishmaster” in many ways is Nightwish’s primary flagship song. It is not just the name but also the content of the song; naturally it is a hard hitting metal song with beautiful lead vocals from Tarja. It is a Nightwish song where Tarja really gets to show off but also has a great guitar solo where Emppu gets to show off, a little bit of everything and great pacing by the rhythm section to boot. There is also a mysterious reference to seven individuals; “Master, Apprentice, Heartborne, 7th Seeker, Warrior, Disciple, In me the Wishmaster.”
I have read a lot of fantasy novels but I have no idea who these seven individuals being referred too are. Oh but it gets better.
"Varda" by Gustav oMalek
“Elbereth, Lorien.”
I know these two, they are from the Silmarillion. Elbereth is the alternate name for Varda the eldest of the female gods, known as the Valier; she is the lady of the stars and dwells with Manwe the eldest of the Valar, the male gods. Lorien is the second youngest of the Valar (not including Morgoth), and is the master of visions and dreams, and Esre is his spose who is the Valier of healing wounds and weariness.
So that’s some pretty intense and obscure fantasy reference but you are not going to out Tolkien me Nightwish.
Then they drop these two names:
Silvara from the cover of one of the Dragonlance books. I couldn't figure out which one.
“Silvara, Starbreeze.”
Okay... I’ve never heard of them. But a quick Google search should clear that up. These characters are from the Dragon Lance novel series apparently.
Silvara is the name the silver dragon though she was often sen in her polymorph elf form, so that is pretty interesting. Meanwhile Alhana Starbreeze is the leader of the Silvanesti Elves.
The moral of the story, I should probably read the Dragon Lance series when I get a chance. The more important moral of the story, Nightwish are like super awesome metal fantasy fans, and that is probably nowhere made more obvious than a song with a similar namesake that refers to characters from both Tolkien and Dungeons and Dragons mythologies.
One mystery still remains, who are the master, the apprentice, heartborne, the 7th seeker, the warrior, the disciple, and the wishmaster? Maybe I will never know. Maybe it will turn out to be a list of fantastic characters from a fantasy world of Nightwish’s own imagination, not unlike Freddie Mercury’s Rhye. If anyone knows I hope they let me know, because I listen to the album and song “Wishmaster” a great many times and often allowed my mind to wonder who these persons might be. It was a fun exercise in dreaming, and that is only made possible by the guitar strings and the drum beats and the baseline and of course Tarja’s voice bringing together a song that perfectly captures the spirit of their band and power metal in general. Also if you do a Google search some better read fantasy fans than I have some very good theories who these individuals are, but there seems to be at least some level of uncertainty still, so for me at least the mystery lingers.
If you have somehow managed to avoid discovering the greatness of Nightwish up until now, then “Wishmaster” is perhaps the finest introduction one could hope to have, and for us who don’t live under a rock we can probably all agree that “Wishmaster” is among Nightwish’s finest work.
Until next year, keep on rocking in the free world.
On May 10th of 2014 I went to metal show that include; Iced Earth, more on them later, Sabaton, whom I have talked about before with the tracks “White Death” and “Poltova,” and the first act of the night was a Dutch band called ReVamp.
It is the most natural thing in the world when going to concerts, there will be an opening act that you have never heard of before and suddenly you are going in blind (or deaf since we are talking about music) into a whole new experience. Sometimes you have to sit through a challenge of your patience, other times you get to discover something new and exciting. I have seen a lot of concerts, and as a consequence I have had to sit through a lot of disappointing first impressions, but I have also had the privilege of being introduced to a variety of great bands, but I feel my chance meeting with ReVamp was a highly positive one.
Standing in the front of the crowd, I saw a very tall woman with long black hair in a shinny dress and she led that metal band in an impressive way. The Dutch are statistically the tallest people in the world, and this woman, Floor Jansen, standing at 6’1 was an impressive sight. Being a tall, decent looking woman, and possessing a powerful operatic singing voice she kind of out shined the rest of her band ReVamp, even though I had to note the lead guitarist was very good and the rest of the band was solid in every notable way. Still there was no way of getting around it, Floor was the attention piece of the band she was much more interesting than anyone else on stage.
If you watch ReVamp’s North American Tour videos I am in part 6 when they are in Calgary, you can see me at the two minute twenty-six second mark. So that’s kind of neat:
Part way through this opening act Floor announced that she was the newest lead singer for Nightwish, which really seemed like the sort of thing I should have already known, so I was learning all sorts of things that night. I was impressed enough that I bought ReVamp’s two albums at the show and chatted with the Floor and the guitarist Arjan Rijnen for a couple of minutes, and that was also kind of neat. All in all I considered the night a win.
There are many examples of metal bands fronted by a powerful operatic female lead singer and ReVamp in many ways is yet another example of this trend. There is of course the added flair that Floor is also part of the most successful female fronted metal band ever in Nightwish, but that is another conversation for another time (January). In my humble opinion there can never be too many metal bands fronted with trained opera and soprano singers so I welcome the inclusion of ReVamp into the wild world of metal music.
There have been two ReVamp albums to date, their self titled debut album and “Wildcard.” Rumours regarding a third album are ongoing but regardless the album of interest here and now is “Wildcard” and the song to discuss further is the self titled track of the same name.
Floor Jansen
The song “Wild Card” does not really start kicking ass until the chorus. There is a moment where all the sounds drop and a completely different reintroduction of the instruments comes forward and Floor’s voice takes us through the chorus and she really sings and it is really great. Upon additional listens I came to realize this song is built completely around Floor’s voice and it is really a rather light metal song. I guess this is yet another example of the value of the strong front person with strong vocals.
ReVamp has been on a hiatus since sometime this year, which, if I had to guess has something to do with Floor touring with Nightwish. The future is unclear for the Dutch metal band and it may prove too much for Floor to work with and tour with two separate bands. If this is the end of ReVamp we can take comfort in knowing we got two decent albums and in my opinion a very enjoyable track in “Wild Card.”
It is interesting that there is an entire genre of music in Japan dedicated to the production of soundtracks for animated features, but perhaps even more fascinating is the sub genre of super robots. Yes, there is an entire genre of music in Japan written about giant super robots and there are musicians whose careers are partially dedicated to writing songs about the deep mythology of Japanese robots.
Jam Projects is an interesting combination of creative inspirations, you see Jam Project is a super group of rock stars who had worked frequently on music about super giant robots among other related televised shows. So they are sort of like the Trans Siberian Orchestra only Japanese and with a healthy focus on robots instead of Christmas. The message I am attempting to convey is that Jam Project is awesome.
Introducing Jam Project.
Why so does Japan love giant super robots so much? As if they needed a reason.
The easiest way to understand the appreciation and love of giant super robots in Japan for westerns like me is to compare them to super heroes. In Japan their super heroes did not wear costumes and capes they commanded giant super robots, and instead of super powers they had giant super robots, and there is a wide range of television series, movies, manga/comic books, and cross over events worthy of comparison to the complicated mythos of Marvel or DC. Now imagine how awesome it would be if we had musicians who dedicated their careers to singing about the Justice League or the Avengers? That would be amazing, but in Japan they have already done that for themselves, there already have plenty of songs created about Tetsujin 28, the Geter Robo and Mazinger Z.
Mazinger Z in particular is very famous and popular, internationally so, just not in English speaking countries because a dub was never made in the seventies for us to enjoy, and after missing the party it proved too difficult time and again for the marketing of Mazinger Z to breach the US and British commonwealth markets. Too bad though because from what I understand Mazinger is an insane manga and anime with several retellings that promise to be equally insane and amazing.
Mazinger Z was created by Go Nagi, who for all intents and purposes is a maniac. Osamu Tezuka (the creator of Astro Boy) is often referred to as the god father of anime and manga, if that’s true then Go Nagi is the perverted uncle no one talks about. When Go Nagi was not telling stories about an ultra-violent demonic super hero (Devil Man) or a super sexy android fighting super sexy space amazons (Cutie Honey), he was telling stories about the first ever giant robot that was being piloted by a man, and that robot was Mazinger Z. The series lasted a very long time but ended with Mazinger Z being destroyed in a final battle against Doctor Hell, because fuck subtly. But due to popular demand Go Nagi was forced to create a sequel with a new pilot and new Mazinger robot, called Great Mazinger. Great Mazinger also lasted a long time but he survived his final battle against Archduke Gorgon, who was a green skinned Greek warrior whose lower torso was a tiger, yes you read that right. This led to a third series where the original pilot, Koji Kabuto, returned to pilot the new UFO Robot Grendizer. What an adventure.
There have been many different version of Mazinger.
Alas the seventies were a long time ago and newer generations didn’t really know much about Mazinger Z so it was time for a rebranding, a newer more powerful version of the original super robot was what was needed and thus Mazinkaiser was born. Naturally Jam Project was hired to write the soundtrack.
The main theme for the short anime series Mazinkaiser would be called “The Gate of the Hell,” somehow the terrible English makes it even more fantastic. Speaking of broken English the opening is in English:
“Shall find the end of this world, There was a gate to the dark side, And in there guardian is here, He will come, here as Kaizer.”
Good try boys. I think we all know what you mean.
Most Jam Project songs have a strong theatrical touch, which is to be expected since most of their songs are written for or about television shows and movies, but what I mean is there is a very full sound in all their songs, a very over the top and classical pose. “The Gate of the Hell” is a little different; it is definitely a metal song, as it should be, as it is about the powerful version of the most famous super robot in history.
As I understand most animated incarnation of the Mazinger are toned down, as in they are less violent and crazy then Go Nagi’s original manga incarnation. This was a reoccurring problem Nagi ran into, everything he made was super over the top violent and sexual but his ideas strongly appealed to kids. So basically a super powerful, grim looking, badass metal super robot that has to fight and violently kill robotic monsters controlled by the evil Dr. Hell, does warrant a metal song, and Jam Project provides.
Jam Project founding member Yoshiki Fukuyama is one of the lead vocals on this track and you may remember him from my last review as he was the talented man who sang “Angel Voice” from the Macross 7 soundtrack. So that is a nice tie in.
“The Gate of the Hell” would be a great metal song without the Mazinger connection, but of course that is the icing on this otherwise already delicious cake. There is both intensity and a level of appropriate aggressive anger in “The Gate of the Hell” that suggests an endless and epic combat, the perfect theme for both a metal song and a giant super robot. Sometimes everything works together to make a perfect song for the intended purpose.
The first challenge I ran into when composing this review was who to credit as the artist. The song “Angel Voice” was written and composed by Yoko Kanno, the singer performing the song is Yoshiki Fukuyama, but no official name for the band is credit for the song. The character who sings the song is named Nekki Basara and his fictional rock band is called Fire Bomber. Really I could have chosen any of the listed options.
Yoko Kanno, writer/composure or
"Angel Voice."
Alright where to begin; music saves the world, at least it did in the anime mega hit of the 1980’s Macross Super Dimensional Fortress. Macross was a science fiction adventure that pitted humanities battle mecs, called valkyries, which were capable of transforming into jet fighters as well as a halfway in between robot and jet mode, against giant armored aliens called Zentradi. The Zentradi were emotionless warriors who had segregated their men and women completely from one another so they really, really had no idea about strong intimate emotions and as a consequence music really messed them up. Humanity learned that by projecting a giant broadcast of beloved pop singer Minmay out into the battlefield this would cause the enemy to lose focus and effectively become stunned in place. So effectively music saves humanity in a very literal sense in the original Macross series. It is charming.
Yoshiki Fukuyama, singer of
"Angel Voice."
Macross 7 is a sequel to the original series, and it is weird. Self absorbed orphan rock star Nekki Basara and his band Fire Bomber end up working with the military abroad the city sized battle station the Macross 7, because their music is assisting them in a great many ways. They even build Basara valkyrie that can be controlled by his guitar, which is stupid. Macross 7 is a stupid anime, that is not to say that is it necessarily bad, but it is stupid.
However Macross 7 had one thing going for it that the original did not, it had a rock band. The music from the original Macross Super Dimensional Fortress has a charm in its own right, but for a rock and roll guy like me, the pop music that consisted of Minmay’s play list never did much for me. While Macross 7 is a bizarre and at times bafflingly silly story about unlikeable characters mostly doing unbelievable things, the music is pretty damn good.
It is something the Japanese musicians seem really proud of is writing music for their animated television shows. There is a whole genre dedicated to it. Here in the west bands may volunteer to write original material for a motion picture, but we rarely see established musicians spending their time on televisions shows, let alone, cartoons. There is an endearing nature to enthusiastic musicians like Yoshiki Fukuyama who put into their work for what might be considered childish nonsense.
Basara Nekki, main character of
"Macross 7."
If I am being perfectly honest I never finished watching Macross 7, but it was not the series or it’s soundtrack that warrants the attention I write about today. There is a four episode sequel titled Macross Dynamite 7 which involves a whole new dilemma involving mystically space whales; I’d say you can’t make this up, but evidently somebody did. The climax for this sequel is our protagonist Basara in his valkyrie, that is controlled by his guitar, performing a song to the space whales and thus forming a bridge of communication as the space whales sing along with him. It is a strange moment, in a strange series, about a strange man. However in many ways this feels like the natural conclusion to the series, more so than the series I never actually finished, so maybe I’m wrong, but it feels like the natural conclusion to the story arc that Basara was experiencing.
Every connection Macross 7’s plot attempted to make between the rock band Fire Bomber and the boring main story felt forced. It was like there was two completely independent and mutually exclusive plot lines going on that had nothing to do with one another and nothing about them indicated that they should ever cross paths, that is, until this ending to this sequel. Space whales, sure, very weird plot device, but all of a sudden warring factions have to stop and behold while a rock star makes the breakthrough that neither of them could. Basara does not use music to save the world, but he stops a galactic brawl from taking place and forms a bound with a truly alien life form with music, and that is impressive nonetheless, and more important than that perhaps it feels like the sort of heroic thing a not very heroic, and frankly self absorbed, artist like the character Basara would seek. This is the naturally conclusion for that character, this is want he looking for all this time.
Then again maybe I am wrong I never could muster the patient to watch all of Macross 7.
So why talk about this at all? Because the song Nekki Basara plays at the end of the series is freaking beautiful. That song is “Angel Voice.”
The lyrics are in Japanese but a simple translation reveals the song, more or less, about searching for something beautiful, and if we listen carefully we should be able to hear it, an angel’s voice. For the most part I feel “Angel Voice” is a guitar song, sure there is a bass and drums like any traditional rock song, but the focus is very much on the guitar and Yoshiki’s voice, and the intro and outro is made up exclusives by this lead guitar. Speaking of Yoshiki’s voice we have to address the most iconic and obviously best part of the song, the wailing “whoa whoa whoa,” that compromises entire last third of the song.
At roughly the four and a half minute mark there are no more words to be said and Yoshiki breaks into a repeating of “whoa whoa whoa,” which in plain text may not sound overly exciting but believe me it is, and you don’t have to believe me, you can go listen to the song and hear it for yourself, which is, after all the whole point of me writing any of this.
There is a lot of emotion in this ending display, and it is very powerful and catchy. Either intentionally or unintentionally Kanno has touched on one of the oldest and most effective tricks in pop music’s book, create a sing along part that literally everyone can learn instantly, the best way to do that is to not use words but a sound like “whoa.” A truly irrelevant side effect is anyone speaking any dialect can sing along with Yoshiki, but I must stress this is an irrelevant effect, because there is something very special in the way he wails and the heart he puts into his voice that transcends language anyway, and the soul of his voice strikes in the heart of humanity itself.
Also, because the fountain head of inspiration for this song is a truly bizarre one, you can hear the space whales singing along at the end of the song, and the song fades with them. This perhaps would normally be lame but it somehow works. It adds a little extra charm and it ties itself back into its bizarre anime connection.
I guess the moral of the story is great music can come from the wildest of places and it is always worthwhile to keep an open ear for what you might find.
Most people would probably agree that the most commercially successful Japanese rock band of all time is X Japan. If not domestically in their native Japan, X Japan is probably the most popular Japanese rock band outside of the land of the rising sun.
The first important reason X Japan is so successful is simply because they are good. This reason often escapes music critics when discussing the more complicated nuances of musician’s popularity and relevance, but the reality is the overwhelming majority of bands who find popularity only do so because they first earned recognition for their ability, and X Japan is no exception.
Song titles like “I’ll Kill You,” “Sadistic Desire” and “Give Me Pleasure,” all from their first album gives you some indication what X Japan liked to sing about, sex and death were on the forefront, and that alone in rock and roll is not so strange, but there is a certain level of intensity that was rare in the eighties and nineties and even rarer in Japan, a very reserved country. Combine these subject matters with the eccentric line up and we really have something special. But it was not just sex and death that made X Japan a curious commodity, I always found their intensely depressing songs the most possessive of my attention, most notably “Forever Love,” but we will get back to that in a moment.
Hideto Matsumoto, aka hide,
aka The Pink Spider
The drummer and piano player Yoshiki is credited as the band leader and his almost solely independent involvement in the song writing process clearly contribute to the feel and style that makes X Japan so great. The lead singer Toshi is a solid singer but also his solo career speaks for itself, the man is a celebrity in his own right, even without X Japan. Rhythm guitarists Pata and bass player Heath are both good at their jobs and certainly contributed but I have little to say about them unfortunately. Lastly we have hide, and yes he spelled his name with no capital letter.
Lead guitarist hide was, in my opinion, the most interesting person in X Japan. Dressed all in pink leather and owning the nickname “The Pink Spider,” hide was impossible to ignore. A talented guitarist and a respectable song writer to boot, it is no wonder hide was able to become a fan favorite. Surely there is no denying the most popular member of X Japan contributed enormously to their global success.
As stated earlier X Japan had a knack for writing ridiculously dark songs about depression and heartbreak, almost like it was their goal to keep the suicide rate in Japan number one. In the endless effort of making people feel deeply depressed X Japan did their part by creating “Forever Love,” which I am unsure whether or not is my favorite X Japan song.
“Forever Love” means a lot to a lot of people. I can no longer find the video, but I can vividly remember watching a live performance of “Forever Live” where the camera panned over the crowd and there were literally hundreds of girls openly weeping, which is the sort of sight that stays with you, and it was only possible because “Forever Love” is the sort of song that beats up your feelings, and stays with you, forever.
X Japan has a lot of sad songs, but “Forever Love” is ridiculous. The wailing chorus is savagely sang to us by Toshi and with a few words in English, to give westerns like me a sense of what the rest of the song is about; “forever lover, forever dream.” Once we look at the translation of the rest of the lyrics however we experience the full depth of despair at hand. Check out the open verse:
“Mou hitori de arukenai (I can’t walk alone anymore) Toki no kaze ga tsuyosugite (The winds of time are too strong) AH... kizu tsuku koto nante (Ah... this thing they call being hurt) Nareta hazu dakedo ima wa (I should be used to it, but now....)”
Sadly it is important to dwell as the sadness of a song like “Forever Love” because sadness is the primary narrative theme for X Japan, and most notably guitarist hide.
“Forever Love” may be X Japan’s saddest song but it is far from their only sad song, and it is heart break, loneliness, and suicidal thoughts were not exclusive to the X Japan discography but hide’s solo career was riddled with songs about contemplating suicide. Most notably hide’s flagship song “Pink Spider” is about a spider wanting to kill himself, given hide’s nick name is “Pink Spider” obviously a lot can be taken from that track. X Japan broke up in 1997, hide continued his solo career for about a year and then sadly... and predictably... he killed himself.
It would be comical if it were not so unbelievably sad. The Pink Spider, a very solemn, beloved rock star, who was clearly battling with depression (or something), talked about how horrible it was to be him and how to he wanted to kill himself, and he lived out that eventually.
Hide clearly idolized David Bowie and his Ziggy Stardust character a little bit. The get up hide had created for himself instantly strikes the eye with thoughts of Ziggy Stardust, only in Pink, and Japanese. The creation of Ziggy Stardust was a strange androgynous alien rock star whose narcissism and self importance was personified with his death corresponding to the end of the world. While David Bowie never lost sight of the fact that he was not really Ziggy Stardust he did find himself very deeply involved with portraying, and being, and becoming the character, so sadly, after much deliberation, David Bowie “killed” Ziggy Stardust and broke up the band, he felt obligated to do it, because that is what Ziggy would have done.
I sometimes wonder if hide felt obligated to kill himself; hide had created this strange androgynous pink rock star whose character was possessed with the idea of dying in a fit of depression and rock and roll glory, immortalizing himself and forever establishing his self importance through death. The problem was Hideto Matsumoto, the man, was hide, or was entirely too much the same person. So if hide had to commit suicide to conclude the rock and roll hero narrative, maybe Hideto thought that meant he had to go too. It is a fascinating thought, but not necessarily accurate.
The details surrounding hide’s death are difficult to pin down, he did kill himself but I am constantly finding conflicting stories regarding his mental and emotional health. Close friends and loved ones do not agree on whether suicide is something hide was likely to do, and even the member of X Japan who worked with hide on creating music that was sometimes about killing yourself are torn whether or not a song like “Pink Spider” was in any way a warning. So when I talk about the possible scenario that hide might have killed himself out of some overly devout artistic expression, it should be noted that I, and no one at all really, knows what was going through hide’s mind when he committed suicide, because we will probably never really know why hide did it.
"Forever Love" at hide's funeral:
To tie things back to the song of the hour, at hide’s funeral the surviving members of X Japan performed “Forever Love” in tribute, and it is in this moment that I feel X Japan is best personified. Heath and Pata look absolutely devastated, and Toshi is clearly beside himself while he sings. To his credit Yoshiki never misses a note on the piano during the ordeal. But this moment pretty much sums up X Japan in a nutshell, everyone, including the band, are horribly depressed and someone has killed themselves, yet we have a great song and everything is weirdly beautiful. I think hide would have liked it; in fact I am very confident he would have.
