I’d like to take a moment to say thanks to some of the more thoughtful and interesting comments left on my past few posts. It was interesting for me to read some viewpoints on music ownership, MP3, blogs and so on.
One comment about my blog in particular brought up a point that I’d like to talk about: the idea that my blog has changed in some way since I moved to Japan, and that’s why my readership has dwindled in the past few years. It was a good, well-written opinion and thanks to who wrote it. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this in the past, but I want to elaborate on it once more.
To a certain extent, yes, I agree with this. When I started this blog eons ago I focused primarily on dance remixes of popular pop songs (usually from the 80s and early 90s) with the occasional dip into the obscure worlds of soundtracks, offbeat old records, and imports. More recently, that’s flipped. Now, most of what I write about and share is from records very few people have heard of, leftfield releases from Japan or other countries, prog oddities and so on.
Again, I’d like to point out that a lot of that to do with the fact that, in 2019, it is very, very hard to find out-of-print tracks by popular artists. I would like to remind everyone, that is a good thing! When I was sharing Dead or Alive, Erasure and Depeche Mode remixes, it was almost out of spite over the fact that the record companies were blowing it by not making these releases available for the die-hards who would buy them. But, hey, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, that’s not the case anymore. Depeche Mode is currently going through the process of re-releasing the majority of their 12″ singles, complete with download codes. Dead Or Alive put out that massive box set that literally has nearly their entire musical output on CD. The same goes for many other acts.
For me personally, I am very much against sharing music that people can listen to legally. I feel that people should support artists anytime it’s possible. That’s one of my many problems with Burning The Ground, another Mp3 blog that deals predominately in 80s music that I know a lot of my readers visit. Checking out that dude’s site, I see that he’s recently shared remixes of Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For a Hero,” Sheena Easton’s “Strut,” and Cory Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night.” Yo, check it, all of those songs are available for purchase on iTunes! Or on re-released deluxe edition CDs if you favor a physical format. If you like Cory Hart that much, buy his music for real. I’m sure he’d appreciate the extra dough.
(Also, Burning The Ground often plagiarizes its copy wholesale from Wikipedia or AllMusic without proper attribution, so as a writer – fuck that dude.)
Basically, it is literally impossible for me to predominately focus on remixes of 80s pop acts. You can get almost all of them legally and the few you can’t, I rarely care writing about. Of course, that’s not to say I’ll never write about or share that stuff again. If I somehow stumble across an out-of-print Pet Shop Boys single again, bet you’re ass I’ll share it here. Just don’t hold your breathe.
One thing that perplexes me though; to the people say stuff like “I used to like your blog but now you post weird shit,” have you tried listening to the weird shit? I mean, our musical tastes obviously overlap to some degree. I reckon most people that come here like synth-pop and other forms of electronic music. You’ll probably like Steve Hillage, I bet you’d dig on some electronic-focused prog rock, and you’ll most definitely love Shojo-Tai. There’s nothing I love more than discovering new music. I wish I had more friends or read more blogs that shared my musical tastes so it would be easier for me to track down shit I never heard before. The music I share here is free, we all like Erasure, why not trust me and give it a shot?
Anyway, here’s some weird shit that you’ve never heard of. If you like it, share it with a friend. If you don’t come back in a week or so, I might share some other weird shit that you have a chance of liking! It’s exciting.
Harue Momoyama w/Ryuichi Sakamoto
虚空ã®èˆŸå”„
Stoked for the five people who will like this one.
Momoyama was a well-known shamisen player in Japan who recorded music for over 30 years, before her death in 2008. She was the very definition of NOT a crossover artist, focusing solely on classical compositions, folk songs, and other traditional music. This piece, which was originally released in 1979, seems to be the closest thing she ever came to “modern” music, thanks to the guest appearance by Sakamoto, who serves an electronic accompaniment to her playing and vocals. Even with him, this is some sparse-ass music. If I didn’t run my recordings through noise-reduction software, large parts of this piece would’ve been lost to the background noise of the record.
This is interesting music, but it also feels kind of like a blown opportunity. It doesn’t really combine modern electronics and traditional music all that much. Momoyama seems to keep Sakamoto’s electronic contributions at arm’s length. They play off each other for a bit at the beginning, but as the piece progresses it quickly changes into an either/or situation. You get Momoyama’s singing and shamisen, then you get Sakamoto’s electronic soundscapes, then you go back to Momoyama, then back to Sakamoto for a brief coda. It makes me wonder if they were on the same page with this. I’m sure Sakamoto would’ve loved to have had a more collaborative effort, at the time, he was all about combining eastern and western as well as modern and classical. Regardless, it sure is an interesting experiment, and I’ve certainly never heard anything like it before.
Holly Johnson
Americanos (Liberty Mix)
Americanos (Radio 7″ Mix)
Americanos (Mambo Dub Mix)
Oh shit look what I found, a 12″ remix of an 80s pop song. This one’s okay. I guess. To be honest I’ve been sitting on this for about a year because I didn’t have much to say about it. Still don’t really. It’s very much late-80s synthpop, when the genre had played itself out and there was nothing left for it to give. Still, it’s fun. Good remixes too. If shamisens and electro-acoustic soundscapes aren’t for you, then here you go.
The Momoyama track sounds like half of Brian Eno’s output from the last 20 years.
Thanks for the Holly remixes — and here I thought I had it all when I bought Cherry Red’s plum expanded reissue of Blast last year (well worth picking up for even the casual FGTH fan). As for that other song…. wow… I am not one of the 5 for sure. I need to blast some Madonna to get my brain back in whack. I really don’t visit MP3 blogs (beyond yours) anymore. They seem like malware bait more than anything else. Plus, I’ve now got access to just about everything I’ve ever wanted to convert from my college radio days except for a few holy grails (like an EP from this odd band named Woodpecker I really dug back in the late 80’s). Here’s hoping Cherry Red, Edsel, Rhino or some kindred spirit releases the Donnie Iris catalog sometime soon — long overdue for box set treatment.
Well said!
Well put.
Hey man, thanks for giving it a shot. And if you can think of any weird OOP stuff that might be worth ripping, let me know!
Hi there, thank you for putting up the Harue Momoyama track. The shamisen and vocals are wonderful, and Sakamoto’s electronics make this piece of music stand alone from all the traditional Japanese music I’ve heard and loved. What an interesting, one-off artistic collaboration!
It’s really embarrassing to read your digs at Burning the Ground. You are surely aware that the “deluxe” reissues are very often flawed – they don’t feature all tracks from singles (especially 12″s) or if they claim they do, those are often wrong versions (that Dead or Alive boxset was just a joke – not only laughably overblown but with the wrong content and even missing versions on all CDs!), but more importantly, they are often unpleasantly brickwalled. You and I know that people want to hear the original sound – and Paul assists in this masterfully, dozens of people enjoy his efforts (as the flow of comments under each of his posts prove). Moreover, his is not only an mp3 blog – but he also graciously shares his rips in lossless, which is a great move that more people should make. That’s his biggest advantage over others – and a thing to think about (hint-hint). And he does it all for free, only asking for money when absolutely necessary.
Next, he doesn’t plagiarize from Wikipedia or other places – he simply copies information and anyone can recognize the origins by layout. Information is free, though, and nobody is obliged to write his own texts. So that bit in your rant is just childish.
But what I find especially puzzling is this thing about “giving artists their money”. It has been written about countless times – artists only get money from live shows these days (and other, non-musical activities), music sales only enrich labels and copyright holders. As for the second hand market, it enriches only the record shop’s owner(s). So nobody who downloads Corey Hart’s 12″s vinyl rip is ripping him off and to state otherwise is downright offensive. Your whole argument just doesn’t hold together.
You really should stop trying to further your agenda (or whatever it is you try to do) by rubbishing others. It’s not their fault that hits on your blog plummeted. If you can’t give people what they want, the majority will head in different directions and no amount of moaning will help stop it. Perhaps your blog simply served it’s purpose and it’s time to stop. Or accept that there’s only a marginal interest in what you do – come on, you just shared an “experiment” even you yourself is not of high opinion about! Reaction that borders on irrational, frankly. Simply do your bit and don’t expect anything, do it out of love, not “hits”.
He plagiarizes and posts legally available content. Period. Please feel free to rationalize those actions all you want, but don’t feel free to share those rationalizations with me.
I may be a bit behind on your blog but I always make sure to catch up. I also want to say that I always am excited to hear something new that has sparked something in someone else. Personally I found the Momoyama quite interesting. Thanks.