Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

Recently I DOWNLOADED the complete discography of the Brilliant Green. Who are they? I’m not sure if anyone remembers, since they haven’t released new songs for some time now. Back when I was 15 or so, my playlist had quite a bit of their songs, like Angel Song, Ai no Ai no Hoshi etc. 

Now, I’ve completely forgotten of their existence, except sometimes in the showers when the tunes of Ai no Ai no Hoshi, Sono Speed De and There will be Love There suddenly pop up in my head. When I saw the compiled pack of their songs, which I’ve all but lost, I just clicked and got it.

The last time I did this was for Siam Shade’s completele discography. Back then, my favourite bands were Siam Shade, Rumania Montevideo for their only good song Still for your Heart, B’z and the Brilliant Green. Hearing SS’s songs five or six years on, I noticed a change in my tastes. While I still like rock and noisy guitar, during these five years, I picked up the instrument myself and through lessons and activities in the school club, became capable of listening to music not just on the surface level. I was quite the musical idiot back then, and couldn’t even tell the difference between acoustic and electric guitar and thought all fast sounding guitar riffs were "pro". Oh yeah but Siam Shade really was good. Pity the vocalist, Hideki, had a super high pitched voice. If he had a voice that mixed high-pitchness with manliness like say, Last Alliance’s vocalist, the band would’ve made it much bigger.

Anyway, Siam Shade is now-defunct and its members have all gone onto other projects. Brilliant Green is still intact but all its members are doing solo projects or with other artistes. Oh yeah Rumania Montevideo was this All-Girl rock band with the vocalist also a drummer. I don’t know what the hell happened to them. Their only good song, Still for your Love, was the one of the EDs for Conan and easily the best. I can still recite the song lyrics even after 5 years.

It’s nice listening to the old stuff you used to like and marvel at the change in tastes and even the evolution of the pop/rock music scene in Japan. The randomness of Tokyotosho and its convenience helps a lot.

On another note, my favourite bands/artistes now are Yoriko, Homemade Kazoku, Last Alliance, Babystars and UVERworld. Dapapepe too for their amazing instrumental acoustic guitar songs.

I’ll be putting these up for a sample. Strongly recommended. Please support the artistes if you like these. I actually do have all of Siam Shade’s albums.

Siam Shade
The power of Siam Shade is the awesome guitar and great diversity in the music. They can go from hardcore rock to poprock, pure guitar instrumental, heavy metal, sentimental ballads, big band, rap etc. Note they do Engrish versions of some songs like Lovesick and Bloody Train, so there are two versions. The Japanese one is better of course. Their most famous song remains 1/3 no Junjou na Kanjou, ED8 for Rurouni Kenshin. Now that’s a great song.
 
1/3 no Junjou na Kanjou (Hideki’s vocals actually work here)
Kumori nochi Hare (ED song for some J-drama. Awesome rock ballad.)
Bloody Train (80s/90s sounding rock song.)
Lovesick (Sentimental catchy pop song)
Keikoku (Pure rock)
Black (Rap)
Tears I Cried (Piano only slow sentimental song)
Moon (90ish rock)
Dazed and Alone (catchy pop rock)
No! Marionette (Possibly the fastest j-rock song I’ve heard)

The Brilliant Green
Tomoko, BG’s vocalist, has a really low and monotone voice at times but when she likes it, her voice can go the usual Jpop squeaky too. I like BG for their catchy pop melody coupled with rock music. These are more or less the only four songs I liked. Interestingly, Tomoko is married to the leader and main creator of the band, Okuda Shunsaku. He’s the one on the bass and rhythmnic guitars. To quote wiki, "Their debut album sold over one million copies in just two days, and their first national tour, ‘There Will Be Love There’, sold out across Japan in only three minutes."

Sono Speed De
Ai no Ai no Hoshi
Angel Song
There will be Love There

Rumania Montevideo
It was just this one song. My first Japanese-English song translation too. Have since lost it, but this song is similar to BG’s type of music.

Still for your Love