Covering Cover songs

Hey everyone, hope you've been well.
Thought I might do a (semi) written post today. So....what to write about?
Well, I thought I'd write a bit about covers.

For some reason Japan likes cover songs. Or maybe it's just an easy way for companies to make money? Who knows. Whatever it is, it is a fact that their music industry churns out heaps of cover albums. Way more than America.....probably anyway. They can sometimes be nice, and around 70% of the time be awful. That's probably because the original song is usually such a  good song that it's hard to improve it, or the covering artist is some random unknown struggling one employed for half a buck. The remaining 30% however, tend to be pretty good and can become an interesting fusion of the original and (at least a bit of) the covering artists' own musical style. I find it pretty fun finding good cover songs, and especially nice if I don't even like the original song, but that's pretty rare. Anyhow, this post is just going to mention a few cover tracks that I liked.

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ELLIE MY LOVE
RAY CHARLES / SOUTHERN ALL STARS



Wait what? I thought this was supposed to be a Japanese song list? Well it is, or was, originally. Here it is sung by the legendary Ray Charles but it actually a cover of the song "Itoshi no Ellie" by the Southern All Stars. I've talked about this group a few times already so on this blog so....it's kind of a pain to do it again, but they are one of the most successful and influential bands ever in Japan. They are said to be the artists that paved the way for 'J-pop', a more Western sounding style of Japanese music, from the previous 'Kayoukyoku' style pop music, which was slightly different and more suited to Japanese phonetics. Both versions of this song were huge hits in Japan and in my head.




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HARMELN 
BUCK-TICK/ LA-PPISCH



BUCK-TICK have quite a strong following around the world among J-Rock fans but I wonder if many know of this song by them? It's off a tribute album for the musician/songwriter called Ueda Gen that was created after his death. He was a former member of a Ska/rock band called La-Ppisch, who made this song. They've impressively made it their own song without straying away from the original, which is nice. Maybe the song suited them in the first place but they still deserve credit for what they've done.




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LUPIN THE 3RD -LOVE THEME-
IMAI MIKI



This is the love theme from the popular anime, "Lupin the 3rd". I'm not sure who the first person to sing it with lyrics was so I can't really compare it but it's still a very nice song. Although this is a slightly different version to the one I have (it's only piano and voice) but it's more or less similar. Imai Miki has a gentle and soothing singing voice which matches this slow tune perfectly. There was also a version by the anime theme singer, Mizuki Ichiro on youtuve while I was looking for this video. That was also quite nice and slightly different because it's a male voice. I suppose it helps that the original song is a really nice one. Well that depends on what kind of music you like, but this is my opinion so yeah~



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I LOVE YOU
UTADA HIKARU/ OZAKI YUTAKA



This is a very famous song originally by the male singer, Ozaki Yutaka. Back in the 1980's he burst onto the scene with the song "Juugo no yoru" (The Night I was Fifteen) which was about teenage rebellion and all that pubity stage stuff making him an icon among adolescents at the time. He was one of the biggest stars until his sudden and unexpected death at the young age of 26, leaving many fan girls (and boys) in tears. The song that I've posted  is the song "I Love You", covered by the pop queen, Utada Hikaru. I actually found this rendition by chance a few days ago (can't remember how) but was very impressed. As usual she has a very clear and melodic voice.



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AUTUMN LEAVES
SHIINA RINGO/ EDIT PIAF




I seem to chuck on Shiina Ringo somehow on every list that I'm able to. That's what it feels like anyway. Well that makes sense, since she's one of my favourite musicians. Originally by the legendary French songstress, Edith Piaf, which is also a very awesome song. I'm kind tired writing so I'll be lazy and stop here. lol





Well I hope you found something here that you liked. I was going to write about how much variety that this list has but then I realised that most of them are ballads so.......I won't lol......

I was originally planning to have a few different styles but they ended up being pretty similar since I wasn't thinking that much as I was writing. Oh well. In anycase, I hope you discovered a song that you fancy....

Video Subbing (Request): Imai Miki on A-Studio (24.06.2011)

Hey here's an episode of A-Studio featuring the singer, Imai Miki. As mentioned before of on many other posts she is a famous singer/actress/model etc etc mainly form the early 90's, and is also the wife of Hotei Tomoyasu. This episode features many conversations about quite private stuff of hers, for example her best friends, accidents at her wedding and more interestingly a chaotic period of her life where her father dies and her husband incurs a possibly life threatening injury, all while being pregnant at 8 months. Quite interesting stuff, especially if you're a fan of hers
or Hotei Tomoyasu.



GET FROM MEDIAFIRE [143 MB]






If there was anything you found hard to understand just let me know.

That's a bit unimaginative..........Songs with the same name 2 (BLUEBIRD Version)

Hello there~

Seems like a while since I've done a post that's not a video I've subbed. Well there's more of those to come anyway, I'm subbing an episode of Shabekuri 007 featuring child star Ashida Mana and actress Kurashina Kana. These shows take a long time to subtitle (they go for 40minutes or so) but this one is a TV special so is even longer.....Oh well, it's not taking as long as I thought and these shows are fun to translate anyway, as you end up laughing as you do them

Anyway........I'd like to get to the point of this post. It's part two of a series of posts that I started some time ago but forgot about until a friendly reader commented on it haha. Thanks for that and all of your other comments!

So.......unimaginative song titles that everyone seems to use for some reason is what I'm covering with these articles. Last time around was the title 'MARIA' (Click to check the page!) , which is a title also very popular in English and most probably other languages. This time around however, it's something you wouldn't really expect to be popular, and I don't know why there are so many....
The title this time is .........

BLUEBIRD

This is a very popular title among Japanese artists for some reason. I haven't really checked the lyrics for these songs so I don't know if they're actually singing about bluebirds, but if they are then I'm not sure if there's a lot to really sing about them. And even if there is, I've no clue why so many people do it.....

There's also a famous English song by this name too, by Paul McCartney of the Beatles by the way.....

Well, we'll start off with the song that was in my itunes library with this name. I thought I had more than this but surprisingly only a single match came up when I searched for it. Nevertheless I knew that there are loads of other songs called the same......This list isn't necessarily in order of preference like last time, although the ones that I like more would probably be around the start.

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AYUMI HAMASAKI

This was a big hit in Japan and probably one of her most famous songs?
 I'm not particularly a fan of hers but I quite like this song. I don't think this video is the full version but it should be enough.......I hope?

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IKIMONOGAKARI

This is the second one that sprang to my mind when I though about songs called Blue bird. I was surprised to not have it on my computer.......but I found out I actually did. It's title was in Japanese as ブルーバード, so I actually had two Japanese songs by this name. I fairly like Ikimonogakari, the vocalist girl has a nice voice, and they've got several songs that I like. This one was used as an opening or ending theme for the anime Naruto, so people who watched that might recognise it.
I don't watch the anime so couldn't really care about that though....
The manga was also getting pretty lame last time I read it...........I wonder if it's gotten better now?
It used to be one of my favourites....



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KOBUKURO
Kobukuro are a group that I like but don't like........that doesn't really make much sense does it? Basically, depending on how I'm feeling they might sound great, or they might sound boring as hell. I'll admit that they are a good unit, but to me their songs often sound the same and I can't remember what each of their songs are called. I suppose everyone makes music similar to what they've made before though, and is just a matter of preference. Anywayz, this one was again an OP or ED for an anime, this time 'Bakuman', which is a manga that I love. This is a fairly nice song too, although I can't say that I like it.

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COCCO
Cocco is a owner of a beautiful voice, and has many relaxing and nice music. Probably not as famous as she should be, and often sings in quite good English so would be easier to like for Westerners...........probably.
This song is in English.......but isn't about Bluebirds. This was used as a theme for a movie called 'Vital' featuring the famuos actor Asano Tadanobu (starred as Genghis Kahn in 'Mongol', Ichi the Killer etc)

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IMAI MIKI
Imai Miki is a big star of the early to mid 1990's, and I suppose would be classified as an 'idol'. She's also well known for marrying rock star Hotei Tomoyasu, who actually wrote this song and plays the guitar in it.
Although the style is kinda old, it's still a nice track to casually listen to.

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Well that's it for blueb...........ehehe actually it's not.

Japanese people love to use English titles for there songs, but there are still those that decide to keep it Japanese. And so from here on are the songs called 'Aoi Tori' (青い鳥 or 蒼い鳥) 

aka Blue Bird in Japanese.

ONITSUKA CHIHIRO
Onitsuka Chihiro also has a very nice voice and had several hits around the mid 2000's. She went through an image change last year or so, changing from a naturally Asian beauty to dyed hair and heavy make-up wearing lady, to the shock and dismay of many fans. She sort of resembled an old Madonna but I think she toned down a bit since then, judging by this video. This is also quite a nice song with a Celtic feel to it.

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GOSPELLERS
These guys have been around for a while. They're a gospel/ r'n'b type of group where they harmonize, and there's generally always a group like this somewhere in Japanese pop music scene. Well, this type do sound nice so I suppose it's worth having at least one of them around. They're one of my elder sister's favourite groups too from what I remember her saying. Anyway, this is a nice song, although the video is......well kind of lame. Unfortunately this video can't be embedded.....which is also lame....here's the link though
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNKGYJxmTmA&feature=related

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THE TIGERS
Here's an interesting one. Well only because it's so old, and probably something you wouldn't have heard very much of before. It's by 'The Tigers' who were one of the most popular groups in the 1960's, when there was an era called 'The group sounds'. This era was influenced by the Beatles and saw a huge rise in groups of singers playing music. Well this is a fairly nice song, although you might not like the old folksy sound to it?

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FUJIFABRIC
Here's a slightly strange sounding one. It doesn't sound anything like the other bluebirds on this page, but is still nice in it's own way if you listen to it the whole way through. FujiFabric are a group that I've hear about often but haven't really checked out properly yet. They sound interesting here. They seem fairly unique I think?

AAAAAAAAAAAnnnnnnnnnnnnnnndddddd I'm going to end this here. There's actually several more, but I can't really be bothered covering them.....the post is getting pretty long too anyway. I don't think I'd be able to bother listening to all of these if I was a reader who happened to come across this post.
So.........bye!!
See you next time!

Video Subbing: Imai Miki on Jounetsu Tairiku

Here's the episode of Jounetsu Tairiku with the famous singer/actress Imai Miki. She is married to Hotei Tomoyasu, who was in the previous episode that I translated. He has a much larger role in this one than Miki did in Hotei's video as he appears quite a bit in the last half.

This video made me respect the two even further, and you can tell that they trust each other strongly and are very happy to have each other. Enjoy!

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I really want an album or some collection of her singing with the piano now.....I really like music like that and she did it very nicely in the video.

TRANSLATION NOTES

YUMIN
They were saying how Miki admired the music of 'Yumin' during her teens. Yumin is the nickname for Matsutoya Yumi (also known as Arai Yumi early on in her career). She's an extremely influential singer, composer, lyricist etc etc, and is one of the most respected people in Japanese music. Her song called 'Haru yo Koi' (Come Spring), is (or was) taught in school textbooks for the Japanese language. She's got a distinct voice that might take a little while to get used to but her composing skills are excellent. Although most of her music is 80's style (which I personally don't like...) if you get the time you might want to check her out. I'll just leave a couple of songs here though.


Haru Yo, Koi  春よ、来い
Eng: Come, Spring



Yasashisa ni Tsutsumaretara　 やさしさに包まれたなら 
Eng: If  You're Surrounded By Kindness

You may have recognised it as the ending for Kiki's Delivery Service. Well I don't know if it's the same for the dubbed version but this is it for the Japanese one. She also has done the song that plays on the portable radio as Kiki is searching for a town to live in. That one's called "Rouge no Dengon" (A Rouge Message).