How’s everyone doing?
After three weeks of excessive drinking (not non-stop, just on my days off) I’ve decided I need to stop drowning my sorrows and anxieties in booze and try to find a more healthy coping mechanism. For now, that’s buying obscure game music on vinyl. It’s working out for my liver okay, but my wallet is a little pissed.
Additionally, stupid music has been a lifesaver during this time of strife. So to the person who shared the YouTube links of the Hi-NRG versions of “Bette Davis Eyes” in the comments section of my last post, I say thank you. Don’t suppose you have Hi-NRG versions of “Rainbow Connection?”
Moving on, I updated the massive Tokyo record store guide! Now it’s even bigger. A new store opened up in Shinjuku that I thought was worth incorporating because it’s damn good. If you find yourself in Tokyo anytime soon you must make your way to the Shinjuku HMV, the place is a palace of vinyl.
Now let’s dance.
Carmen Electra
Fantasia Erotica (Indecent Proposal Mix) (Radio Edit)
Fantasia Erotica (Erotic Groove Mix)
Fantasia Erotica (Sex Drive Dub)
Fantasia Erotica (Xtra Sex Dub)
Fantasia Erotica (He Dances Instead)
Fantasia Erotica (Double Deep House Mix)
Let me just get this out of the way right now, for those who are wondering why the hell I’m sharing Carmen Electra remixes; this song was produced by Prince.
Does it make sense now?
Oh but don’t worry, your initial thought upon seeing Carmen Electra’s name was correct, this song is quite awful. Even Prince had his fair share of misses. I don’t think these tracks are going to get re-issued via some Prince Vault special edition re-release campaign anytime soon.
Of course, I hope they do. No matter how bad the song is, I hope that eventually everything that Prince ever put his hand on is made available, in-print and easy to purchase either digitally or physically. Because that’s how music should be.
But I hope that they get to re-releasing The Family album before they dig this bad boy up again. This song has the line, “Oh, speak American? No speak Carmanese!”
What the fuck does that even mean? Oi.
Donna Summer
I Feel Love (Mega Mix)
I Feel Love (Edit Mix)
I’m kind of bending my “never share legally available music” rule tonight, because while you can get at least one of these mixes on a legally available CD, it sure as hell isn’t easy.
For those wondering, these are two of the “I Feel Love” mixes that were remixed by the legendary Patrick Cowley, the man who brought us Sylvester’s “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and singled-handedly invented Hi-NRG disco.
You can get the “Mega Mix” on at least two compilations. One is the two-disc edition of Donna Summer’s greatest hits album The Journey, and other on a hard-to-find remix compilation series that I have forgotten the name of. Regardless, you can’t buy it on Amazon or iTunes digitally, and you sure as hell ain’t going to find it at your local record store (if you still have one of those, I keep forgetting that most people live in cities that aren’t Tokyo) so I don’t feel too bad for sharing it. Also, I’m fairly certain that the version on The Journey is a straight-up vinyl rip. Mine sounds better (in my opinion).
As for the “Edit Mix,” shit, I don’t know where the hell you can find that. I’m sure it’s been on CD at some point, but that point was probably a long time ago, so I feel safe in sharing it now. I actually like that version a bit more than the full “Mega Mix.” Fifteen minutes of sequencers is a bit much, y’know?
Depeche Mode
I Feel Loved (Danny Tenaglia’s Labor of Love Radio Edit)
I just really wanted to share a remix of “I Feel Love” and “I Feel Loved” in the same post and then have an internal debate about the grammatical differences between the two. These are the kind of things that English teachers think about. It’s a sickness, really.
And for those keeping count at home, it has been approximately 13 months since the last time I posted Depeche Mode.
Happy Halloween, Here are More Incredibly Strange Japanese Covers of Western Pop Music
Monday, October 31st, 2016I hope you all had a happy Halloween weekend. I spent mine hobbled with a back injury. But don’t fret, it was not all tragedy. My boyfriend made me homemade salsa and taco salad while we watched Empire Of The Ants, the 1977 horror schlock featuring Joan Collins getting terrorized by an army of giant ants.
Also, I had prescription painkillers, so that was nice.
Ikkaku Tanabe
究極ã®é¸æŠž (Ultimate Decision)This is a Japanese electro cover of Edgar Winter’s “Frankenstein.” But wait, it’s even weirder than it sounds.
The song is made up almost entirely of samples and other digital effects. Vocals are repeated and pitch-shifted to create melodies, while the bassline of “Frankenstein” plays behind them. Other random samples are thrown in too. I swear at about one minute and twenty-eight seconds in it samples a fraction of a second of vocals from “Heaven Is A Place On Earth.” Tell me I’m wrong I dare you.
The bizarre musical nature of the song was enough to make me fall in love with it, but I had to know if the all-Japanese lyrics were equally as batshit as the music it accompanies. Thankfully, my lovely boyfriend (who I love) went through the hassle of translating the lyrics.
And it turns out the song is as balls out crazy as it sounds. The lyrics are a continuous series of hypothetical no-win choices, many of which vulgar or disgusting in nature, hence the name “Ultimate Choice.” Read the translated lyrics below and see just what kind of decisions you’re being forced to make.
Yup.
So who is Ikkaku Tanabe, AKA the Holy Great Ultimate Decision God?
Judging from this track, you might think he was some crazy performance artist or avant-garde musician. But actually he was a Japanese kodan performer. Kodan is a very traditional form of Japanese storytelling that dates back to the 1300s. While humor is a part of kodan, it is not stand-up comedy, which makes this, his sole foray into music, all the more bizarre.
I guess after all those years of talking about historical battles and samurais, the dude had a lot of shit humor built up in him.
Logic System
Classical GasLogic System is Hideki Matsutake, who worked on many of Yellow Magic Orchestra’s albums as a programmer. I really recommend his first two solo albums, Venus and Logic, they’re some of the best electronic music the early 80s had to offer. I also suggest you track down his 1979 album Digital Moon, which is entirely electronic covers of James Bond themes and it might be the greatest thing ever made.
Coming in a close second is this cover of “Classical Gas,” the 1968 instrumental by Mason Williams that you no doubt know even if you don’t know the name of it. Instead of going giving it a rather faithful electronic re-imagining, Matsutake starts out rather conventional and then goes off the fucking rails for an technopop explosion of synthesized keyboard and bass the likes of which you’ve never heard. This is so crazy it should’ve been the theme to a Darius boss battle.
The No Comments
Somebody To LoveIf you ever wanted to hear a cover of “Somebody to Love” that sounds like it’s being sung by the bastard child of Nina Hagen and Kate Bush in a yodeling competition, then yo check it.
I don’t know much about this group, sadly. They released three albums in Japan only in the early 80s and then vanished. I Â don’t even think their albums were even given a CD re-issue. They’re weird. Kind of funky I guess, but really more early new wave, like a polished X-Ray Spex or a rougher version of The Police.
Like I said, weird. If I can find more of their stuff or find out more about them I might share more later.
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