This does seem like a cool topic, btw, but it's just something difficult to do. I mean, how do you measure the pillows' "uniqueness" of style vs. the "normal" style of rock music? To do it properly, it's a pretty big project, one would think. D: You'd have to listen to a lot of bands and basically transcribe and analyze the progressions, etc., and compare them all to each other and the pillows. Sounds FUNNNNNNNNNNN.

[quote="Marekenshin"]To do it properly, it's a pretty big project, one would think. D:[/quote]

Espically when you take into consideration how much their style has evolved over the years.

MyFoot's list is pretty limited to 'recent' i.e post-lostman material, analyzing songs from Living Field and before would take a lifetime in and of itself. I think back in those days, the Pillows were more "daring" with their music, they actively experiemented with new styles and complemented their tracks with different instruments like piano's and horn sections.
Manabe had a penchant for writing difficult guitar leads that on their face sounded much simpler than the skill he was actaully using to play them. Needless to say, Kenji and Tatsuya had more involved bass tracks as well and, in my opinion, held a greater standing in the song than simply providing backing rythm. If you cite specific examples where Jun has made magic on the bass in a select number of songs since he joined the band, Kenji and Tatsuya before him were pretty much like that all the time.

Now that's not to say that post-lostman they didn't hit upon many of the same distinct styles. Their music simple evolved and changed, and part of the reason why i'm able to have such a deep appreciation for the old stuff is directly related to how much I like the new material. If I wanted to 'impress' someone with Manabe's technical or musical skill, or Sawao's lyrical domination, I almost certainly would show them stuff from those early years. Like the chorus in Koi no Spy representing how, as Mare puts it "sawao rolled out those lyrics like a steamroller". It's a beautiful melding of Sawao's songwriting and Manabe's perfectly complementing guitar work.

Today, though, I don't think there's much outside of their quirky, fun style that would set them apart from other bands in their genre. I think the 'solo' in mainstream rock music has all but died, so the Pillows have managed to keep it alive, and Sawao's singing is certainly 'unique'. Of course, we're english fans listening to a Japanese rock band, so to us, that's already outside of the norm. To make an accurate comparison of their abilities as opposed other bands, you need to compare them to other Japanese bands.

But really, you could easily compare the pillows to Western bands. I think the number of the pillows'/Sawao's Western influences far outnumber their Japanese. Moon Gold owes a lot to The Beatles. Little Busters has a lot of influence from Oasis IMO. And then of course Nirvana and The Pixies, especially with the nature of their song structures more recently as well as in the past. The thing is the pillows were able to follow some of these structures, i.e. No Self Control with the quiet/loud/quiet dynamic, but still put their own unique flavor into it. So you could easily compare them to Western bands. I look forward to see what comes from all this

[quote="Son Goshin"]But really, you could easily compare the pillows to Western bands. I think the number of the pillows'/Sawao's Western influences far outnumber their Japanese. Moon Gold owes a lot to The Beatles. Little Busters has a lot of influence from Oasis IMO. And then of course Nirvana and The Pixies, especially with the nature of their song structures more recently as well as in the past. The thing is the pillows were able to follow some of these structures, i.e. No Self Control with the quiet/loud/quiet dynamic, but still put their own unique flavor into it. So you could easily compare them to Western bands. I look forward to see what comes from all this[/quote]

There's a difference between determining where Sawao drew inspriation from, and making an arguement for what would set them apart from other bands in their genre. If you found out that a Western band you liked took inspiration from a Japanese band, would you suddenly start comparing them to other Japanese bands? No.

I think this thread is interesting but all the comments thus far have been "yea this would be neat if someone were to eloborate, but it's not going to be me". It started out by stating that The Pillows write unique and interesting music, followed by the question of "why"? What are they doing differently that other Japanese bands are not doing?

[quote="Spike"][quote="Son Goshin"]But really, you could easily compare the pillows to Western bands. I think the number of the pillows'/Sawao's Western influences far outnumber their Japanese. Moon Gold owes a lot to The Beatles. Little Busters has a lot of influence from Oasis IMO. And then of course Nirvana and The Pixies, especially with the nature of their song structures more recently as well as in the past. The thing is the pillows were able to follow some of these structures, i.e. No Self Control with the quiet/loud/quiet dynamic, but still put their own unique flavor into it. So you could easily compare them to Western bands. I look forward to see what comes from all this[/quote]

There's a difference between determining where Sawao drew inspriation from, and making an arguement for what would set them apart from other bands in their genre. If you found out that a Western band you liked took inspiration from a Japanese band, would you suddenly start comparing them to other Japanese bands? No.

There's a difference between determining where Sawao drew inspriation from, and making an arguement for what would set them apart from other bands in their genre. If you found out that a Western band you liked took inspiration from a Japanese band, would you suddenly start comparing them to other Japanese bands? No.

I think this thread is interesting but all the comments thus far have been "yea this would be neat if someone were to eloborate, but it's not going to be me". It started out by stating that The Pillows write unique and interesting music, followed by the question of "why"? What are they doing differently that other Japanese bands are not doing?[/quote]

Sure I could, why not? I wouldn't compare them to some random ass band, but I'd compare them to someone with a similar sound. Why not look at the parallels and differences of some of their contemporaries like Oasis and Weezer for instance, even if they're from other countries? the pillows do a LOT of things Western bands are capable of, and it's because they're playing Western styled pop rock plain and simple. So I think the question you asked at the end of your post should encompass all bands within their niche, not just Japanese.

In terms of music theory, you're not going to find anything particularly unique or interesting about the pillows. They use the same voicings and intervals as everyone else. If you want to know what makes the pillows unique, observe their stylistic characteristics. Admittedly, I'm not even sure what this means, but you're not going to find the secret to the pillows' sound in music theory.

[quote="sheerheartattack"]In terms of music theory, you're not going to find anything particularly unique or interesting about the pillows. They use the same voicings and intervals as everyone else. If you want to know what makes the pillows unique, observe their stylistic characteristics. Admittedly, I'm not even sure what this means, but you're not going to find the secret to the pillows' sound in music theory.[/quote]

I've generally always thought this, not that I know anything about music theory. It's been my feeling that that Sawao's songwriting is VERY conventional and VERY simple...but what he does, he does (or did) VERY well. Sort of like early Beatles. At its core, nothing crazy complex or enlightening (though I'm sure there will be those challenging me, foaming at the mouth) - but it all fits together so cleanly, the melodies are so infectious, the tone is just right to make great pop music.

The pillows play in Standard Tuning and write pop songs with major, minor, 7, and major 7 chords. Manabe drops a solo at the 3/4ths mark, right after the second chorus. It has always been like this - there are a handful of sounds that deviate.

[quote="GoldenRhino"]The pillows play in Standard Tuning and write pop songs with major, minor, 7, and major 7 chords. Manabe drops a solo at the 3/4ths mark, right after the second chorus. It has always been like this - there are a handful of sounds that deviate.[/quote]

I think you could set your watch by that formula post-lostman but the albums prior to that point are another story. Like I said before, during that time I think they were trying new ideas and each album was a bit of a suprise, when I can go back and hear something new each time I listen I think that makes for a unique album. Since then they mostly stayed in their pop/rock category. I typically use PML as a pivotal point because to me, that album is where the old and new styles blended together into a perfect mix.

The next album, Little Busters, was a dramatic shift in style, the best comparison here is the single version of Patricia that was released on the Tiny Boat single in 1996, and the version that appeared on the LB album in 1998.

So, I'm going to take a stab at this thread by me recent findings lately. I'm going to go a little depth into the techniques that the pillows used, and list their influences that used the same technique as them. By the way, I take almost no credit to all of this! Except for my pillows, Orange Juice and Nine Miles examples, but for everything else, all credit goes to [url=http://beatlessongwriting.blogspot.co.uk/]Matt Blick[/url].

I noticed that the pillows, and Nine Miles used a lot of variation of the chromatic chord progression both ascending and descending variations. So, let's start with one variation of this which is the b7 descending chromatic. The formula is b7-6-b6-5. Ok, the way how this works is you start from the chord's b7 note, and descend all the way down til you reach the fifth. for example, If we were to descend from a C7 chord, it would like Bb-A-Ab-G or if we were doing a minor chord like an Am7, it would be G-Gb-F-E. The following songs that used this progression are:

Stand Up And Go (intro)
Colorful Pumpkin Fields (bridge, uses a variation of it: b7-6-b6-6 instead of b7-6-b6-5. It's the James Bond chord progression but done in reverse!)
Strange Chameleon (bridge) (Bridge before the solo. This one is taken from the the pillows best collection bandscore itself, so you can look it up if you like. We're in the key of G but the descending chromatic chord progression looks like as if we're in the key of E cause we're descending from the b7th of the E major scale. However, the chords contained from the progression are definitely not from the key of E. This shows us that this technique can be used on any note as long as it's the b7th note from a chord such as an Am7 or a C7. And of course, the b7th is an out of key note, and doesn't appear anywhere in a in-key scale. However, it does appear on the chromatic scale which is where the progression derived from. So, the chords in the progression are Em7-A7-C-G. The notes that are descending from the progression are D-Db-C-B. Note that the descending notes are derived from the b7th note of the Em7 chord.)
Borderline Case (intro)
Nine Miles - A Perfect Circle (pre-chorus)
Nine Miles - Freeze Contact (end of verse, pre-chorus: b7-6-b6-6)

Non-pillows examples:
The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby (bridge)

Another chromatic progression that the pillows used was the James Bond chord progression in both minor forms and major forms 5-b6-6-b7. You start from the chord's root note and ascend until you reach the b7. In a major chord like C, it would look like this G-Ab-A-Bb. In a minor chord like Am, it would be E-F-Gb-G. Here's a list of songs that contain this progression:

Minor:
Blue March (chorus, 5-b6-6-b6)

Non-pillows examples:
The Beatles - Savoy Truffle (chorus)
Orange Juice - Poor Old Soul (chorus, 5-b6-6-b6)

Major:
Sayonara Universe (verse, also 5-b6-6-b6)

Non-pillows examples:
The Beatles - Ask Me Why (bridge)
John Lennon - (Just Like) Starting Over (intro)
Buddy Holly - Raining In My Heart (verse)
Led Zeppelin - The Rain Song (instrumental break)

For this section, I'm going to talk about how Manabe used a minor descending chromatic progression. Which is a descending progression from the root note R-7-b7-6-b6-5. So we start from the root note and descend until we reach the fifth of the progression. So, if we were to use an Am chord, it would look like this A-Ab-G-Gb-F-E. Even though Manabe didn't write songs for the pillows other than Swinger's Night Club on Living Field, I still think it's interesting to hear how that technique he used for that song crossed over to his Nine Miles material. Here are those examples:

Swinger's Night Club (Verse, Okay, so I think we're descending from the Am chord with the bass note on top of the following chords in the progression. The chords in the progression should be Am-AmMaj7/Ab-Am7/G-Am6/Gb-Am/F-Am/E.)
Cause Of Joy (Pre-chorus)

Non-Manabe examples:
The Beatles - A Taste Of Honey (Verse)
Led Zeppelin - Stairway To Heaven (Intro)

Welp, that's it for now, I hope you guys find these techniques that the pillows used interesting and useful to your songwriting.

Thanks for the first non-horseshit post of the thread, carn. only took us 6 years.

Pretty sure discussion about the scale of the project and/or different possible approaches can all be considered not-horseshit, but hey, to each their own, right? Nobody at all would ever consider that a rude thing to say to their fellow forum members.

But it is indeed awesome to see we finally actually have someone who is interested enough in harmonic analysis to start taking a real shot at this stuff.