I'm trying to think back to how I felt about watching the original show, and you know, I'm not feeling like "every square inch of it is pillows music" ACTUALLY MATTERED as a key component of my enjoying FLCL. I loved hearing Little Busters at the end of the episode, [i]once or twice[/i], but was it really the best creative choice every time? Surely they could have composed a different flourish for the varying scenes Little Busters was used. That the new FLCL won't be drowning in pillows tunage, I just find that a strange thing to be disappointed with.

Remember the humorous music that played when Ninamori had that thing take over her at the end of episode 3? That fit the sequence. It just smacks of me that not every instance that used pillows tunes in the anime was optimal. That's not to say that they didn't drop in good choices from the pillows disco, I can agree that a lot of instances felt like a good fit. What I'm asking is that from a creative perspective, was every choice to drop a pillows tune in somewhere the [i]optimal[/i] choice? I'm not so sure about that. So why would people hold that they used the pillows disco as a song bank for a large number of scenes as some kind of impeccable standard? They hit an incredible audio visual master stroke scoring Blues Drive Monster to the Daicon V scene at the end of episode 5 and Crazy Sunshine at the end of episode 4. I'm not sure scenes where I'm hearing lyrics while characters are sharing a tender moment and talking is the best choice, for example. I don't think dropping Sad Sad Kiddie on a low volume while Naota's dad is talking improves the scene whatsoever without competing for your attention. Just after that scene, I don't know if Carnival added anything when Naota and friends observe Mamimi in the creek. Not every scene needs ambient rock music playing in the background.

Like, "DUDE this anime is the BEST EVER because the sound guys used 85% of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells for all the battles, flourishes, setups and down moments. Fuckin' A, that's GENIUS!"

I think you get what I'm saying, it's a choice they made that served them decently, but could some scenes have been [i]improved[/i] had they been scored differently? Yeah.

Dude, name dropping Mike Oldfield buys you enough street cred that I can [i]almost[/i] give you a free pass on that post.

So I don't think people are necessarily upset that there's not a Pillows song playing every 30 seconds, it's more to do with the fact that even the big fight scenes featured generic BGM in the episode of [i]Alternative[/i] that was released. It's not just a case of "there's less Pillows music now" it's "okay is there even any Pillows music [i]in[/i] this episode?" As you say, it was omnipresent in the original series, so much so that it was part of the entire identity of the show. The use of music was stylistically integral to the show. Now, do you [i]need[/i] that to make an effective series? No, but it's certainly part of the recipe that made the original so endearing.

[size=80][i]btw I would totally watch that tubular bells anime[/i][/size]

BTS with The Pillows featurette is out: [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-13sBAc1BYM[/url] It's pretty funny, and really cool to find out how the band came into the original series. Also, if you read into it, it definitely sounds like Sawao is saying that the band didn't do the score this time because he says, in making music for the new seasons, "I only had the world of the first FLCL to go on" and he keeps talking about crafting "the lyrics", so he's probably just talking about the making of "Star Overhead" and "Spiky Seeds" in that part.

The tidbit about how his lyric-writing approach and FLCL's story fit together really well was super cool - he's talked many times about how he prioritizes the sound and feeling of the words in his mouth over telling a clear story with lyrics, but I never thought until he pointed it out in that video about how that sense of story but lack of full cohesion really does match FLCL crazy well.

lol Shinchan's classic got nothing much to say if there's no time for jokes approach.

This is actually a really cool interview! Interesting to learn that ROSS was written [i]before[/i] they were asked tow rite music for the show. I don't think that was known before this interview.

Really great to hear such a thoughtful and reflective interview from these guys, not to mention the interesting historical tidbits. It's not often we hear that sort of humble tone from the gang, so that was way neat!

[quote="dimsim3478"]I'm just let down cuz they were such a huge part of what made the original series so special to me, and there's so few other shows that have [i]one of my favourite bands playing in damn near every scene[/i], so I'm sad that I'm not gonna get more of that.[/quote]

Yeah. I do think it's worth flagging how unique (or at least, unique to the medium) that approach is, with scoring a show so heavily with a band's pop-alt-rock (that often feature lyrics). So much so that FLCL stands out to me at least, as being some what of an anime music video, rather than just a series. The pillows' music is a main feature, not a bonus. It draws attention to itself and it allows for different style of storytelling to happen. I'd say it's a less immersive effect than what other anime series go for, or what is common on, say, most modern day TV series produced in the US. I know some dramas will score their shows with popular bands (for some reason, The Fray's "How To Save a Life" in Gray's Anatomy is in my head?), but I think it's rarer not only due to the expense, but because of the shifting tastes of the viewers - subtle, incidental, instrumental music is seen as more tasteful and appropriate often.

Anyway, mentioning Gray's Anatomy in a discussion about FLCL is several meters off-base, but all I'm saying is: FLCL was a pretty weird beast in drawing so heavily from a rock band's discography. I'm glad it worked out for us and so many others, but, it's a rare one for reasons. I do agree that the instrumental-non-pillows tracks they use should be the best they can too. From the Alternative episode we saw, that stuff was really just disappointing and fillery.

I'm not gonna say that [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W2oMq5OEck][u]Selfish-b[/u][/url] is a killer cut or anything, but I appreciate the attempt at music with character.

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3qYJRJT4FM]New clip of the fight scene from [i]FLCL Progressive[/i] episode 1[/url] just posted by IGN, and guess what: "Freebee Honey" is playing! This might be the first "Fool on cool version" that I like more than the original version. Sawao's vocal sounds so much smoother than the [i]Penalty Life[/i] version, which was recorded back when he was still doin' that thing where he sung with the back of his throat when he couldn't quite hit a note. He's gotten so much better as a vocalist after all these years and I think it shows in recordings like this one. arghhhhhhh gimme the new OST right now!!!!!!

[b]EDIT:[/b] somebody in the comments of that clip said that it's not from episode 1. This lines up with what sittingduck told us about episode 1, as they didn't mention "Freebee Honey" on the list of songs that was in episode 1. We'll find out for sure tonight when the full episode airs!

uhhhhh so Adult Swim's streaming site has an [b]EXTENDED[/b] version of The Pillows BTS? [url]http://www.adultswim.com/videos/flcl/flcl-behind-the-scenes-the-pillows-extended/[/url] Any chance that someone can rip it and upload it? I'm geoblocked from watching it.

also first scene of Progressive ep 1. i think y'all gonna be psyched.

also "spiky seeds" in the end credits. we can to hear some of the verse and it really reminds me of "red bat" from sawao's third solo album. need the OST now!!!

also just realised that theres no overlap between the pillows songs in the original series and the songs in the new seasons so far (except "little busters"). really awesome that the later king albums are gettin' some love.

Alright, just a quick recap of which songs we know are in this so far. Don't read if you care about spoilers or whatever.
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Thank you, my twilight - Progressive ep. 1
Nonfiction (instrumental) - Progressive ep. 1
Little Busters - Progressive ep. 1
Freebee Honey - Progressive ep. 2
Shiroi natsu - Alternative ep. 1
MY FOOT - Alternative ep. 1
Spiky Seeds - Progressive ending
Star Overhead - Alternative ending
(unconfirmed) I think I can (heard playing in the background during a dubbing session)

So, according to Sawao, they recorded "14 tracks" for the new FLCL. Unless they include some tracks that weren't re-recorded or something, seems like we're gonna get a lot of reused songs or a ton more generic BGM.

[quote="dimsim3478"]uhhhhh so Adult Swim's streaming site has an [b]EXTENDED[/b] version of The Pillows BTS? [url]http://www.adultswim.com/videos/flcl/flcl-behind-the-scenes-the-pillows-extended/[/url] Any chance that someone can rip it and upload it? I'm geoblocked from watching it.[/quote]
Pretty sure this is the same as the one on [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-13sBAc1BYM]Youtube[/url]. It has the same time stamp.

[quote="Mafu"]Unless they include some tracks that weren't re-recorded or something, seems like we're gonna get a lot of reused songs or a ton more generic BGM.[/quote]
Perhaps most of the upcoming episodes will use The Pillows' songs as conservatively as [i]Alternative[/i] episode 1. Liiiiiike little tiny clips of one or two Pillows songs, one insert song of decent length, and the same ED for each set of six episodes. For example, we're almost definitely gonna hear more of "White Summer" in some other episode, whether it's used as an insert song or just another short background clip.

Or they're just gonna repeat the same songs a bunch of times, like you said. But if they're as conservative with Pillows music as they were with Alt ep 1, I think they might be able to keep repetition down to a minimum.

I always have a sense when I post something where, maybe I didn't quite nail what I was trying to say or may have slipped into a logical fallacy, but I still find it would be worth posting anyway. One thing I would like to add is that lately I've been having a harder time "catching" everything when characters speak. I've found that depending on performance, audio levels, enunciation, etc. I need subtitles for English speaking as well so that I can read along as I'm listening. I find myself replaying scenes a lot more frequently than when I was younger just so I can understand what I just heard. Perhaps I'm more sensitive to music choices coinciding with dialogue than I was when I was younger. So there are definitely going to be times when I'd prefer foley to... fooly... cooly.

Like for instance, again the scene with Canti doing chores while Naota's dad shares his story, it has Sad Sad Kiddie playing. I get that they're using the bodacious audio track to fit the oddity of a robot doing household chores, and I can understand why they decided to connect the two. I think teenage me was cool with that particular choice and other choices like it, but right now, I just notice it too much. Maybe if there were just sound effects of things Canti was interacting with, I would be more drawn into the scene because I could more clearly focus on the dad's dialogue while still getting the humor of Canti doing what it's doing. But that's not always the case of course, there's tons of great audio/visual matching going on in the show. So even in a case where I may have a particular nitpick about the usage of music, it's more that I may have more particular needs from a scene for it to gel with me, and not any kind of absolute "right and wrong" way to score a scene.

Getting to the usage of music in the new FLCL, I think there were some instrumental tracks that worked well enough and some that were mundane. It's trying to have the same kinetic musical energy the original series had but with less success, purely because it's essentially two "teams" doing their best take on a scene. We'll have to see how it goes for the rest of the show, but so far I'd say the general disappointment is agreeable. I'm not super hard on it as of now, though.

Weird episode today, but let's talk music: it was "Freebee Honey" in the fight scene, and "Noboranai Taiyou" right before the credits. That second one was definitely a surprise.

The selection of music here was definitely lacking. I remembered in the old FLCL episodes there were pillow songs highlighted even in the most quieted scenes of the anime, songs like Patricia, Happy Bivouac, and Bran-new Lovesong come to mind. Here, it seems like they used the songs for the most intense scenes in the episode. Everything else was done by R.O.N. I understand that other scenes need to take a break from the pillows music, but I felt it was going too far in this case. No complaints on the songs they chose for the action scenes, but the lack of pillows song they chose for this episode is disappointing.

I also thought the music during fight scenes could've been raised up in certain scenes to emphasize those moments like they did in the old FLCL instead of just having it in the background throughout the action scenes. It made the songs and the scenes more memorable and climatic. It's like how you would emphasize key lyrics in a song by putting it in the highest melodic part of the song.