[quote="clouds drive monster"]culen is quoted often.[/quote]

it's cuz he is a wise man.

yeah...

I don't think the pillows will ever be popular in mainstream America. Right now the pillows have a decent-sized fanbase that, for now, will continue to grow little by little but will eventually plateau as older pillows fans die off (i.e. us when we're old). Their name will eventually sink back into obscurity in 20 years. The only way to prevent this, in America, is to become commercialized or at least attempt to. The pillows can either 1) release an all-English song CD of mixed old and new English songs and agree to a few interviews with Spin magazine and a short spotlight on new talent on MTV2. The CD will sell moderately but will never make a big success. If it does reach moderate success, then they will tour in small clubs in the U.S. Hooray! or the pillows can 2) take the Puffy Amiyumi way out and sing themes for horrible cartoons and create their own horrible cartoon show to try to get kids to buy their products, thus ensuring that they will have no success in the U.S. Hopefully the pillows will try for route #1 and then all pillow fans who don't live near Texas, or can't fly to Japan, can see them.

I rather dislike bands who make songs in english to appeal to those audiances. They all deserve to be hurt badly.

Is there another way to gain public appeal then, say . . whoring themselves?

I forgot why I exactly wanted the Pillows to go mainstream. I already have most of their music.

The obscurity thing is somthing that can happen. Much like now, people want to wonder in their own music direction to break away from the mainstream.

Okay, now i'm just confusing myself.

Man...I hate when you type up a big post, then hit the wrong key and lose the whole damn thing.

Anyways, I disagree on the language barrier affecting the popularity thing. I typed a much longer post, but seeing as I'm bitter in losing it, I'll give a TMGE review from EvilSponge, since I couldn't find the real one I was looking for, but this one says basically the same thing.

/Everything builds, in Japanese of course (not that it matters) until the chorus of Pinhead Cranberry Dance is hurled at you like a cragged boulder from on high.

"Peenhead cwanberwy dance! Peenhead cwanberwy daaaaaannce!"

No, I don't know what the hell it's supposed to mean. That's the point. I don't need to know what the hell it's supposed to mean. It means Pinhead Cranberry Dance, damn it, and that means rock./

I suppose...a drawback on the part of the pillows, is that their lyrics have so much meaning behind them, like in Strange Chameleon, or Let's See If That's True or Not, or Black Sheep..., you know what I'm talking about. If you didn't know Japanese, then it would be nothing but slurry to you. The lyrics are, dare I say, more important than the music itself in many cases. Then again, TMGE's lyrics are poetry in themselves, even the English ones (well...except for the aforementioned), but people still don't need to know what the words mean, because they know what it is he's saying.

I think, it's the fact that the pillows have their name most often associated with FLCL, an anime, a "cartoon", that makes people automatically write them off as child's play.

Which brings me to another point. No one in Japan has ever heard of FuriKuri. They don't even know such a series by Gainax exists. And if you know someone from Japan that knows it, then you've found an endangered species, my friend.

And (so sorry this is so long) for those of you that say you'd feel bad if the pillows went mainstream and how other people were copying or whatever, think about how those of us felt that actually liked the pillows before FLCL was released in the States and everyone would not stop referring to Ride on Shooting Star. Yeah. But it won't happen. I would expect Orange Range or Dragon Ash or w-inds to become mainstream before that. They're already mainstream in Japan, so they'd have that support already. And Utada was featured on CNN three or so months ago. She didn't get a very nice review apparently, and they labeled her as 'cheesy pop'. I don't know about that, but 'Dare ka no nagai ga kanaukoro' made people cry, so that's gotta be a sign of something.

*is shot and rambling finally ends*

They will never be popular over here for one reason and one reason only, they don't suck enough to get mainstream radio or MTV airplay.

Yeah, Mellie got it right.

ah. well that answers my question.

I just read(well, from last week) a newspaper article from the Orange County Register(front page of LIFE, wed, march 2 - pg. about bands from Japan making apperences at an incresing rate. It didn't menton the Pillows, but several bands that are touring around the same time. It mentions L'ARC~EN~CIEL, Guitar Wolf, Shonen Knife, Electric Eel Shock, Polysics and a few others.

Just letting you know that someone is taking notice.

You can bombard him for lack of Pillowstelgia at
plarsen at ocregister dot com

If they do become mainstream, then maybe the average american that listens to mainstream can hear some real music. Also, it would make me happy that i knew them before everyone else, but soon the punk kids would be like "no you didn't i totally liked them first" which brings me to my next point. It's the reason i dont want them being mainstream.Because
it has seem to come to the point where i dont care if my friends do or do not like the pillows. They've become one of m favorite bands. And i kind of like the feeling of having my own band that nobody knows. Makes me feel differant from some of THEM.

hahaha the OC register........i don't read that shit...but glad that they featured something on japanese rock bands. even if it didn't mention the pillows.

instead of emailing him bleuster, why don't we get together and punch him in the face...

the OC!?

My god, it's like talking to a four year old.

huh?