this reminds me of when Live Drive came out, and I was looking forward to the Predators new album.

And then the rest of it was horrible.


edit: Music Creature sounds like he retooled Mister Buster.

Music Creature sounds absolutely horrible. This is looking like an all Engrish album, which wouldn't surprise me. All of Sawao's solo stuff has been engrish.

I love Purple Moonlight.

[quote="Tidusauron12"]This is looking like an all Engrish album, which wouldn't surprise me. All of Sawao's solo stuff has been engrish.[/quote]

Yeah, but his earlier Engrish stuff was musically enjoyable, his English was better, and it was just all around better music. His vocal performance now is much poorer, and his enunciation is way off.

Old Sawao, saying "flowers": "frowahs"
New Sawao, saying "flowers: "FURAHWARZU"

Not really, but there's definitely been a decline in quality. I don't know what's going on. I thought Music Creature was awful too. Maybe I'm just a jaded douche, but his actual English lyrics just seem less charming too. Maybe it's just me. :/

"I may be high" -Sawao Yamanaka


YES!!!!

Music Creature sounds good, but his singing is a little annoying and really takes away from an otherwise well-done song, I think. The Engrish seems to be causing a lot of nasalized vowels, and it doesn't settle right. If he had written it in Japanese and made it into a longer song, it would probably have sounded a lot better.

As for Purple Moonlight, it was also pleasant musically (though it could have done with some lead guitar and more vocal harmonization), but the phrases are just so damned awkward that it's hard to enjoy the vocal line. Dammit Sawao, what happened to Subhuman, Over Amp, Ritalin 202? It was awkward, but the phrases at least fit together and didn't sound completely forced. This is awkward-sounding AND the phrases all seem sort of jammed in there with no regard to rhyme or meter, and that's just damned silly.

Musically, I have high hopes for the album still, but if the rest of the songs are more of this awkwardly phrased Engrish crap for lyrics, it's going to be hard to get into. More Dawn Speech please.

Music Creature: Ugh. This made me want to go back and listen to Dawn Speech again, it was good in comparison to Music Creature. 0/5

Purple Moonlight: Kinda cool. Very mellow. Engrish lyrics still annoy me, but I can enjoy this song somewhat if I don't pay attention to them. I agree that the lyrics feel more forced and awkward than usual. I wonder if Sawao just put the lyrics into a translator and thought they were good enough. This song could've been fantastic if the lyrics were in Japanese. I'll probably be singing the chorus for a while though. 3/5

Edit: That tremolo effect is rather annoying

[quote="Jono"]This song could've been fantastic if the lyrics were in Japanese.5[/quote]
You couldn't be anymore right. I mean.. what is he thinking? If I'm not mistaken one of you Budokan guys mentioned Sawao didn't talk much because his Engrish was horrible, so he IS aware! Now, I'm going to go out of my way and assume he's an upper class Japanese citizen due to his relatively successful 21 year musical career. Why the [i]hell[/i] can't/doesn't he at least find [i]someone[/i] in Japan who is familiar with the English language to help him with his lyrics and, like Grey said, his enunciation. It just boggles my mind that he wastes such good, musically enjoyable songs with his garbage Engrish vocals. I love Sawao to death, he's up there on my all-time favorite artist list along with Stephen Patrick Morrissey, Mukai Shutoku, Tracey Thorn, Hideki Yoshimura, etc., but come the fuck on man.

[quote="Aplaca"][quote="Jono"]This song could've been fantastic if the lyrics were in Japanese.5[/quote]
You couldn't be anymore right. I mean.. what is he thinking? If I'm not mistaken one of you Budokan guys mentioned Sawao didn't talk much because his Engrish was horrible, so he IS aware! Now, I'm going to go out of my way and assume he's an upper class Japanese citizen due to his relatively successful 21 year musical career. Why the [i]hell[/i] can't/doesn't he at least find [i]someone[/i] in Japan who is familiar with the English language to help him with his lyrics and, like Grey said, his enunciation. It just boggles my mind that he wastes such good, musically enjoyable songs with his garbage Engrish vocals. I love Sawao to death, he's up there on my all-time favorite artist list along with Stephen Patrick Morrissey, Mukai Shutoku, Tracey Thorn, Hideki Yoshimura, etc., but come the fuck on man.[/quote]

You're right on with everything you said here. I mean, this is just getting ridiculous. Purple Moonlight is a really sweet, mellow song, but the vocals and lyrics... they make me shudder. For me it's always about the music first, but this is something I can't overlook. I think Sawao should be embarrassed he put these two songs out as is. How can he decline so much in his English? Subhuman was perfect, made sense and everything. Rookie Jet wasn't bad, even something as recent as Gazelle City was intelligible and made lyrical sense. This new Engrish stuff just makes me think he doesn't have anyone at his side to check his English lyrics.

Sawao consulted with his brother on english lyrics, with Gazelle City as his first song without his help.
or so I"ve heard.

edit for (obvious) clarity: he no longer does this.

I don't know how truthful this is, but I recall hearing that Manabe helps with English lyrics, at least sometimes. I could definitely believe it, as he seemed to have a better grasp of English than Sawao in the few English interviews I've seen.

I think Manabe is definitely the strongest English-speaker in the band. I was able to converse with him a little bit at the Pomona show and we were both able to get our points across. However, I'm sure he's not as fluent as Sawao's brother. You would just think that Avex could supply somebody to help with the English translations. But Sawao must have some English-speaking friends to help him out.

Last minute album title change:

Sawao Yamanaka - ENGRISH

[quote="Marekenshin"]Music Creature sounds good, but his singing is a little annoying and really takes away from an otherwise well-done song, I think. The Engrish seems to be causing a lot of nasalized vowels, and it doesn't settle right. If he had written it in Japanese and made it into a longer song, it would probably have sounded a lot better.[/quote]

Yeah the music for Music Creature sounds fine, his vocals do kind of kill it though unfortunately.

I liked Purple Moonlight though, really mellow and relaxed. The tremolo effect does not bother me. I love when he says "I may be high" and the robots floating in the air.

It does look like he did not consult with anyone else about the English, I think he is experimenting. I think we should be grateful his not experimenting with the pillows, maybe after Discharge he will get the Engrish out of his system and the next pillows album will be Engrish free.

[quote="xtsquintx"]Last minute album title change:

Sawao Yamanaka - ENGRISH[/quote]

Yes, Sawao's brother Hidetoshi provides assistance on all pillows/other english songs because he told me so That was as of 9/16/09 so maybe this past year they didn't hook up for translations hahaha. These translations are whacked though hahaha. Love the music though.