lol, somebody's unhappy about this album. XD

*shrug*

BTW, I just noticed your blog link. I really like the idea of annotated translations to more thoroughly convey what the songs are expressing. Any chances of seeing some posts on there in the near future?

Been reading through a bunch of interviews to gear up for diving in. I guess launching it may have been slightly premature since I'm not set to do the actual thing quite yet, haha.

Ah, okay. Looking forward to it!

Thanks! Definitely appreciate the encouragement. I think it should be a fun and interesting project, and so far I've learned some cool tidbits that I'm excited to share about various songs (as a preview, Another Morning was written reflecting on the band's revival after Ueda left, and performed for the first time one year to the day after they announced he was leaving the band, along with a bunch of other new songs...at a venue called "Power Station," which I would imagine Blues Driver may be alluding to).

Honestly I like most of the songs on ooparts.

I like beyond the moon, ameagari, and johnny strobe

dance with god and your order are okay I guess. primer beat is probably one of their better "fun" songs.

oh, and I like fighting pose a lot (the b side).

for both this album and horn again the b-sides are really good even if the album itself is massively disappointing.
the b-sides on movement are almost god tier IMO. split emotion and gloomy night. both are really great.

this and pied piper are obviously their worst albums but there are good songs on each.
ultimately the problem with recent year pillows is that the quality is really, really inconsistent.
instead of the whole album being listenable (runners high anyone?) you get 3-4 good songs and the rest are "throwaways" i.e. listen once, never again.
yamanaka needs to scrap more songs and release less albums...imagine an album like this for example:

Clean Slate Revolution
Energiya
Happy Birthday
About a Rock'n'roll Band
Mochinushi
Trial
Gloomy Night
Ameagari ni mita maboroshi

I don't think yamanaka thinks about making a cohesive album anymore...it's just like "well here's a collection of the songs I wrote this year enjoy!"

Dude, Gloomy Night is a top tier b-side in my book for sure. Love that interval at the "nemurenai NDAAAAAAAA" during the chorus.

[quote="zorahk"]...and the rest are "throwaways" i.e. listen once, never again.[/quote]
If I listened once and never again, I wouldn't know most of my favorite songs. It often takes 3 or 4 listens before a song catches on for me. There are songs I love that took a very long time before I liked them at all. Strange Chameleon, The Third Eye, Ladybird Girl, to name a few.



The pillows used to sound confident and the vibe of their music was cool. It made me feel cool to listen to it. Over the years they started having this "cartoony" vibe. Have you ever had a friend who was afraid to be serious and tried to turn everything into a joke? Or maybe he would talk like a cartoon character to try to take the edge off his speech because he was terrified of conflict. That's what the pillows feel like to me and it kind of peaked with OOPARTS.

I'm listening to OOPARTS right now. "I know maybe I am useless, man." Foxes is a great song that I think just isn't presented well. If it had been recorded by 1998/99 pillows I bet it would be highly praised.

Let me rephrase that then:

I like everything the pillows did on King Records with perhaps the exception of Penalty Life.
I mean really, all of these albums are great:

Kool Spice
Living Field
Please Mr. Lostman
Little Busters
Runners High
Happy Bivouac
Smile
Thank You My Twilight
(REDACTED)
Good Dreams
My Foot

All of these albums...sound very different from each other. That's probably why I like them.
Everything since the switch to Avex has been largely the same. Toss out Yoshida and you have yourself a recipe for mediocrity.

As for the stuff *before* King Records, I would say White Incarnation is the best.

[quote="rockman240"]



The pillows used to sound confident and the vibe of their music was cool. It made me feel cool to listen to it. Over the years they started having this "cartoony" vibe. Have you ever had a friend who was afraid to be serious and tried to turn everything into a joke? Or maybe he would talk like a cartoon character to try to take the edge off his speech because he was terrified of conflict. That's what the pillows feel like to me and it kind of peaked with OOPARTS.

I'm listening to OOPARTS right now. "I know maybe I am useless, man." Foxes is a great song that I think just isn't presented well. If it had been recorded by 1998/99 pillows I bet it would be highly praised.[/quote]

This.

Also, I really liked Foxes. One of only a few songs on that album I listen to.

[quote="zorahk"]Let me rephrase that then:

I like everything the pillows did on King Records with perhaps the exception of Penalty Life.
I mean really, all of these albums are great:

Kool Spice
Living Field
Please Mr. Lostman
Little Busters
Runners High
Happy Bivouac
Smile
Thank You My Twilight
(REDACTED)
Good Dreams
My Foot

[b]All of these albums...sound very different from each other. That's probably why I like them.[/b]
Everything since the switch to Avex has been largely the same. Toss out Yoshida and you have yourself a recipe for mediocrity.

As for the stuff *before* King Records, I would say White Incarnation is the best.[/quote]

You know, that's basically what i described in my recent post in the Moondust thread. Everything does feel like a collection of songs now, and the albums lose their own individuality that the King Records era albums had. Crap, if you took the last 3 or 4 albums and took the best songs off of each, and sequenced them right, you'd have an album that is probably superior to My Foot, which I believe is their 6th best album.

Anyways, Mare, I really hope you continue with this project of yours. That tidbit about Another Morning is fascinating! I need to know more! If theres anyway i can help you with this project to get it going, let me know.

[quote="rockman240"]The pillows used to sound confident and the vibe of their music was cool. It made me feel cool to listen to it. Over the years they started having this "cartoony" vibe. Have you ever had a friend who was afraid to be serious and tried to turn everything into a joke? Or maybe he would talk like a cartoon character to try to take the edge off his speech because he was terrified of conflict. That's what the pillows feel like to me and it kind of peaked with OOPARTS.

I'm listening to OOPARTS right now. "I know maybe I am useless, man." Foxes is a great song that I think just isn't presented well. If it had been recorded by 1998/99 pillows I bet it would be highly praised.[/quote]
Yeah, wow, this is the best characterization I've heard yet for describing just how cheesy the pillows' recent stuff has been...

Looking back 5 years later, the thing that unfortunately sticks out for me about this album is that some of the songs on it are just absolute [i]trash[/i]. I mean, like, Your Order for example? Your Order captures the exact sentiment rockman240 so eloquently articulated: it's like that super insecure friend who's too afraid to be serious, so he just turns everything into a joke, and consequently becomes [i]really fucking obnoxious.[/i] Your Order is one of the few pillows songs that is just downright grating on my ears. Same goes for Life Size Life too. And Foxes is just like... what in the flying fuck is this?

That being said, there's a surprising handful of songs off of OOPARTS that I remember pretty fondly. Dance With God, Johnny Strobe, Ameagari ni mita Maboroshi, and Primer Beat are all more or less solid in my book. I smile when I remember those songs. The album really isn't all bad.

But honestly, as much as people diss Pied Piper, I felt that even Pied Piper had quite a bit of charm, actually. But OOPARTS? OOPARTS is more repulsive than anything to me, looking back. It's not like the whole album is all mediocre, or all bad, but there's enough songs on it that are just absolutely [i]terrible[/i] that it manages to leave a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

[quote]Crap, if you took the last 3 or 4 albums and took the best songs off of each, and sequenced them right, you'd have an album that is probably superior to My Foot, which I believe is their 6th best album. [/quote]

yeah, just delete all the english songs and there you go

[quote="zorahk"][quote]Crap, if you took the last 3 or 4 albums and took the best songs off of each, and sequenced them right, you'd have an album that is probably superior to My Foot, which I believe is their 6th best album. [/quote]

yeah, just delete all the english songs and there you go[/quote]


The only way that removing Lemon Drops could possibly improve Ooparts is that maybe the song would have been on a better album instead.