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Something that hardly needs to be said here but i'm saying it anyway, Happy Bivouac is the best album from The Pillows' post-PML career.

There are only a few bands whom I have consistently listened to for such a long period of time, and like too much of any good thing i've had an on-again-off-again relationship with the band and Happy Bivouac, growing fatigued from hearing it only to pick it up again 6 months later as though i'm hearing it for the first time, completely in awe of how [i]good[/i] it really is.

Sometimes I wonder, will anyone even discover this music in the future? Even if you strip away the FLCL nostalgia the songwriting here is top notch, worthy of being compared with the greatest Alt Rock bands of the 90's and yet were it not for that show, myself (and presumably many others) would have never heard of this band. Surely their legacy will go on in their home country where they were famous long before FLCL ever happened, but i've often wondered, how [i]huge[/i] would they have been had they come from an english-speaking country?

Anyway, today happened to be one of those "on-again" days and I felt like writing something about it as I listen to it again. My interest in anime has waned over the years but my interest in music has not, and Happy Bivouac has such a strong caliber of songwriting that it transcendes the language barrier and is worth listening to just as a [i]good album[/i] regardless of its history with the show. Happy Bivouac is the first 'Pillows album that I would send to anyone with an open mind, it needs no excuses or concessions it only needs to be listened to.

I bought some new studio monitors last month and Happy Bivouac is the album I've been playing over and over on them. That and AMAP, especially Spiky Goose.

Not much else to say. I don't get tired of this conversation. It's great to hear that there are other people in the world who love this band and album as much as I do.

I've pretty much given up on trying to convert others. It hasn't worked out for me. Maybe I haven't tried it out on the right flavor of geek.

I wonder what it is that makes certain people so interested in Japanese culture. I'm tempted to think it's a certain appreciation for elegance. Another thought is that Japanese people seem to be very serious (and maybe those two ideas are related). I think of the samurai, and zen, which are about total determination, discipline, and self actualization. I think Sawao is/was very, very serious about his music.

You seem to be a serious guy with an appreciation for elegance, Spike. I wonder if that can be said about most IMers. I've also noticed a lot of sensitivity among us. I for one am a very sensitive person. I wonder how that fits in. I suppose sensitivity and appreciation for elegance go hand in hand.

I was resisting using the word sophistication, but actually I think the pillows' music is very sophisticated. Not in a cerebral way, but in a certain way. Do you know what I mean? I mean, I guess when an artist can so deeply and precisely... do what they do, that's sophistication by definition.

I hope I'm not sounding smug. Or stupid. Lol.

It's interesting that you bring up Japanese culture, I think rather it's an appreciation for [i]cultural art[/i] in general, at least in my case. I am a fan of foreign film as well as music from Japan and many other countries such as China, Korea, Germany, Sweden, et al. I think some works of art are so powerful that they escape the confines of their cultural origin, and having an appreciation for other cultures certainly requires some sensitivity. Many people I know would no sooner listen to foreign music than they would watch a film with subtitles, and it's not as though that opinion is based on cultural bias but rather a general opinion of "why bother".

I would also agree that once upon a time The Pillows were very serious about their music, both from a lyrical and structural standpoint (songwriting) as well as an artistic standpoint. The lackluster "quickly slapped together in photoshop" album covers of recent years betray the carefully staged and photograped album artwork from their earlier years such as AMAP, TYMT, Little Busters, PML, and Happy Bivouac. You don't need to be some nouveau riche art critic to look at those covers and wonder what they were trying to say with them, I didn't always understand the message but I understood that they were trying to convey one. The Pillows have long since abandoned the carefully measured songwriting of their formative years in favor of "just having fun".

I don't think your observations are stupid at all. At some time or another we all came here because we like(d) The Pillows, and whatever becomes of this place it none-the-less remains the only gathering point for fellow fans and people with similar interests.

To come back to what makes Happy Bivouac [i]specifically[/i] so great, it feels like the culmination of an entire decade's effort to refine and hone their sound as an Alt Rock band following their evolution from the pre-PML Jazz Fusion sound. Fitting that it was their last album of the 90's, because Happy Bivouac was truly the end of an era.

For me, i'd equate it to standing in warm sunlight on a summer day. Manabe's guitar work is flawless, driving a heavy rock sound on songs like Happy Bivouac, Rush and Last Dinosaur all the while blending some of that fusion influence into guitar tones that ring with a notable chime and complexity despite being rooted in a clearly rock-oriented sound. Sawao's vocal style has a relaxed sense of ease on songs like Happy Bivaouc, Carnival, Back Seat Dog and Kim Deal, with more of a strained, longing vibe on songs like Last Dinosaur, Crazy Sunshine and Beautiful Morning With You. Shin's drumming is prominent in the mix with a punchy and energetic sound on songs like Funny Bunny and Rush, Shin demonstrates a more restrained performance on Beautiful Morning With You while sounding almost savage on Crazy Sunshine.

Let me start by saying that Happy Bivouac has been my favorite album by the pillows... for probably the last 10 years. I kinda go through the same thing you mentioned, Spike. I'll get into a "pillows mood", and usually I'll go for Happy Bivouac. It did indeed define the pillows' sound, making up that important third part of the "holy trinity" of albums.

For me, Happy Bivouac opened up a whole new world for me musically. After I got the first two FLCL soundtracks, my buddy and I soon discovered Limewire. We realized there were more songs by the pillows out there. Initially, I downloaded 17 more songs that weren't on the FLCL soundtrack. I burned those 17 songs to a CD, and five of them were from the HB era. When I first heard HB (the song), I was shocked. I had NEVER... EVER heard anything like that before. To me, that opening guitar lick was the craziest distortion I had ever heard. The fuzz, the uplifting and soaring melody... my 10th grade self then realized that this was what I was looking for.

I was just starting to form my musical opinions, just barely getting into stuff like Weezer. But Weezer didn't hit me as hard as the pillows did. Kim Deal was also on that 17 song mix tape, as was Curly Rudy. My hunger became insatiable. I still remember laying on the couch on Friday nights after midnight, not able to go to sleep because I just HAD TO put my headphones on and listen to these songs again. Once I got the rest of the album with songs like Rush and the full Beautiful Morning With You, I was hooked on the album. I still rank Crazy Sunshine as my second favorite song by the band ever, and I consider myself so lucky to have seen them play it live twice in 2005 and 2006. This album definitely left a mark on my life, and while I wouldn't say it's perfect, I will concede it is damn near perfection.

[quote]I wonder what it is that makes certain people so interested in Japanese culture. I'm tempted to think it's a certain appreciation for elegance. Another thought is that Japanese people seem to be very serious (and maybe those two ideas are related). I think of the samurai, and zen, which are about total determination, discipline, and self actualization. I think Sawao is/was very, very serious about his music.

You seem to be a serious guy with an appreciation for elegance, Spike. I wonder if that can be said about most IMers. I've also noticed a lot of sensitivity among us. I for one am a very sensitive person. I wonder how that fits in. I suppose sensitivity and appreciation for elegance go hand in hand.[/quote]

I would consider myself a pretty serious guy. Not everything has to be a joke... I know too many people like this in my life. You say it's due to an appreciation of elegance; that's an interesting way of putting it. I have an appreciation for something that isn't... petty, I guess you could say. The Japanese culture is honorable, respectable. Much how Western culture was at one point in history, but no longer as everything is about the cult of personality to Westerners now. "It's all about me; my happiness is all that matters." "Traditions and "rules" be damned, I need to feel good, so watch out!" "Discipline?! I need instant gratification... NOW!" Just watching a concert of the pillows, for example, shows that respectability. Everyone is silent between songs. People take the time to bow to each other and show true, mutual respect for the other person when greeting each other instead of the "keeping things informal because formality makes me feel uncomfortable" approach. I guess we can call the former approach "elegance" as you did. I call it respectability.

I suppose now I'm just rambling, but you brought up some good points Rockman, and I kind of just let my stream of consciousness go.

It's good. But Runners High is better

Runners High has too many average songs to be better than Happy Bivouac.

Fight me.

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Runners High does have Midnight Down and Tashikame ni Yukou, though...it's goddamn tough. Lately I've definitely been listening to Smile, Runners High, and Happy Bivouac the most (although before that it was Smile, PML, and TYMT).

We all know my opinion on Sawao and crew still crafting well-written songs that are mostly plagued by poor production (latest thing that I think would argue in favor of that would be the Moonlight Dust Tour DVD, which makes the songs' interplay stand out much more clearly due to crisper guitars), but I think there's definitely a cohesive energy across their best albums that some later ones don't manage to grasp quite as well. Maybe mostly just a matter of track order, in some cases, but there's a breakneck pace that some of the albums have even through their slower songs because the guitar production and vocal expression (as Spike noted) is just so dynamic.

Runner's High is a great album and so is Little Busters, but Happy Bivouac edges out both of them with a more refined, developed sound. The former two sound like they were still experimenting with certain tracks.

I know in the end it's all personal preference and there are no [i]rules[/i] about what makes an album good, but if you compare them I think most would agree that Happy Bivouac has the stronger list of songs.

It's hard to argue with Happy Bivouac, Rush, Last Dinosaur, Carnival, Crazy Sunshine, Advice, Funny Bunny, and Beautiful Morning With You all present on the [i]same[/i] album. Not to mention Our Love And Peace, Kim Deal, and Back Seat Dog rounding it off. I think the point could be made that [i]every[/i] song from this album would appear on [i]someone's[/i] Top 10 list, but I can't say the same about Runner's High.

I'm siding with sl4... arguments may come later (when I find some time, haha)
But for me, Happy Bivouac?... it's really only Carnival.. while Runners High? Runners High, Let's See if That's True or Not and Juliet. Other than that I like all songs on RH... while I don't care much for 'Our Love and Peace', 'Beautiful Morning With You' (okay sometimes, with this one) and even 'Happy Bivouac' .

Back seat dog is probably my favorite HB song. Funny Bunny is a very close second.

Happy Bivouac is an amazing track, Ashinow. Go to your room and think about what you've just said.

Fuck, I gotta listen to this album right now.

Back Seat Dog has some really nice harmonies.

Fuck yeah, back seat dog. Like seriously, it's in the top 3 songs for me on HB, and it has one of my favorite pillows elements thrown in. Namely, the harmonious repetition of words or sounds (whoa whoa yeah here, the oooooing on Tiny Boat, the yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah on Like a Love Song, sha-la-la-lla, etc).

Really though, the only song I'll skip on HB every time is Our Love and Peace...and Advice. Everything else is wet spot in my pants good. Also, Little Busters > Runners High, just on account of having fewer "skip" songs for me. I do love me some Paper Triangle though.

Man, the first time I heard Paper Triangle, I was so mindblown. Still think it's one of my favorite instrumentals overall, simple as it is.

It's a good record.

[quote="chgu"]Fuck yeah, back seat dog. Like seriously, it's in the top 3 songs for me on HB, and it has one of my favorite pillows elements thrown in. Namely, the harmonious repetition of words or sounds (whoa whoa yeah here, the oooooing on Tiny Boat, the yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah on Like a Love Song, sha-la-la-lla, etc). [/quote]
I couldn't agree with this more. What to think of 'She's my sister's ooooh hoooh oooh hoooo oooh hoo ooh oo hooo, Monochromo Lovers' La la la la, la la la-la-la-la, la la la la, la, la, la, I want to Be Sullivan's oooh hoo's? It's all so super effective.