[NOTE: There is some sarcasm and whatnot in the post. Please don't get the keyboard warrior weapons out for something utterly ridiculous. I am open to criticism though ^_^]
As an American J Rock fan, there is always one thing that bothers me. Yes, there are the cases of detachment of the scene, a lack of money, and heavy dependence on the Internet to stay involved. However, for a few fans lie myself, there is one issue that stands above the rest.
Engrish.
Seriously, it is a problem that needs to be addressed more than it does. Nothing ruins a good song more than when you find out that the meaningful-sounding masterpiece you've just discovered is a bunch of childish English dribble. Even with my contempt for misplaced English, we should look at it in good humor
in order to keep our sanity to make a negative into a positive, correcting each other’s mistakes to grow as a community. The point is, that we shall laugh at all the mistakes our beloved J Rockers do, instead of going into a bloodied frenzy when trying to wrap our heads around the most ridiculous of nonsense.
Anyway, back to the title. As some fans may or may not know, a
Disney cover album was released, covering 11 songs. When I first heard about it, I teared up a bit and started dancing for joy, I LOVE those damn Disney classics. That's when it hit me: they're gonna butcher the songs SO damn bad. The instruments, invincible from the language barrier, will sound great. The cover songs will possibly show those classics in a new light, adding modern and unique sound while keeping the melodies that made us love the classics as kids. Then the singers in each song will open their damn mouth, and indescribable, undecipherable hell shall spew forth into my naive eardrums. I decided to listen to the album before blindly buying, to get an idea of the slaughtering of English that a Japanese Disney cover album would unleash. To spare the few who might read this because of
this picture (that everyone probably has), I shall critique the English, possibly trying to get a story out of it in the process. Thankfully, because it IS a cover album, my only problem will be listening to the vocalists.
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http://keikowakana.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/vrock_disney.jpg?w=300&h=300
Tracklist
01 "Fantasia" ～ The Sorcerer's Apprentice ( NIGHTMARE )
02 "Aladdin" ～ Friend Like Me ( NIGHTMARE )
03 '"Beauty And The Beast" ～ Beauty And The Beast ( Kawamura Ryuuichi )
04 "Lilo & Stitch" ～ Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride ( PENICILLIN )
05 "Mary Poppins" ～ Chim Chim Cher-ee ( Plastic Tree )
06 "The Nightmare before Christmas" ～ This is Halloween ( Sadie )
07 "The Lion King" ～ Can You Feel the Love Tonight ( Aoi from ayabie )
08 "Mary Poppins" ～ Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious ( THE KIDDIE )
09 "Pinocchio" ～ When You Wish Upon a Star ( NINJAMAN JAPAN )
10 "Snow White" ～ Heigh-ho ( CASCADE )
11 "Tarzan" ～ You'll be in My Heart ( DASEIN )
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Track 1: A Sorcerer's Apprentice
An instrumental by Nightmare. Simple enough. Bitchin' guitars, bass, and drums do all the talking here. The few snippets of singing on the song were lost on me though. I have no clue what the hell this talented bastard is singing. My best guess is Beelzebub. (BEE-ZIIIL-BOOB!~♪)
I don't know why he would sing the name of that
shit-eating demon fly though (Anyone? Anyone?)
Track 2: A Friend Like Me
Holy shit balls. Yomi is a great singer, but in here, it seems like there is a bunch of rabid trolls tearing his tongue apart, making him improvise pronunciations on the spot. Don't think I'm some heartless cunt out to get Yomi, I genuinely like the song; it's just that it's undecipherable at times. The few times that I DO know what he's saying (without a lyrical cheat sheet); it sounds like those trolls from earlier decided to claw at his lovely face instead. He tried, he honestly did (and I admire him for his attempts), but it fulfilled all my doubts about the English-genocide spearheaded by lazy Japanese students in English class (much like kids in the States want to destroy Spanish when they take a Spanish exam they didn't study for). I'm not mad at Nightmare though (even though it seems like it, toning down the rage after multiple edits), just somewhat disappointed; what could've been an excellent (trying to avoid the word "epic") song turned into great. Not that's there's anything wrong with just great, but it seems like lost potential.
Track 3: Beauty and the Beast
No English. None at all. It's in Japanese. I thought that
Kawamura Ryuuichi, vocalist for LUNA SEA, did a great job singing the translated version of the song. It's a Japanese cover, so why can't the song be in Japanese? I can't believe I didn't even think about that before listening to this. My only (tiny) complaint is that I was hoping he would sing the actual line "beauty and the beast." I actually hoped for some random English to be thrown in. I guess he followed an important rule when it comes to English in J Music: "When in doubt, leave it out." (You can NEVER add to many parentheses! -__-)
Track 4: Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride
PENICILLIN ... oh PENICILLIN. I thought that it was interesting that they tried to make a slightly faster rock version of this song, but, much like Yomi, his balls are big enough to take on the English in this song. But wait! There's more than just English, there's motherfuckin' HAWAIIAN in this bitch. Hakuei is much better at English than Yomi is, to be honest. Yes, Hakuei has this Asian-mother-like accent in a few times in the songs, but it's reasonably good. It's just that he couldn’t handle the speed of the song. I think that's the cause of the English-WTF moments in the song.
I'm just leaving the Hawaiian alone. Not only does Hakuei doesn't know what he's saying there, I don't know what language it's supposed to be. Since it contains the Japanese's worst enemies (
We all know what it is), it just ends up sounding like this to me:
LLLLLLLRRRRRRELRILERILEILRIELRILRIELIRLEIRLERILERILEIRELRLEEEEEEIIII!
Aaaaaaand that's when I got lost, gave up following along, and listen to it as a faraway language that I don't nor will understand.
Track 5: Chim Chim Cher-ee
Godammit, Plastic Tree, I love you. I know I'm less than half of their average age, but I want to marry them, or at least Router’s artistically lonely voice (to make it never lonely again, losing the beauty it gained from isolation, and growing one out of love
/end terrible high school girl poetry). Seriously though, Plastic Tree is a great band, whose songs just happen to turn out lonely and/or depressing.
The only English in this cover is the title, which is pronounced properly, so props to Plastic Tree for such a great job. The verses, which they gorgeously replaced with Japanese, are virtually flawless. I can't find a thing wrong with those verses. Also, the music, in my opinion, makes this more than just a cover to me; it seems like Plastic Tree's take on the lonely life that is the chimney sweep, whose only joy is when the elusive Mary Poppins returns. No one ever thinks about what that chimney sweep does when Mary Poppins isn't there, and now this song has.
Track 6: This is Halloween
Wow. To be honest, I never gave much of a shit about Sadie until I heard this song. It's tied with Marilyn Manson as my favorite cover of "This is Halloween."
As for the English, the song is better than Yomi's in terms of pronunciation. Then again, I think a random Chinese kid pulled off the streets will have better English than Yomi (albeit that kid will badly rap an Eminem song). There are about 3 little parts that I, personally, found difficult to make out if it wasn't for the fact that I love that song and memorized the lyrics. You know ... before "The Nightmare Before Christmas" was a holy deity to suburban emo kids everywhere. Anyway, I'm sure that the little parts that people might miss are different, but are VERY MINISCULE. There's only a light, understandable, accent ... and a habit of "dis" instead of "this" at times. However, it's not like I'm gonna cut a bitch because of THAT
ಠ_
à²
Aish, sorry for picking on you so much Yomi, but your English is like my Japanese: only a select few can sorta-understand it without ant assistance, but to others, it sounds like gurgles and gibberish half the time.
This is me when speaking the few Japanese
words I know ... incorrectly ... just ... terribly
Track 7: Can You Feel The Love Tonight
This … turned out pretty well. To elaborate, there isn’t much wrong with the song English-wise. Obviously, there is the accent, but it isn’t an overbearing cow shitting all over the lyrics. Proper pronunciation, good phrasing when singing, the whole nine yards.
I’m not even much of an Aoi fan, but his voice is quite lovely in this song, it was a good choice from him. I even like how it was most synthesized sounds, which is rare for me (if it's not from the ultimate control freak in J Rock: Mana)
Off topic, but I spelled that son of a bitch up there right WITHOUT having to resort to checking Google.
AAAAAAAWWWWWWWWW YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAH!
Adorable. I'm not here to review the song musically, but the cuteness is irresistible. If it was a cupcake, I don't want to just eat it; I want to take photos of it, forever capturing the few moments with such cuteness. It can stop wars and end world hunger. Don't ask how, it just will.
*Ahem* so, this song had me concerned the most when I first heard of the cover album. Hell, there are native English speakers that can't pronounce this shit, so how would a J Rock band do? Well, color me surprised, these guys did an AWESOME job! They did more than get by with accents and made up sounds to compensate for lack of English know-how, they sang the few lines of the song like pros. There wasn't any L=R going on (if there was, I couldn't really hear it), and they sounded *gasp* fluent. Not "I can say this shit" fluent, but "I know what the hell I'm saying" fluent. Congrats, THE KIDDIE. I guess the semi-repetitiveness of "SMILE." taught them how to pronounce their Ls.
Normally, I would hark on these guys for only singing a few lines of the song, but they sang them so well, so I feel like they should get a break. Although I still wish they sang the whole song, or change the lyrics up a tad more. I do like the two lines of Japanese in here two, it's very cute, and I look forward to it very time I listen to this song. In my opinion, pronunciation-wise, these guys are the best on the album.
Track 9: When You Wish Upon a Star
NINJAMAN JAPAN
MOTHERFUCKAAAAS!
As you may or may not know, according to VKei sites, these guys only had one single, so I was surprised that they were allowed to work on such a kickass (pfft, it's Disney, what the hell am I talking about?) cover album. Then again, they problem underwent morphing timne and threatened to kill the head producer's family if they coudn't work on it. I guess these supposed badasses REALLY love their Disney.
Any-whosy-whatsies, like the whole album, these guys have their fare share of pronunciation problems. It goes without saying that it's the damn Ls fuckin' things up again. However, instead at growling at the Ls, they decided to ditch them altogether. Therefore, we get "boo" instead of "blue." Also, even though these bitches should know their Rs, they ditch that too! That's why we get things like "sta," "tuuu," and "thoooh" instead of star, true, and through. Firthermore, for a group of ninja badasses, the can't pronounce "extreme" correctly. I guess they were too busy impregnating women in those costumes to even bother pronouncing the easy sounds properly.
But I guess it doesn't matter, now does it.
Track 10: Heigh-Ho
Yomi ... I am so sorry. I'm sorry about all the Engrish jokes I said here, and all the other ones I deleted because I thought they were too harsh. Sorry for think that you had the worst English on the album, but I was wrong. Very, very, wrong.
Now, overall, Yomi DOES have fucked up English, but he isn't the most goddamn annoying. That titl ebelongs to CASCADE, a group I thought were amateurs, but have been together/disband/together again since 1993.
1993.
1993.
The year when Plastic Tree just started. And CASCADE .... just ... not that good ... ugh. I just hate damn chipmunk voices, and I want to bludgeon this helium snorting fucker with a bat. There, I said it. However, I am not here for that, so let's drop it. NOW.
While some will tease THE KIDDIE for just repeating a few lines, CASCADE taked the cake when it comes repitition. Unfornatley, these guys can pronounce Heigh-Ho in English (which, let's be honest, isn't that hard to speak Japanese as supercalifragilistic-fuckin-expialidocious). I'm not saying that this is the cancer of the album, but I just think this album would nbe better without it.
Then my sister made a revelation that has changed my viewpoint on these guys forever. Once you hear it, that's all you'll hear, and you'll die from a lack of oxygen due to the amount of immature giggles created from hearing it. This chipmunk sounds like he's saying "Hey hoe!"
Problem?
Another point that needs to be examined is the fact that he replaced many lines with Japanese. Not that I care about anything else in the song besides "hey hoe," but the Japanese fit well. Having a newly translated song fit in with the melody of a song is very difficult, and they don't have any glaring mistakes. So, in that regard, they did well. But that damn noisy fucker needs to chill with the "hey hoes." XD
Track 11: You'll be in my Heart
This song, even though it's not my favorite in the album, has the perfect blend of well-sounding tranlated Japanese and snippets of English to help with the familiarity of the original song in the cover. The accent was light (and kinda sexy XD), and English was kept to a tasteful minimum.
But nothing can beat Phil Collins. NOOOOOTHING!
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TL;DR
- Yomi has bad English, the vocalist of CASCADE thinks we're a bunch of hoes under his bidding, and Plastic Tree is amazing.
- NINJAMAN JAPAN is a band, they actually exist, and they didn't break up yet
- THE KIDDIE will get raped because of their adorable ways, and there's nothing they can do about it
- Why did I only think of fangirly things to say here? It's probably because it's late in the night and I want to fuckin' sleep.
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So ... in case there might be someone who read through this poorly-edited rambling that repeated quite a few words, what do you think about the album? What are your favorite songs, most loathed songs, opinions on Engrish, etc. I'm curious what other people think ^_^
And how is my writing? One thing is for sure, I need to be more concise :D
