(As you probably noticed, I’m breaking the radio silence I announced last week. I reached a point with my various projects where I have to step back for a while. I’ll be going back down the rabbit hole around the July 4 holiday.)
The second quarter is pretty much done, and I’ve got to say that old English band name is quite prescient — pop will eat itself. Rather than spreading the release schedule out, the labels are stacking all the marquee names for fall. Used to be spring would ramp up to the summer tours, while fall ramped up to the holiday shopping season. Now it seems everything gets dumped in the fall, which means a lot of material overlooked.
Last quarter, I assumed releases wouldn’t start picking up till Q2. They haven’t really. And it makes drafting preliminary favorite lists difficult. That doesn’t mean I won’t try.
A few weeks back, a friend of mine posted a bit of trivia regarding a chart-topping song from 20 years ago. Ah, yes — 1987. I turned 16, the perfect age for music to leave an indelible impression on a young mind. I posted a reply listing a number of albums released that year. I figure I may as well expand on that list. Not surprisingly, all these titles are in my music collection.
I’m splitting this entry into multiple parts. I wrote it all in one sitting, but the scroll is a bit long.
This entry summarizes the release posts made over the last few weeks. I am really not impressed with how the US fall release schedule is shaping up. Every time I look at what’s coming up, I have to stifle a yawn. So this round-up is 99 percent Japanese.
While I was browsing around my music library for the gay pride entry, I scrolled right past the Gay American Composers discs released by CRI in the late ’90s. At the time, classical labels were marketing directly to gay audiences by packaging the music of gay European composers in provocative covers. CRI put a spin on that kind of commercialism by compiling its own such series with the music of American composers.
Gay American Composers, Vol. 1 was released in 1996 and contained mostly works by living composers. Gay American Composers, Vol. 2, released in 1997, focused on dead composers. Lesbian American Composers (1999, I think?) focused on — wait for it — women.
CRI went out of business in 2003, and while its masters are now owned by New World Records, these discs are pretty much out of print. Here, then, are select works from all three volumes of the series.
Ruth Anderson, "SUM (State of the Union Message)"
Henry Cowell, "The Lilt of the Reel"
David Del Tredici, "Fantasy Pieces: Allegro Minacciando… Diabloique"
They’re not the usual mainstream gay pop figures — Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Boy George — but they’re not exactly … undiscovered either. I was hoping to make some new discoveries, but no one in the Hypeful entry was unknown to me.
So I’m going to extend Hypeful’s offerings with a few artists previously mentioned on this site. It’s not as extensive a list as Hypeful’s, and a number of these files were offered before.
Hajime Chitose is set to release a new double A-side single, titled "Anata ga Koko nite Hoshii/Miyori no Mori", on Aug. 22, so says Oops Music. The four-track release also includes the coupling tracks "Bojou Love is a many splendored thing" (could it be a cover?) and "Ushinawareta Monotachi e". Each track is associated with a TV tie-in, which I won’t go into detail. It’s been a little more than a year since Hajime released her previous album, Hanadairo.
Quruli streams its forthcoming new album, Tanz Walzer, for three days on its Myspace page, so says ITmedia News (via Oops Music.) From June 22-24, the complete album will be available for preview on Myspace before its official release on June 27. Although standard practice in the US, album previews on Myspace are not common in Japan. Of course, I hear the album has already been leaked on the Evil Sharing Networks anyway …
TOKIE, who’s played bass for RIZE, AJICO and LOSALIOS, has formed a new band named unkie, and they release their debut album on July 11, titled The Price of Fame. unkie also includes guitarist Aoki Yutaka (VOLA & THE ORIENTAL MACHINE, downy) and Kido Hiroshi (JUDE, Fujifabric). More details are available over at Bounce.com. The band’s web site isn’t quite launched, and a quick web search this morning didn’t unearth any sound clips. I’m really curious to hear what this band sounds like.