Current Events

So I'm sitting here at campus with nothing to do (unfortunately I'm not comfortable working on my webpage with a Mac, all the file differences scare me) when I realized, hey, maybe I should write another rant. But this isn't really a rant... just a bunch of my thoughts regarding things I've read on various pages recently. I'm going to be focusing on issues concerning SPEED and the members, but I don't intend this to be directed towards anybody. I've been meaning to do this on a regular basis since the beginning of August but never got around to it. However, if any readers feel fit to take things to their offense, by all means, voice your own opinions as people had done regarding my previous rant.

Before I head into the rant, allow me to direct people to my new BBS . Feel free to say whatever you want in there! Right now there's very little discussion but a whole lot of news concerning the artists I like.


Let's start off with SPEED. They're naturally on the minds of several people right now due to their concert a couple of months ago and the releases coming up in the next few weeks. First we have the broadcast of the concert, or rather, the total hack job of a concert. I'm surprised so few people noticed this, but a lot of what was coming out of the speakers was not what was coming out of the girls' mouths. Unfortunately I don't have any of the concert clips on this laptop anymore (you can only hold so much on a 10-GB drive), but the example that stuck out to me the most was Body&Soul. How could people not notice that half of the lines coming from Hiroko were actually coming straight from the CD recording? Hiro's voice and delivery of those lines in the recent years are totally different from the '96-recording. Hopefully the live CD won't share the same qualities as the TV broadcast. But wait a minute, yes it does! At least I'm not the only person who has noticed the lack of many of the songs from the concert. Personally I'd rather have the full concert than those three remix tracks (the remix of White Love isn't that great). If they couldn't include all of the songs, at least they could have put in all of the singles! They're leaving out my all-time favorite SPEED song, Precious Time ;_;

While watching the songs broadcasted, I couldn't help but feel a little sad. I have to agree with all of those people who say that SPEED just isn't SPEED anymore. It's not that I feel there's a lack of unity (Hiroko and Takako seem to be as close as they've ever been), it's just that SPEED's songs were designed for a bunch of young teenagers. The dances for Body&Soul and STEADY looked really akward with their fully-grown bodies and adult fashions. And of course you can't forget the voice changes. Eriko's always had trouble with those high notes, but Hiroko can't hit the high notes like she used to. She can still hit them, just not with the same power and force that she used to. ALL MY TRUE LOVE and supposedly Wake Me Up! were transposed because of this, but the Wake Me Up! I heard sure wasn't different...

Now, regarding the topic of the release of the One More Dream CD's... Rest assured, those of you puzzled by the limited release status of the CD's are not alone. It makes absolutely no sense to me. Before certain people write me off, I'm not worried about Oricon rankings at all. Considering the poor sales of Dear Friends and the rumor that the concert wasn't sold out, I'd be surprised if the single or album entered the top three. If TPTB ("the powers that be") really wanted to raise money for charity, then they would want to sell as many copies as possible. Limiting the number of copies that can be sold says to me that TPTB don't think SPEED can sell well anymore. And honestly, I don't blame them.


Well, after talking about SPEED, I think it's natural to talk about hiro. hiro is my favorite artist, but I do notice the fact that she's not perfect. Hopefully my little SPEED-rant already scared off some people because I have a few things to say about hiro, and I'd be lying if I said they're all positive.

I think I should talk about the fanclub events first Doesn't that seem like such a long time ago? A lot happened around those weeks, and I never got my opportunity to say what I thought about hiro's White Love incident. A few people turned against me when I voiced my opinions regarding Eriko's event, it's too bad they never heard what I felt about hiro. I must say, I was extremely disappointed. It wasn't just the fact that she sang a SPEED song (which was my only beef with Eriko). She sang a SPEED song without the other three girls, and she did so even though she had said in the past (including during the previous event) that she doesn't want to sing SPEED songs without the other members. My respect for her went down that day.

That being said, I wish I had been able to see the events. They sounded really good with lots of dancing from hiro (which seems to have become a rarity, see below). It's also nice to see her artistic side come out with all of the photos she took for her fanclub goods (sure wish I could have some ;_;). Thanks to a webmaster of a site I follow, I've been able to hear some clips of the event, including hiro's cover of I'll Be There. Wow.

Unfortunately, I can't say wow about her all the time. Having seen the performance of Treasure for the Okinawa Summit, I can fully understand why hiro's last two singles haven't involved dancing. I don't know what's happened to her, but something has happened to her voice. In live performances she always sounds like she's on the verge of losing her breath... when she's standing. Now apply that to when she's dancing. When I first downloaded the mpg, I had it running minimized so I could listen to it while my boyfriend was on the computer. About halfway through the first verse, he stopped what he was doing and restored the window. He couldn't believe it was hiro singing. I could, but only because I had seen it coming months away. I have a feeling that hiro's producer, manager, or whoever coordinates her songs and their performances has arranged it so that she doesn't dance live. She simply can't handle it the way she is now. She showed promise during the SPEED concert, but then again, during SPEED songs, the vocal and dancing duties are shared with less emphasis on the dancing. This reminds me of something she said during the promotion of Your Innocence. She and her staff were working with several songs, and they had felt that Your Innocence was best suited for her at the time. Perhaps they had this problem in mind. Hopefully one day we'll see dancing and singing of the same quality as her first performance of Treasure, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. It's too bad, because I really think she's a good dancer, and I don't feel that she doesn't like dancing. If that were the case then she wouldn't be taking ballet lessons, or they wouldn't have made a remix of Give it to myself for her to dance to during her fanclub event or added choreography to In Season.

Thinking about hiro dancing makes me think of the PV for Confession. The chorus in the PV contains a dance that we'll probably never see live. Watching her sing in front of a mic stand though works well for her image. It projects a very mature and sophisticated hiro. Plus it allows her to wear skirts as she seems to have taken a liking to. It's a shame Confession isn't selling too well though. I really like the whole single. But, I have noticed that the single is holding a pretty steady position on the charts unlike the other songs which seem to jump around all over the place. I think that the song will end up selling for a long time. I think her first week sales were affected by the lack of music show appearances right around the time of the release, but now that she's appearing on shows on almost a daily basis, I think sales will boost a little.

While I'm speaking of her singles, I must congratulate her on another Nihon Record Taisho nomination for "Song of the Year" with Your Innocence. I must say though, I have no idea how this could have happened. Sure, I liked the song, but it wasn't one of the top selling singles of the year. Add to the fact that she is ignored in the other award shows and the Kouhaku, it makes little sense to me. Nevertheless, it's nice to see her get recognition like that. My bets are on Kuwata Keisuke for winning the award.

Well, that's about it. I had more on mind when I started this, but I ended up writing this over two days. I pretty much forgot everything. This whole thing turned out to be a bit more rantish than I had intended, but this IS my rant corner.

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