Threads with too many embedded YouTube videos can cause issues for some users, so if you have a lot to share, please use text links or spoiler tags. Please give a descriptive label to all video links/embeds for future-proofing, in case the video eventually goes down.  Chronological works on IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2417890/ Typical hipster "their early stuff was the best, from before they got big" soundtrack of choice: Guilty Crown, or Gundam Unicorn. However, if you're Ascended Level, you'll reach even further back: http://blog.animeinstrumentality.net/2013/09/attack-on-titan-original-soundtrack-bombastically-fitting-but-underwhelming/#comment-17994 I really do wish we’d just get back to [Kishin Taisen] Gigantic Formula. I think that was the last work of his that I enjoyed most, and that’s probably because it was the first Sawano OST I’ve heard, so everything remains fresh. Now? It’s been done so much that I wish he’d try to do subtler fare. I remember being immediately impressed by the choir and orchestra in cóunter・attàck-mˈænkάɪnd when a friend showed me Attack on Titan's opening moments in 2013. Up to that point I had only seen anime shows from the 2000's and older, most of which had simple synthesized soundtracks. There had been some big-budget scores, like Death Note and Stand Alone Complex, but this was the moment when I fully realized - a grim reminder, if you will - that anime soundtracks were standing toe to toe with bombastic modern Hollywood, and I was missing out. I felt a dread that outside my familiar walls, huge amounts of my favorite kind of music were unknown to me, and that catching up with it all would be next to impossible. And then I didn't watch or hear any more of Attack on Titan or Sawano until two years later. I wrote, I think in 2016: In my listening these days, anime scores (orchestral and otherwise) have for the most part taken the place film scores held when I was younger. The communities even have composers with similar reputations: Joe Hisaishi and Yoko Kanno are like John Williams, beloved and deeply respected by all. And Hiroyuki Sawano is Hans Zimmer: creator of "epic" pounding scores in the biggest blockbuster shows, adored by young fans, but often criticized for recycling and laziness, for being handed gigs that should have gone to other composers, and for generally making film/anime music worse. (I observe this, but I remain strongly a fan of both Sawano and Zimmer, haha.) _NTx wrote in a conversation: There's a lot of people on the internet who accuse Sawano and Kajiura of recycling their music (the cheap phrase 'all their songs sound the same'). That doesn't make sense at all. Since the times of Bach and Mozart, composing music is about reusing musical entities that are part of your own 'musical language', manipulating and combining them in a creative way (this is the subjective part that determines if you like a composer's work or not). A musical entity alone may be 'generic' (when a lot of composers use the same entity in their music) most of the time, but all entities used by a composer together make their music distinguishable. In my case, the more I understand the composer (a composer I like to begin with) the more I enjoy his/her music. Anime Instrumentality staffmember Aftershok wrote, where Sawano could equally have been used as an example: http://blog.animeinstrumentality.net/2011/03/composer-of-the-month-yoko-kanno/2/ Consider someone like Yuki Kajiura who is an expert at what she does but rarely does anything else. Kajiura has such an ardent core fanbase because the people who found themselves enjoying Kajiura in one show are pretty much predisposed to liking the OSTs of other shows she’s worked on. As for Kanno, her fans aren’t as likely to enjoy all her work; they often embrace a few select OSTs they really like from her that just happen to fall in a genre they enjoy, while they’re indifferent to her other stuff. It raises the question of what is more admirable: an artist that consistently churns out excellent works in a way you’re pretty much sure to like or one that is just proficient at many things while taking brave and wonderful chances but may not always be what you’re looking for. Faced with the choice, I’d take the latter any day. I've experienced the same situation with metal bands, where fans will complain about one band keeping the same style across multiple albums, while elsewhere fans will complain about another band doing something different. It's win/win but also lose/lose. My personal favorites, score: There's stuff I haven't heard, even though Sawano is currently my top played Japanese composer. (I expect Yoko Kanno may take #1, someday, when I've grown up.) My top played Sawano soundtracks are XenobladeX, Attack on Titan, and Kill La Kill. The latter two were my reintroduction to anime in 2015, along with Sword Art Online, and were my first contact with Sawano, so it may be true that one tends to like best whichever Sawano score one hears first. My top played tracks are THEMEX and RE:ARR.X from XenobladeX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O59iwBYDYcw&list=PLvXMARe51eeakpkIZczyy3RsWlOQx3M4R&index=3&t=0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4DdhWZLRc8&list=PLvXMARe51eeakpkIZczyy3RsWlOQx3M4R&index=17&t=0s I've never played the game, but I listened to the soundtrack because Sawano, and this main theme is my favorite of his work I've heard. I once wrote an album review on Last.fm in which I described ascending notes as "climbing," which is exactly what this does. (By the way, that review was 4000 words long. Accidental Book is a longstanding problem I seem to have.) At 60 plays, my #3 track is Attack on Titan's E・M・A (Eren・Mikasa・Armin). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5HBuZCc3us It was slammed here: http://blog.animeinstrumentality.net/2013/09/attack-on-titan-original-soundtrack-bombastically-fitting-but-underwhelming/ The sense of compositional balance is also off in certain tracks. “E・M・A” is a prime example in which the choral hooting and hollering becomes obnoxious as it detracts from an otherwise enjoyable track with its majestic trumpet fanfares and string soundscape. But what’s even worse is that the piece goes off to a section with an enjoyable Middle Eastern that (sic) and then makes an unexpected turn into a measure in which electronica squeals and wails become extremely annoying to have to deal with all the way to the end. I guess the "majestic trumpet fanfares and string soundscape" won out for me. Pairing up a cue I want to listen to with a seemingly unrelated one I don't is a bad habit of Sawano, especially noticeable on the Kill La Kill soundtrack. However, E・M・A seems to actually be all one cue; or at least I remember it being used in full, including the electronic part, at one point in season 2. It may have bothered me early on, but I got used to it. Where I still want only the first half is my #4 most played, 重要物発光強調型12☆極★服 / Important Event Highlight Type Twelve-Star Goku Uniform, track 12 of the second Kill La Kill soundtrack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0LG1mbYBzU This is the glorious Nudist Beach anthem, which plays when their Not Gurren Lagann ship is revealed, and in other scenes toward the end of the show. It lasts until 1:53, and then stops, some boring, seemingly completely different music takes over, which eventually develops into an ominous version of the same theme. Split your tracks, man. You'll get more Last.fm scrobbles if you do. Oh, but it's been almost a decade since anyone cared about that. That's more or less why I'm writing about music on MAL now. :D KABANERIOFTHEIRONFORTRESS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9jbZiUIGsU I was frustrated by the show, but pleased with the music. I've played the main theme a fair amount (45 times) and given a dozen plays to Grenzlinie and 1coma. I listened to VIVALABIBA three times in 2016, but only got into it on a fourth listen just now. Maybe I "understand the composer" more now than I did two years ago. Same goes for that soundtrack as a whole, a lot of it impresses me a lot more now than two years ago. UNICORN from Gundam Unicorn Live performance with Sawano on piano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KskWgQlA9Ds Aside from this track, which is amazing, I decided to hold off on listening to the Gundam Unicorn soundtrack until I'd watched the anime. I'm almost finished with it now. I'll be giving this some thorough listens. When I watched the first episode and UNICORN came in on that great scene at the end, I was absolutely overcome. i-AM (or 第二楽章 : i-AM) from Blue Exorcist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTKNlpSKwgE Strange for me, as a lifelong bombast-addict, my favorite out of this score is this soft, emotional piece for piano and strings. The last minute of it is incredible. I also held off on this until I saw the anime, and this was the standout must-have cue. The earlier, harder track κr0nё from Guilty Crown is similar, but doesn't develop quite as far. Personal favorites, songs: The Way (XenobladeX insert) (Is insert a term with video games? I know VNs have OP/ED songs XD) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrm7uTvsyPk&t=0s&list=PLvXMARe51eeakpkIZczyy3RsWlOQx3M4R&index=51 It's the main theme I love as a soft acoustic song. I wish this were an anime so I could get even more versions of that theme as character songs, like recently happened with Attack on Titan. :D The lyrics are pretty good, but in my head they're even better - the somewhat Engrish line "That you’re the only one who can live my life with smiles and hopes," my mind fills in with "you’re the only one, and I will live my life inspired by your light." Copied from the Anime Songs thread: Ninelie (Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress ED) Composition and lyrics by Hiroyuki Sawano, performed by Aimer with chelly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puXCQk2rYJ8 "Don't be afraid, daybreak has come." It was nice to get this soothing ED in every episode after the frustrations of the show. Compliments to the production - this is four minutes of pleasing sounds to listen to. Layers (Re:CREATORS insert) Composed by Hiroyuki Sawano, lyrics by Benjamin & mpi, performed by Aimee Blackschleger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnjQyJutTfA Fun chugging guitar, addictive rhythm, and good English lyrics. I assume Benjamin (Anderson?) is to thank for that - the lyrics are a massive improvement over the likes of DOA and The Reluctant Heroes. A "safe" opinion might be shØut > God of ink > gravityWall > Layers, but my respective plays go 14, 8, 32, 68. Re:Creators was quite rich in song. Before My Body Is Dry (Kill La Kill insert) Composed by Hiroyuki Sawano, lyrics by mpi & David Whitaker, performed by Mika Kobayashi & David Whitaker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KSdQyluzcU But actually, my favorite version is the late game version - the score track 劇伴特化型1☆極★服, which has prominent backing vocalists, and is instrumental except on the chorus. I'd assume most people got tired of the song in general after it became a meme (and then inevitably a dead meme), and for that matter I'm sure some were tired of it by the end of the show, but this song helped get me back into anime. I watched Ryuko vs. Satsuki from episode 3 in 2014, and that planted the seed. I may have seen better fight choreography and animation since, but in terms of pure hype, not much comes close to this. (I'm not really a fan of fight choreography anyway, see my 3/10 on One Punch Man and drop on MHA. But I watched Boruto 65 three times ;P) Admittedly, I can't say much with certainty about KLK, since when I watched it I had seen only 12 days of anime, and I haven't rewatched it yet. I need to listen to Amazing Trees more. Added to daily playlist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0J3VK_8CJ0 Update: Love that song! Like a new take on "Light your heart up" from Kill la Kill. From re-listening to the Guilty Crown soundtrack for this, I seem to have gotten myself hooked on Release My Soul. It pairs up nicely with The Way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEsLjLLa9uE While attempting to explore 80's J-pop on Spotify (not the best place to do that, but it scrobbles), I came across Do As Infinity's Alive, a Sawano collaboration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFGB5pQKaRU Recent discoveries: Sadly in past years I didn't come across any hipster endorsements of Gigantic Formula, only Guilty Crown, which is... pretty good (I haven't seen the show yet, but also I have no experience of XenobladeX, which is my favorite Sawano soundtrack). So I just listened to Gigantic Formula for the first time and, yeah, it's good. The "lead single" cue (in the sense of Duel of the Fates, Across the Stars, and Battle of the Heroes) is BRAVE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GK-BLn7Ypg It's more conventional than his later work; I could have believed it was a piece of American trailer music. From the YouTube comments: LaerHeiSeiRyuu: This one is nice. It's way less busy and overdone Chiidy Bang: What exactly do you mean [by] busy and overdone? SeeASquared: Probably the fact Hiroyuki Sawano's music has too many instruments in one song. Though I don't agree with this opinion. And I think that, in addition to general listener tiredness, partially explains the preference for his older work. At what point does it go from symphony to cacophony to you? Another standout is LEGEND. (Couldn't find a video.) Excluding everything I haven't even heard yet, I can't think offhand of anything else he's done that's as unreservedly jubilant as this. It brings to mind John Williams' Victory Celebration (Return of the Jedi SE) with its festive beat, and Coldplay's Viva la Vida with its staccato strings. It even has flourishing trumpets. LEGEND's fun declines from 2 to 4 minutes, but comes back for the fifth minute, thereby avoiding that problem of certain Sawano tracks being half wanted and half not. Update: Listening to the Sawano compilation BEST OF SOUNDTRACK【emU】 (2015), "Back to the Starting Point" has a similar style. It seems to be from a 2008 J-drama called Binbo Danshi / Bomb bee men. https://wiki.d-addicts.com/Binbo_Danshi I also overlooked the Owari no Seraph soundtrack when I was collecting what I could find in 2015 - I never watched the show, the soundtrack wasn't out yet at the time, and I forgot to check later. So I just listened to that for the first time, too. The OP X.U. is one of the better Sawano songs I've heard, potentially could be one of my favorites soon. The score track I like the most so far is 襲い来る悪 by Megumi Shiraishi. I recently bought the XenobladeX soundtrack, so I'll be giving that some proper listens. In 2015 I listened to the whole thing only once, and I've listened five times or more to only 10 out of 55 tracks. But those 10 contain my top played Sawano tracks. That's called being a lazy listener, kids.  |
nDroaeOct 6, 2018 9:48 PM
| Initially Attack on Titan 3 seemed to have mostly reused music, but then came the two anti-personnel squad fights and the titan battle in episode 9. I was so taken by the music that at one point I had to rewind because I was missing what was happening in the show. Oh wait, I guess the term these days is "skip back." Hey kids, where can I get a VHS copy of the Lost Girls OVA? There's been good stuff in the emotional parts as well. Really looking forward to this soundtrack release. Sawano conversation with @_NTx: _NTx | Aug 11, 2016 12:13 AM The last month I heard good soundtracks like Koutetsujou no Kabaneri, Boku no Hero Academia and Joker Game. They were not amazing but I liked at least 4 tracks from each one. _NTx | Aug 11, 2016 1:23 AM My absolute favorite is VIVALABIBA, and I loved the adlib piano piece too, since the first half is reminiscent of 21th Century Classical Music. The main theme and 1coma are good too, reprising two of the songs at the end. The problem I had with the score is that he composed like 4 or 5 pieces (or songs) and just remixed them a lot (not as repetitive as Kajiura but still...). _NTx | Aug 13, 2016 9:19 PM I do like (a lot) what he does at the end of the main theme and 1coma. He reprises two of the songs in a powerful way, reminiscent of good-old-days Hans Zimmer's King of Pride Rock, from The Lion King (one of my favorite hollywood movie soundtracks ever). Unfortunately, I'm not that impressed by the first half of each themes. On the other hand, VIVALABIBA and ktetsu_adlib are top notch in my book :) _NTx | Apr 20, 2017 8:04 PM I watched SnK and listened to the OST. There were a few bgm tracks (as usual, fortunately Sawano compensates it with amazing vocal songs). I like his stuff, my only complain is that he usually do (at least for me) very few tracks that I like, they are excellent nonetheless. And as I said before, he compensates that doing great vocal songs. I also checked out his Aldnoah Zero OST, I liked a couple of epic tracks, and 3 or 4 songs. I'm watching SnK2 right now and the sound direction along with some of the new tracks are outstanding, and I'm glad I watched the first season, it became one of my favorite anime :) nDroae | Apr 20, 2017 10:43 PM Great :) Yeah, for me it's usually only a few tracks too, though that goes for almost all scores. Though I think in my case, based on Kabaneri, it's mostly the basic raw emotional hooks I like, whereas you prefer the more compositionally interesting stuff. Yeah, the music in SnK 2 is great! _NTx | Apr 21, 2017 12:00 AM Hopefully we can hear a new arrangement of the SnK Main Theme (my favorite track from the series, and I think my favorite bgm piece from Sawano in general) in the upcoming episodes. If I had to make a top 10 of SONGs anime composers, the #1 spot goes to Sawano for sure. _NTx | Jan 6, 2:03 AM Have you seen and/or listened to the soundtrack of Blue Exorcist? There's a particular piece called "Symphonic Suite DEVIL Third Movement eXORCiST" that is intriguing me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0rkfT6R4pM You know Sawano tends to almost copy/paste the melodies of some of his songs into his instrumental pieces (i.e. The Reluctant Heroes --> counter-attack mankind), and there's a passage at 3:06 when you could say he did the same thing there. The problem is I don't which song could be it, so hopefully you can help me. nDroae | Jan 6, 11:18 PM Yeah, though I haven't given the soundtrack much listening. That does sound like a song, but I don't recognize it :) I assume Sawano took inspiration from the obviously topically similar Da Vinci Code film scores by Hans Zimmer, that track in particular sounds similar to "160 BPM" to me. (I meant this part) 160 BPM: https://youtu.be/TcC-yd3v4jE?t=4m35s Blue Exorcist: https://youtu.be/A0rkfT6R4pM?t=2m24s _NTx | Jan 7, 12:51 AM Damn, I'll see if the Sawano Discord can help me then :^) That's actually Carmina Burana. Zimmer, Sawano, and 95% of soundtrack composers studied Carl Orff and borrowed ideas from him. His entire Carmina Burana is basically a guide of how to "compose" epic choral music. Listen to Sawano's XLTT for example. That entire piece is (kinda) O' Fortuna 2.0. The way it starts with the choir, the strings at 1:16 imitating O' Fortuna's background instruments, the repetitive elements of the piece, and so on. |
| Ha, go figure! :) I haven't even gone back to listen to those parts again yet, I was wanting to last night but just ran out of time getting things ready to post here. Then tonight I ended up spending all my time putting together a new Kenji Kawai post. That's a good one too, don't think I've heard it before - it's only on the Blue Exorcist movie OST? Great, now I gotta find that. :D |
| Drummer Yū 'masshoi' Yamauchi Passes Away at 37 https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2019-12-12/drummer-yu-masshoi-yamauchi-passes-away-at-37/.154238 Anime News Network's Rafael Antonio Pineda writes: Yamauchi is best known in anime as the drummer that composer Hiroyuki Sawano employed for his various pieces and songs. Yamauchi performed many of these pieces live, and was also a regular drummer for the Animelo Summer Live concert since 2014. He performed as session musician for such artists as LiSA, Luna Haruna, and Shoko Nakagawa. I read the headline and old favorite E・M・A instantly came to mind: Sampling through my top played Sawano tracks, they're all heavy in percussion - "pounding" was the word I used above. Very sad news. Rest in peace. |
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