Woohoo a banger album from 1999, I’ve been a fan of Aiko for the last few years after discovering her more recent albums, 2021’s ‘Doushitatte Tsutae-rarenai kara’ and this year’s ‘Ima no Futari wo Otagai ga Miteru’, but I hadn’t really checked much of her previous output. This is the 2016 hi-res remaster of 1999’s ‘Chiisana Marui Koujitsu’ and it is excellent, Will definitely be looking at the rest of her early discography.
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She dropped around 7 new songs this year, so we might see a new album next year, maybe even mid 2024 after her world tour concerts.
I talked about it a little bit in thread earlier when I made that huge Ado post, but didn’t really go too deep into it. I think her first official song with Universal Music Japan “Usseewa” helped her rise to stardom. Some people say its because its a controversial song, some people say its because vocaloid music been getting more popular in Japan, or its really just a stroke of luck that she gotten a rise of stardom on her birthday. Because Usseewa was released on her last day being 17, so she basically got her birthday wish lol. The way I see it, its just whoever her manager or whoever in charge of Ado next move is just a genius. Ado keeps reaching to new audiences pretty much every year since she started in 2020. The way I see it: she took Japan with the song “Usseewa”; she then took Asia with her 1st album “Kyougen”; then she got a more global scale recognition with a collab with one of the most popular anime series ever which is the One Piece movie; her last new audience reach is with the kpop community with the girl group LE SSERAFIM as Ado sung a little part in one of their new song. She also recently sung the opening for Spy x Family Season 2, but I don’t think she really reached a lot of new audience with that one. So basically, Ado gotten really lucky on her first song, but whoever her manager is the real MVP for keeping the snowball effect after that stroke of luck for Ado and keep giving her really good gigs to make her popularity really soar.
The below video I posted earlier in the Jmusic thread, but this basically talked about her list of accomplishments from age 6 - 20 (she is currently 21 right now).
I like Suisei too. I never mess with Vtubers because that isn’t really my kind of thing, but I can vibe with Suisei music. My favorite song from Suisei is probably her most famous one which is “Stellar Stellar”. I actually like the “First Take” version a lot more than the original. I mainly listen to new artist nowadays for both western and jmusic. For western, I recently got into artist like Don Toliver, Travis Scott new Utopia album, MIKE, Teezo Touchdown, etc etc. For Jmusic, the new artist I’ve been getting into is obviously Ado, Reona, Yorushika, Milet, even that new industrial band from Bang Dream My Go!!! with the singer VA being Youmiya Hina (she is one of the newer VAs I started to really like recently), and etc etc. I go back sometimes to listen to old songs, but mainly to listen to my old favorite songs like Supercell Today Is A Beautiful Day Album, Yanagi Nagi old tracks, ClariS, or classic Key Studio songs by Jun Maeda.
Decided to check out more Vtuber music, this just came out a few weeks ago and is Ookami Mio’s first studio album, so I figured it would be a good point to jump in. All in all not bad, I like her voice and some of the compositions were pretty decent. Obviously a little average technique and skill wise but still solid for a debut album. I’ll keep an eye out for more in the future.
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I never really actively explore Vtubers unless they made something cool or someone told me I have to check something out. I always think of Vtubers as current day idols (which I like idols), but for some reason still never really clicked with me. But the couple of Vtubers I do kinda like is these 3 with AZKi being my favorite among them. I don’t think any of them have an album yet except maybe Aoi, and I probably never checked it out because I never really cared. These 3 Vtubers are pretty cool and I would get an album from AZKi.
AZKi:
This one is cool too:
Aoi Channel:
Tsukino Mito:
Bang Dream came out with a new Vtuber band recently with a band consisting of vocals, 2 guitars, keyboardist, and a DJ. I check out some of their stuff and mostly like Miyako streams as she usually draws and talk about her lessons and how she became a keyboardist which is pretty cool and chill stream. As for music, I didn’t like their first song lol. But I’m trying to be open minded and looking forward what their next song will sound like.
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Not keen on watching streamers for the whole duration of their streams since I’d rather be listening to music over that amount of time (leading to the following point), but I ended up becoming a bit of a hololive clip-watcher in 2021 after the YT algorithm started heavily recommending their music. A lot of fun moments, even though some aspects can be a bit cringey like the GFE/ unicorn fodder, which is very much NOT my cup of tea; however, they’re really just another branch of homegrown entertainment like NicoNicoDouga/YT 歌い手 (Utaite/Cover Artists) and ボカロP (Vocaloid Producers) that predated and currently coexist with them (extension of the former with the exclusive anonymity plus the “virtual” aspect of the latter.) On the topic of NicoNicoDouga, a good chunk of corporate vtubers were former streamers on that platform. Interestingly, if you swap the streaming with anime and back up with a corpo and you end up with Idolmaster, Love Live, etc. I wonder if you’ll eventually see a vtuber anime 
.
Spiel above aside, some of my favorites that haven’t been mentioned include:
Towa sounds similar to VALSHE who I listened to very often over a decade ago.
(Unlucky Morpheus who did the compsition/lyrics/instrumentals on Towa’s original ended up covering it themselves with Fuki’s vocals)
Throwing Watame and Kanade in the mix, too.
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Well considering there are already light novels about vtubers. I’d say it probably isn’t that far off 
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The future’s going to be terribly meta, isn’t it? lmao
As the great Xzibit prophesied, “Yo dawg, I heard you like vtubers, so I put vtubers in your vtuber anime so you can watch animated vtubers streaming while we’re streaming vtuber anime.”
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Been chilling at home a lot more cause of the weather and viruses spreading like wild fire. So I have been listening to all my “Liked” songs of 2023 for Jmusic and gathered a top 25. Not gonna share it here cause I’m pretty embarrassed at my picks 
. I listened to all 248 songs again with only the Susvara. Will probably do it again with the Mysphere 3.2 (which will start tonight lol), then the SR1a, and then Onkyo A800. For now, my top 25 is only based on memory and the Susvara.
I will say my favorite new discovery for 2023 is the artist Yorushika (N-buna and Suis). All I can say that I like about Yorushika is I really like her voice and that she sings a lot of upbeat music with depressing love song lyrics or just depressing lyrics. It also help that N-buna does the music so that might be another reason why I am a fan of Yorushika.
If you want a taste of Yorushika music, I really like this song Moonbath:
Yorushika - Moonbath Qobuz Link:
https://open.qobuz.com/track/231821174
Youtube Video:
I would recommend her album (my personal favorite) Plagiarism if you want to start to dive into her discography:
Yorushika - Plagiarism Qobuz Link:
https://open.qobuz.com/album/v6ozofd26nd5a
I don’t recommend Youtube since it looks like its locked unless you are a Youtube Premium member, so probably look it up on Tidal or Apple music or whatever music services you have. If you want a small taste of the album, here is a playlist on Youtube or Spotify:
Hope everyone stays healthy and safe and have a Happy New Year
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The LiSA official Youtube has been uploading all of her full music videos over the past week, 24 in total. Previously there was no way to watch any of these online for free legally, since a majority of them just did not exist on the platform or did but in a cut down sample clip format instead.
What a great Christmas/New Years gift for us fans, some of these I am only seeing for the first time in there entirety now. Here are some of my favorites
It’s awesome to remind myself why she is my favorite singer, such talent and a wide range of music over the years. I’m hoping for a new album announcement and release in 2024 and fingers crossed for a world tour.
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New single otw for the op of mahouka S3! The few seconds of preview sounds awesome already
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Haha yeah, I forgot she did the op in the first season until these videos lol
Speaking of mahouka, I’m gonna give the LN a chance before the third season in April
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Recently got into Yuko Imai’s (今井優子) catalogue and ended up ordering the vinyl for this album.
The producer, songwriter, and arranger for this album is the prolific Toshiki Kadomatsu (角松敏生) who has his own stuff, but has written and produced for the likes of Anri (for Timely!!) and other city pop artists.
Also did the same for Vocaland’s albums in the late-'90s. Cool stuff.
Qobuz: m@u by Mariko Gotō
Tidal: m@u by Mariko Gotō
Spotify: m@u by Mariko Gotō
Listening to some old favorites of mine tonight, Mariko Goto solo albums, I never was as hot on her solo material as I was when she was apart of Midori, but I got to say listening to these albums all these years later… this shit is fire. Basically everything that made her awesome in Midori but with more of a pop focus.
I think I’m gonna go on a bit of a Mariko discography marathon the next few nights 
Bocchi live!!! 
I listened to the live album version a few weeks ago and it was amazing! Having more kessoku band is always a good thing 
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I didn’t realize the Blu Ray released last year, only found out when they released the album version a few weeks back. I think it’s nice to put some human faces with the singers lol
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Qobuz: BLACK BOX by Reol
Tidal: BLACK BOX by Reol
Spotify: BLACK BOX by Reol
God damn… new Reol goes fucking hard 
I didn’t think it was possible for her to get even more talented but here we are.
btw I know this album is mostly singles since her last album with like 5 new songs, but I don’t listen to singles so this all new to me 
Qobuz: Spectre by BLU‐SWING
Tidal: Spectre by BLU‐SWING
Spotify: Spectre by BLU‐SWING
Still catching up on 2023 albums and new BLU-SWING is great! smooth Jazz like smooth af, with some slight city pop and hip hop flair added in for some tracks. Just a really damn good album, something that you would put on at the end of a hard day and relax with a drink. This honestly might be one of their best yet
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I swear, '87~'95 is like the sweet spot for atmospheric ballads. Added to my need-to-get-on-cassette (and LP if there’s ever a release) queue.
Started getting back into more VGM/chiptune/tracker stuff.
Nahhhh
I can’t believe she brought back White Album 2 in 2024. Even though this is a cover album and obviously not the same singer, it still got the feelings coming back to me 
GOATY SONG, STORY, and ART. Thank you YURiKA for making me remember some good times. I even follow her twitter because of this. She just got a new fan today just for this amazing cover she did.
Qobuz Link:
http://open.qobuz.com/album/hm12u1ph3phjb
Spotify Link:
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