Sleep deprived Kenn here. Hope you all can read the title in the image, because I sure can't.




Title: Bad Bye
Producer: Koman
PV: CAxis
Genre: Pop Rock?
Vocaloid: 初音ミク

Kenn's comment: I'm not sure how long this song has been out but I like it! The guitar work for the song is pretty darn spiffy, though what really got me is that wonderful chorus. It's nothing spectacularly new and amazing, but it's really grown on me.

Discovered this song through a cover by Mi-tan (and his glorious voice).

It's been a long time since I had Lily on the blog...






Title: WAVE
Producer: niki
Genre: Electronic - Pop
Vocaloid: LILY

Kenn's Comment: It's pretty darn good. Well, I like it a lot. I think this may be the first time I've listened to something by niki, and I think I might have been missing a lot.

Vocaloid activity on channels I follow have slowed down a lot, so if I do skip a week, it would be because either I haven't found a song I really like, or there hasn't been any updates.

Anywho, enjoy the awesome Lily!

This one's a really bouncy, fun and cheerful song.




Title: Clap Hip Cherry
Producer: Junky
PV: たま
Vocaloid: GUMI (Power)

Kenn's Comment: Happy and bouncy perfectly describe this one. The detached guitar chords, and the...I'm not actually sure what it's called, but the synth'd melody are what really give it that feel. The vocal line follows suit. The line kind of rolls along, bouncing every now and then. Listen to it, and you'll see why I say that.

Also, I'm pretty sure this is another Red Riding Hood themed song. 

Is it odd that I can recognize Wakamura's MMDPVs without having to see the credit splash?






Title: Fake Doll
Producer: 八王子P
Genre: Pop
Vocaloid: 初音ミク

Kenn's Comment: An electronic-pop song by HachiojiP and it's pretty darn good. I'm more of a rock person myself, but I'm always up for a good pop song, especially when Miku sounds this good!

Visual wise, it's more or less your typical Wakamura PV. I've always found the MMD models to be a bit stiff in motion in his (or her) PVs. The effects are pretty spiffy though, I have to admit.

Don't mind the title - the song more than makes up for it.




Title: Masked bitcH
Lyrics: Q*Left
Music: ギガP
Genre: Pop
Vocaloid: GUMI

Kenn's Comment: If this doesn't remind you of K-Pop, I don't know what will. It sounds kind of like something an idol group would do! GUMI sounds really good in this. Like really good. The effects on her voice as well as all the background masks any imperfections. Unsurprisingly, heavy breathing using a vocaloid still sounds a bit funny.

Anywho, I chanced upon this song through two very, very awesome covers of the song.

The first, 96猫. Her cover  is quite similar to GUMI's version. A little bit lower in voice, but all in all, a very sturdy performance. The song itself suits Kuro's voice.



And here's the other one by おつも. Holy mother of God. He's great. Like awesome. He makes the song sound like it was an idol group song. If he had maybe one or two other guys with him (if they all sounded like おつも, we might have a dangerous song), then I think we'd actually have an idol group.



Anywho, enjoy the song and the two covers! I'll see you all back here for tomorrow's manga of the week.

The song and video...are so sad.

You know what else is really sad? How slow my computer has been these past few days.






Title: HEAVEN
Producer: はりー
Genre: Pop
Vocaloid: 初音ミク

Kenn's Comment: It's always a speeding truck isn't? The same kind of truck is the cause of pretty much every single tragedy I can think of Japanese anime related death.

Anywho, cynicism aside, this week saw a three way battle between this, an emotional Miku song, an energetic electronic song with a great looking PV, or a rockish GUMI with godly tuning. Tough choices resulted in this one being chosen. Maybe I'm just a sucker for watching people die or something but I do feel like this was the best of the three. Wait until you get to the end of the PV before your tears start welling. Damn.

Also, here's a cover of the song by KK. It came out really...really fast.

This week we've got a wonderfully popular song with the 鏡音 twins.




Title: おおかみは赤ずきんに恋をした, Ookami ha Akazukin ni Koi wo Shita, The Wolf who Fell in Love With Red Riding Hood
Producer: ひとしずくP
Genre: Pop
Vocaloid: 鏡音リン・レン

Kenn's Comment: English subtitles here.

It's a Rin/Ren song that uses their lower registers! I don't know about you guys, but I really can't take their higher registers which are used way too much (imo).

Anywho, Ren's voice is easily one of the lowest Ren's I've heard in a very long time. He sounds like a boy! Rin's voice is more or less the standard pitch, as if memory serves me correct, it's at more or less the same range as ココロ.

It's a catchy song with a really nice chorus. I'm really liking the song, especially any part where the twins are singing together, like the bridge and chorus. The song itself is a spin on Little Red Riding Hood, where in this one, the two are something like star crossed lovers - with the wolf cursing his endless fate of being the bad guy in the story. It's a rather tragic song despite it's upbeat composition.

The song is also is covered by the amazing duo of ぽこた and 花たん for their upcoming album, DDirndl.Frau. For their cover, click here.

This week, some lovely GUMI!




Title: 彼の彼女, Kare no Kanojo, His Girlfriend
Producer: わるりり
Lyrics: まじゃ
PV: まきの　せな
Vocaloid: GUMI (Whisper)

Kenn's Comment: Where do they get video for stuff like this? Is it like B-roll stuff? Though I do feel like I've seen some of them before.

Anywho, this song is great. GUMI Whisper fits this song like a glove. It's got the right touch of a soft voice and a good register. Another thing I really like about this is how clearly the lyrics come through. I talk about this often and it's that the voice is covered up by the instrumentals. In this one, GUMI's clear as a bell. It's a lovely song too, so you better enjoy it!

This week we head back to じん and IA for the third song I've featured (I think).






Title: チルドレンレコード, Children Record
Producer: じん
PV: じづ
Vocaloid: IA

Kenn's Comment: There's a date at the end of the PV that I'm not entirely sure of. 8.15 is the date I think, and I'm putting my guesses on the sale of an upcoming album.

Anywho, this one is the...third song (or something like that) in the series by じん. They all feature that girl with the white and blue dress in one part of the PV or another, so I'm assuming she's a rather important character.

Anywho, the art for the PV is awesome as always, and the music this time around is a lot more rock-ish compared to the other two which came off almost entirely as pop. IA's voice is fine is this, though it might sound a bit like Miku to someone who hasn't heard too much of IA. The parts where じん dips a bit lower into IA's voice are where her distinctive voice shines.

If you haven't been able to tell, these distinctive voices are easily one of my favourite parts of each voice. They make them unique and in a way, can give you a good idea as to which voices will do well with which kinds of songs. By no means does that mean that Miku will never do rock because of her high voice, as it's done more often than not. Anywho before I start ranting for hours, I'll cut it short here.

The song's pretty cool, but the PV is what really takes it for me.






Title: 情動クラシック, Joudou Classic, Classical Emotions
Producer: アテコスリ
Genre: Pop
Vocaloid: 初音ミク

Kenn's Comment: That video is pretty darn snazzy. The four boxes are obviously emotions (though anger is evidently missing), but due to my lack of understanding, I'm trying to figure out how they're related to the stuff that happens.

Anywho, the song is more or less your standard fare. It's not amazing, but it's still pretty good. This register for Miku is what I'm used to hearing. Whenever someone goes and uses the upper registers for the entire song, it really just bugs me. People often say that anime is full of girls with high squeaky voices, but Miku's high voice pushes squeaky to a whole new level.

Anywho, enjoy this one! The retro-animation style of the PV gives it a pretty unique feel.

This one's pretty awesome.






Title: うたをうたうひと, (The) Singer Sings
Producer: ぽわぽわP
Genre: Pop
Vocaloid: 初音ミク

Kenn's Comment: The title is kind of funny. うたうひと (utau-hito) is literally 'song person', though I'm much more used to seeing 'singer' as 歌手 (kashu).

The beat is pretty darn cool, and I get the feeling that's Miku's soft voice? It's not indicated whether it's APPEND, though I've noticed that they're not really specifying between most of the APPEND voices now. Probably for the best because it keeps the Vocaloid as a single entity rather than having non-append and append's multiple voices.

The chorus is great though there's a part somewhere in the middle with a synthesized choral chord that I couldn't done without. Felt a bit out of place as it's the only part that it comes in.

Enjoy!

This week, it's IA!






Title: Re;Birth
Producer: SeleP
Art: 優木きら さん
Genre: Pop
Vocaloid: IA

Kenn's Comment: If someone covered it, I think it'd sound a bit like ALI Project, because of the way the melody sounds and feels. I hear seleP's songs often are pretty dark, involving things like killing your lover...so I wouldn't be surprised if this one involves something like that. The "Jailed for seven years" seems to imply something along those lines.

Anywho, it's been a while since IA's taken center stage on the blog. Lots of GUMI and Miku as of late though you shouldn't take it to mean that there hasn't been a lot of IA songs. I'm actually quite happy about all the attention she's been getting. While she's not nearly as popular as GUMI was at this point of her release, she's still more popular than the AH Soft ones - they've more or less faded into the background (with the exception of Miki, who just barely stands outside that curtain). IA's got more or a less a steady stream of good songs, so I don't think she'll be losing favour with producers anytime soon. If Lily and IA could gain more popularity, it'd be great because these two have really good sound voices that are lower than that of the more popular Vocaloids. A nice mature sounding voice can be done really well with Lily, so I'm hoping they take some more notice of her range, rather than exploiting the upper ranges of Miku and the others.

For those of you who noticed, the title is in English today (of the post, Re;Birth is the actual title). Having problems with my machine, and I can't seem to change over to the Japanese language setting at the moment, so you might be seeing a lot less Japanese on the blog until I sort this out.

A few months too late for this, but it's a good song!







Title: Earth Day
Producer: Harry
PV: Sachico, Scotch, Sena
Genre: Power Pop
Vocaloid: 初音ミク


Kenn's Comment: Earth Day might have been back in April, but there's nothing stopping me from putting this song up when it's almost July! Anywho, I really wish more people used this voice for Miku. I'm really not a fan of her high register, which I find I'm hearing a lot more often now a days. This voice is just a lot more pleasing, less squeaky and a bit easier to hear!

Anywho, the PV is pretty cute, though I don't quite see how it's related to Earth Day...and the song itself probably isn't related to the Earth Day we know and love here in North America...or is it just a BC thing? 

I've been seeing a lot of GUMI lately...




Title: しゅくふくのうた, Shukufuku no Uta, Song of Blessing
Producer: タカノン
Illus: 510
Genre: Pop
Vocaloid: GUMI

Kenn's Comment: I know I say this about all the songs I put up, but this one's great. I really like it! I only looked a few songs to put up this week (all using GUMI), and this one really stood out from the crowd. GUMI's voice really just sounds really good in this, not too high and not too low.

I'm battling through a cold right now, so I'll just leave it at that.

This week, we're going back to one of my favourite producers, BuzzG





Title: ラムダ, Ramuda, Lambda (98% sure that's right)
Producer: BuzzG
PV: ぽたこ
Genre: Pop
Vocaloid: GUMI

Kenn's Comment: BuzzG's songs always are so good. GUMI's voice always sounds great and the backing always is at a good level. When I first heard the song, I was hoping for something slower. The piano at the beginning lulled me into expectation of something different from BuzzG. Then the band kicked in and it was more or less your typical. It's a great song though.

The PV is done beautifully too. It's kind of like a pastel-y colour, no? I'm not really good with colours, so I won't dwell on that topic.

If I translated the title wrong, drop a comment with the right one and I'll be changing it stat.

Finally a song with a title I can read!


Also, to make up for the Song of the Week I didn't do yesterday, here's another one.

I'll probably end up putting the Song of the Week up later though.






Title: アイロニ, Irony
Producer: すごっぷ
Art: はるはる
Genre: Pop
Vocaloid: 初音ミクSOFT

Kenn's Comment: I rather like this one. I admit that Miku doesn't sound as good as she does in the second one, but this I liken towards more of an acoustic sounding song. I'm rather fond of the general sound of the song. The hook is really quite nice, and the verses sounds pretty good too. The PV is wonderfully animated. Also, that damned bird. Don't you just want to give the girl a big hug?



Title: エンパス１４４, Empath 144
Producer: ゆうゆP
Art/PV:なぎみそ
Genre: Power Pop
Vocaloid: 初音ミク

Kenn's Comment: What that title means, I'm not entirely sure. Anywho, it's an awesome song. Quite a bit different from Irony above, but a great song nonetheless. The PV's pretty darn cool too. Can't find much to say about this one other than it's pretty cool and it's a good song. Hm.

The PV is pretty cool. I kind of like ones like this over the animated ones.




Title: Magician's Operation
Producer: EZFG
Genre: Electronic
Vocaloid: 巡音ルカ

Kenn's Comment: I'd have to say that the PV is probably what really struck me the most. Then how similar it kind of sounds to a song that might be made by AVTechNO!.

It's a great song and sounds awesome. That and it's not 30 seconds long. It's as much about Luka's vocals as it the electronic track. I'm usually a stickler for having the voice not be up against a lot of competition from the track itself, but there are exceptions. Electronic-oriented songs have that as a trait of the style. When you have the same thing, but in a rock or pop song, things are quite a bit different. It's like a live show where the vocalist doesn't have a mic, while the rest of the band has amps and whatnot.

Wonder if people who make the PVs for these Vocaloid videos can use them in a porfolio. Some of them are really, really good. The more creative ones would look good in a portfolio, and so would the really well animated ones. Talented people.

The song is about 30 seconds long....which greatly upsets me.






Title: 天堕-序章-, Not sure how to read the first part, second I'm pretty sure means 'Prologue'
Producer: 乙P
Genre: Pop
Vocaloid: IA

Kenn's Comment: Given that 'Prologue' is in the title, I'm really hoping this is just a teaser for a full length song that'll come out in the future. It's so freaking good! IA's voice in this one is just so well done and the PV too! It looks like it's the trailer for an upcoming game or something. Song definitely is reminiscent of something of that sort.

If a full song does come out, I'll put it up and try to link it back to this one.

Title: セツナトリップ, Setsuna torippu, Moment Trip
Producer: Last Note
PV: こみね
Illust.: のん
Genre: Pop
Vocaloid: GUMI power

Kenn's Comment: It feels like forever since I did one of these.

GUMI's tuning in this one is magnificent. She sounds so very human. The song also has a very distinctly Japanese sound to it, though not quite as pronounced as say, 千本桜, but it's there nonetheless.

The PV swings between colourful, energetic scenes with the lyrics, and more toned down scenes that are usually background-less.

All in all, it's a great, fast piece with near godly tuning with GUMI Power. The guitar and bass are great too.

A little late, but at least it's up.






Title: 幻奏歌, Gensouka, Illusion Song (not sure what it means, but I'm going by what I think it means)
Producer: フェイP
Genre: Not sure what I'd call it.
Vocaloid: GUMI

Kenn's Comment: The instruments really make the song. The combination of the violin and piano really give it that special touch.

The channel I follow for a lot of my Vocaloid fix put up this summary of the song and it's PV:

The PV of the song explains the song in it's entirety. A story of a village girl intrigued with music and a kind soul who finally teaches her the piano to his last breath." -melo

It's a wonderful song and totally deserves the #1 spot it did last week.

And here's a cover of it by のぶなが (Nobunaga)



And another one by Φ串Φ (Kushi)