http://www.syncmusic.jp/wordpress/?p=14666 DIR EN GREY’s new mini album “THE UNRAVELING” which was released on April 3rd was ranked 1st for the Oricon CD album daily ranking of April 2nd. This is DIR EN GREY’s first time to be ranked 1st on Oricon ranking in their career. “THE UNRAVELING” was attracting attention before the release since the CD is composed of the new song “Unraveling” and old songs like “Gou”, “Kasumi” and “THE FINAL” remade. Proof that people prefer the old stuff: it sells better than the new stuff. (Thx pallmid!)
by gofromjrocknyc
April 12, 2013 11:16 am · 12
·

http://www.syncmusic.jp/wordpress/?p=14666

DIR EN GREY’s new mini album “THE UNRAVELING” which was released on April 3rd was ranked 1st for the Oricon CD album daily ranking of April 2nd. This is DIR EN GREY’s first time to be ranked 1st on Oricon ranking in their career.

“THE UNRAVELING” was attracting attention before the release since the CD is composed of the new song “Unraveling” and old songs like “Gou”, “Kasumi” and “THE FINAL” remade.


Proof that people prefer the old stuff: it sells better than the new stuff.

(Thx pallmid!)

by futurakei
April 11, 2013 07:52 pm · 3
·

Random News Roundup

About bands previously discussed in the Jrocknyc shoutbox. Hope it’s useful/interesting to someone :)

ling toshite shigure’s 5th Album, i’mperfect, Out Now
￥ 3,059 | 2013.04.10 | AICL-2526 
Sony Music Associated Records

ling toshite shigure - i’mperfect Tracklist

  1. Beautiful Circus
  2. abnormalize
  3. Metamorphose
  4. Filmsick Mystery
  5. Sitai miss me
  6. make up syndrome (album mix)
  7. MONSTER
  8. キミトオク
  9. Missing ling

OHP: http://sigure.jp/
Via: ナタリー - [Power Push] 凛として時雨「i’mperfect」インタビュー (1/3).

9mm Parabellum Bullet’s 5th Album Dawning Drops on June 26th

The new 9mm album has 13 tracks and the “complete” limited pressing will include a DVD with 17 PVs. They will also release a single titled “Answer And Answer” on May 29th and go on a big summer tour starting in July.

Dawning [w/ DVD, Limited Edition] (9th Anniversary Ver.)
￥ 4500 | 2013.06.26 | TOCT-29168
Dawning Regular Edition
￥ 2800 | TOCT-29169
EMI Music Japan

9mm Parabellum Bullet - Dawning Tracklist

  1. The Lightning
  2. Grasshopper
  3. Answer And Answer
  4. Zero Gravity
  5. シベリアンバード ～涙の渡り鳥～
  6. Scarlet Shoes
  7. コスモス
  8. Wild West Mustang
  9. Starlight
  10. ハートに火をつけて（ALBUM Ver.）
  11. Caution!!
  12. 黒い森の旅人
  13. The Silence

OHP: http://9mm.jp/
Via: ナタリー - 9mm、5thアルバム「Dawning」“9周年盤”に17曲PV集.

VAMPS LIVE 2012

New Vamps tour DVD, for whatever it’s worth. Check out the DVD price.

￥ 6660 | 2013.04.24 | UIBV-6660/1 
Delicious Deli Records

Via: ナタリー - VAMPS、ティザーで「VAMPS LIVE 2012」魅力先取り.

by saishoe
April 6, 2013 08:48 am · 5
·

Oh, hello, 12012! You want to release a mini album this month, too? I bet it won’t sound like anybody else AT ALL!

by thechexican
April 5, 2013 04:01 pm ·
·

Angelo - “Calvary” PV

I’m a little bummed out by how bored they come across. The music is pretty dynamic, but they make it look like they’re at such a “been-there-done-that” part of their career. I do, however, like the visual poetry behind the whole apple of sin hanging on the cross theme.

But in the end, it’s about the music, and I haven’t been this enthused about (relatively) new Japanese rock releases that weren’t LUNA SEA/SUGIZO specific since the late 2000’s.

I think D’espierrotsRay deserves some love. Shall we discuss? :)

Note: I thought the song title was the word “Cavalry” misspelled; according to Wikipedia, turns out “Calvary” is the site outside of Jerusalem where the crucifixion occurred. Everyday’s a school day…

Apple | iTunes Match (2013) So having my 24,000 songs in the cloud is a bit of a waste of time — using it would kill my 2gb/mo data plan. And having my 160kbps mp3 rips upgraded to 256kbps aac was a clusterfuck. It took DAYS of scanning and uploading and deleting and downloading to get shit upgraded, and even then, 1) not all songs in an album got upgraded, and 2) iTunes formatted it [artist] > [album] > [track number] [song title], with no way for me to tell it to stick THE FUCKING YEAR in there somewhere, and 3) iTunes doesn’t know SHIT about j-rock.  Woulda been simpler to do a search for “metallica discography 320”, then using Flash Renamer and Tag & Rename to format the tracks and folders to your liking! (Plus iTunes 11, despite its improvements, still farts along like a lazy coworker doing the bare minimum. The Zune PC app is ridiculously more capable.)  I don’t recommend iTunes Match for ANYTHING.   :(
by gofromjrocknyc
March 31, 2013 08:37 am · 1
·

Apple | iTunes Match (2013)

So having my 24,000 songs in the cloud is a bit of a waste of time — using it would kill my 2gb/mo data plan.

And having my 160kbps mp3 rips upgraded to 256kbps aac was a clusterfuck.

It took DAYS of scanning and uploading and deleting and downloading to get shit upgraded, and even then, 1) not all songs in an album got upgraded, and 2) iTunes formatted it [artist] > [album] > [track number] [song title], with no way for me to tell it to stick THE FUCKING YEAR in there somewhere, and 3) iTunes doesn’t know SHIT about j-rock. 

Woulda been simpler to do a search for “metallica discography 320”, then using Flash Renamer and Tag & Rename to format the tracks and folders to your liking!

(Plus iTunes 11, despite its improvements, still farts along like a lazy coworker doing the bare minimum. The Zune PC app is ridiculously more capable.) 

I don’t recommend iTunes Match for ANYTHING.  

:(

by futurakei
March 26, 2013 04:16 pm · 16
·

Dir en grey | The Unraveling PV Teaser (2013)

(via: Macro in the jrocknyc shoutbox from herviross2)

This may take a while.
by gofromjrocknyc
March 25, 2013 07:01 pm · 1
·

This may take a while.

Copy and Paste favorite music into a new folder. Point iTunes at that new folder.  Watch iTunes analyze that folder for a couple minutes. Turn on iTunes Match. Pay $25. Watch iTunes Match gather info, match the music, and upload the unmatched songs. (Takes a while… 3626 songs, started at 9:18am, the first two steps were done at 9:55, and now it’s uploading 1656 songs that it COULDNT MATCH, including a lot of japanese artists… bummer) Alarmingly, many Luna Sea live tracks have been labelled DUPLICATE (nein! nein!) so that blows. Next step, delete the new music folder and re-download everything (some of this stuff is already Alt.Preset.Standard-ish, but I want to see how my tags and album art fare).
by gofromjrocknyc
March 23, 2013 10:58 am ·
·
  1. Copy and Paste favorite music into a new folder.
  2. Point iTunes at that new folder. 
  3. Watch iTunes analyze that folder for a couple minutes.
  4. Turn on iTunes Match.
  5. Pay $25.
  6. Watch iTunes Match gather info, match the music, and upload the unmatched songs. (Takes a while… 3626 songs, started at 9:18am, the first two steps were done at 9:55, and now it’s uploading 1656 songs that it COULDNT MATCH, including a lot of japanese artists… bummer)

Alarmingly, many Luna Sea live tracks have been labelled DUPLICATE (nein! nein!) so that blows.

Next step, delete the new music folder and re-download everything (some of this stuff is already Alt.Preset.Standard-ish, but I want to see how my tags and album art fare).

by saishoe
March 21, 2013 09:44 pm · 3
·

Another teaser for “The Unraveling”. 

What the hell is this reminding me of?!

Amazon Cloud | iTunes Match | Google Music and JAPANESE MUSIC I want to upgrade all the crap I ripped at 160kbps back in 1998-2003, when hard drives were small and my music collection was big.  For Japanese music — like Dir en grey, L’Arc~en~ciel, Luna Sea, Sex Machineguns, Pierrot, Kagrra, Despairs Ray, Puffy, Nanase Aikawa, etc… will any of these services be able to match these artists’ discographies, or even just ~some~ albums or singles? iTunes has a japanese store, Amazon does too… Post in the comments, I’ll write up my experience next week…  
by gofromjrocknyc
March 21, 2013 07:51 pm · 2
·

Amazon Cloud | iTunes Match | Google Music
and JAPANESE MUSIC

I want to upgrade all the crap I ripped at 160kbps back in 1998-2003, when hard drives were small and my music collection was big. 

For Japanese music — like Dir en grey, L’Arc~en~ciel, Luna Sea, Sex Machineguns, Pierrot, Kagrra, Despairs Ray, Puffy, Nanase Aikawa, etc… will any of these services be able to match these artists’ discographies, or even just ~some~ albums or singles?

iTunes has a japanese store, Amazon does too…

Post in the comments, I’ll write up my experience next week…

 

by saishoe
March 19, 2013 06:10 am · 4
·

15 second teaser for the title track from Dir en grey’s upcoming mini.

I hate 15 second teasers.

The American Interest: Top Chinese leaders told us that they believe Japan is entering a period of right-wing militarist nationalism, and that the purchase of the islands was a deliberate effort by Japan to begin a process of eroding the settlement of World War II, including the Cairo and Potsdam declarations.Chinese leaders speak of China’s “peaceful development”, but some analysts believe that China cannot rise peacefully, and will seek a form of hegemony in East Asia that will lead to conflict with the United States and Japan. This will make a good Call of Duty someday.  I, of course, am rooting for Japan, since China takes american ideas and jobs  AND could give us a few beat-downs in a real war. Also there’s no good bands there.
by gofromjrocknyc
March 13, 2013 05:09 pm ·
·

The American Interest:

Top Chinese leaders told us that they believe Japan is entering a period of right-wing militarist nationalism, and that the purchase of the islands was a deliberate effort by Japan to begin a process of eroding the settlement of World War II, including the Cairo and Potsdam declarations.

Chinese leaders speak of China’s “peaceful development”, but some analysts believe that China cannot rise peacefully, and will seek a form of hegemony in East Asia that will lead to conflict with the United States and Japan.


This will make a good Call of Duty someday. 

I, of course, am rooting for Japan, since China takes american ideas and jobs  AND could give us a few beat-downs in a real war. Also there’s no good bands there.

Used MP3 Stores

by gofromjrocknyc
March 9, 2013 09:20 pm ·
·

NYTimes:

On Thursday, the United States Patent and Trademark Office published Apple’s application for its own patent for a digital marketplace. Apple’s application outlines a system for allowing users to sell or give e-books, music, movies and software to each other by transferring files rather than reproducing them.

Meanwhile, a New York court is poised to rule on whether a start-up that created a way for people to buy and sell iTunes songs is breaking copyright law. A victory for the company would mean that consumers would not need either Apple’s or Amazon’s exchange to resell their digital items. Electronic bazaars would spring up instantly.

Would I start buying more than a couple albums or CDs each year if these used shops come about? Probably not.

“The technology to allow the resale of digital goods is now in place, and it will cause a dramatic upheaval,” said Bill Rosenblatt, president of GiantSteps, a technology consulting firm. “In the short term, it’s great for consumers. Over the long term, however, it could seriously reduce creators’ incentive to create.”

I’m fucking SWIMMING in movies and music that I have zero energy or time to digest, and I still love music and film. The world could USE some reduced creatoring!

by futurakei
March 4, 2013 12:59 pm · 6
·

amber gris | bright or blind (2013)

Amber gris is one of the very few active bands that I still care about and listen to once in while. They have great musicianship, catchy songs and quality production on their releases. I haven’t heard a vk debut album (“Pomander”) quite like theirs in a long time. “Pomander” was instantly addictive and full of rich melodies that I just love sinking into. They are also classy enough to not version-spam their releases (for now), which even major bands do now days. (-.-);

Btw, they just released their second album “Around Children” last week. Hopefully, Amber Gris can continue to impress from now on.

amber gris - Around Children
2013.02.27

Amber Gris - Around Children - cdjapan.co.jp

1. Fragile
2. MARCH in the SNOW
3. bright or blind
4. -sequel-
5. そこにあるもの
6. Sweet blood pool
7. hermit.
8. グランギニョル
9. amaryllis
10. for crying out loud

OHP - www.amber-gris.com
YT - http://www.youtube.com/user/ambergrisofficial

by gofromjrocknyc
February 23, 2013 08:04 pm · 7
·

So Kyo was like “ooh I wanna do it like that Like @ Angel pv” and so he did. :)

special bonus video for Kuroyume fans, or anyone who like boobies: https://mega.co.nz/#!DIUS3RzY!RVWWQz598-7Cwdtm0QCK_Gv4J2cE6uACs_egH_B-iV4