Hey Machiners, It's Kaldath here, Yes I am still alive! I know it has been a while since I last wrote anything and that mostly because I just didn't have anything to write about,until now......
So here on Kaldath's corner I talk about things I find interesting and want to pass on. So on this installment we will be discussing one of my favorite ways to kill some time, and that would be the music of my favorite band SCANDAL!
SCANDAL, which is an all female Japanese rock band that just celebrated 10 years of making music last August will this year be doing two separate compilation projects, the first is a 2 disc "best of" album titles "Best Album" The second is a music video compilation DVD/Bluray titled "Video Action 2". The interesting thing is that all the songs on these projects were picked by the fans via an online survey, which I found to be very cool.
The problem with the fan choice for the dvd project however is that not all of SCANDAL's songs have been made into Music videos, and that includes one of their most popular songs "Scandal Baby" which of course is to be included on this project so what to do. Well the answer is shoot a video for it of course and so they did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=549QVUysPRQ
Now This song is indeed of on my top five favorite from SCANDAL, however I run into a problem with this video. I like the visuals here in this video and the "Story" being told. But I don't enjoy the actual song here. But Kaldath you must be asking, I though you said this was one of your favorite songs!, It is !! Let me explain, Now track playing in this video is indeed the Original "Scandal Baby" track as it appear on the bands debut Album "Best Scandal" back in 2009 but it isn't the "song" I enjoy listening too.
The Scandal Baby song I love is the version they play LIVE. This version here sound so sterile and lifeless which is a real disappointment for me. When I heard they made a new video for this song I had hoped they would have put a little more emotion into the music by recording a new version but sadly no.
Here is the same song being played live :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXpNzmMUAH4
The music feels so much more lively here then in the "studio" version, more life in both the instruments and the vocals! ( and yes for those wondering Tomomi the bass player is crying in this video. This was record at a very emotion concert for the band, as it was their dream to play Osaka-jyo hall considering the band for formed in Osaka and this was the fulfillment of that dream. ) I think that they would have been better of just taking footage from one of their live concert DVD's to use for this song instead of filming a new music video using the original audio track for the song like they did!
You may recall that earlier I mentioned that there were two compilation projects. The spoke of a two disc best of CD called Best Album, And while it is true that most of the songs on this collection are old song, the compilation will have two new songs, and in fact the single for this songs have already been released so I have already heard them and so will briefly discuss them here as well.
The first song is called "Hello"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amE-q7wWPcM
I most say that I am not terribly impressed by this song. If I had to rate it I think I would give it a 3 out of 5 stars. Don't get be wrong, it isn't a bad song and I enjoyed listening to it however it comes off a bit generic. It sound like it should be an Outro song for a Slice Of Life, or Romance anime series. I would put it on my scandal play list but it would be very near the end of that playlist ( which currently has 83 songs on it by the way ) .
The second new song is called "Freedom Fighters"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfRkqQbJfG0
This is a better song then "Hello" and it would feature higher up on that SCANDAL playlist I mentioned, but still wouldn't be that high up. I'd Ranking this one as a 4 out of 5 stars. It is a much more Rock-esque song but still not up to par with what I usually expect from SCANDAL. This song as with the previous one make me think of Anime. I can easily picture this as the intro to a Shounen anime, particular a mecha anime for some reason but again another good song, just not a great song.
Finally I will leave you with an old SCANDAL song that I just recently discovered. It isn't on any of their albums but it was the B side track on one of their sings. It is Tomomi ( the bass player ) and Mami ( Lead Guitar ) singing a rap song called "DoBonDoBonDo No Theme". Now I don't typically like rap music but I like this one, ad the video harkens back to the early beginnings of Rap and the videos you'd find on MTV back in the day!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiOFJBhvV2Q
