Kajiura Influence on other Music !!

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Nick Hunter said:
I have known his works for a long time, namely the ones he writes for his brother.
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oh yes, I forgot about Valery. I agree, those songs are pretty good.
Nick Hunter said:
Though the song he wrote for Eurovision was far from the top of his abilities. :uh..:
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hm, what was that song?
 
I love Mathcore.

I once heard of a russian band called "******** in Moscow"

But I forgot already.
 
ooo.. Interesting, yeah it's actually the opposite for me, I tend to back away from other japanese music because of yuki xD. I can listen to her all day everyday and put every song she has composed on my mp3 and wouldn't complain. I enjoy most , if not all, japanese music from the cuteness and childish songs like minimoni xD to Kajiura songs.

My interest really focuses on kokia, morning musume, Utada, sound horizon and enka.. oh how I love enka.. One of my favorite enka singer is Meiko Kaji.. omg she is such a goddess with her voice and lyrics. Another amazing group is Rin' , they are really smooth and their music sets a traditional tone and feel to it.

Kotoko also is amazing when it comes to upbeat songs. omg and I can't forget Chihiro Onitsuka or Hajime Chitose :dote: :nosebleed: Alan as well
OMG and Hitomi Shimatani
 
Hua Xiao Min said:
I think YUki Kajiura has influenced Akiko Shikata Profoundly.

No matter why Akiko Shikata :omg:
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An interesting topic.

I find it very difficult to discover any other artist who sounds even fairly similar to YK. Maybe that's a good thing heh. I tried this database, maybe it was rateyourmusic.com, but their "similarity recommendations" didn't really sound like YK at all.

So if someone knows about any other artists who resemble YK besides this Akiko Shikata, no matter the location/country of origin, it would be nice to read some recommendations.
 
I'm looking at On Repeat on my Spotify and, my top 10 (in variable order) are:
-Ayumi Hamasaki
-Yuki Kajiura
-I've Sound
-Namie Amuro
-BoA
-Maaya Sakamoto (Yoko Kanno period)
-Hikaru Utada
-May'n (Macross F period)
-Nana Mizuki
-Megumi Hayashibara
-Masami Okui

honorable mention:
-Takanori Nishikawa
-Koda Kumi
 
Thanks for these. Though what I was really after was composers reminiscent of YK's output as a film/series soundtrack composer (apart from vocal works).

I took a listen to Akiko Shikata and Takumi Ozawa. Some good moments in their music, but YK remains my favorite of the trio:)

It does appear that YK has her very idiosyncratic style of music that is relatively different from the rest. Which makes me curious about YK's sources of inspiration.

I've heard it said that YK's music sounds same-y. Though this is inevitable with more than 1k pieces composed, it is also an ironic criticism because her sound is (apparently) so different from any other composer.
 
Actually, I just came across a Kajiura-ish composer: Hiroyuki Sawano. I had previously heard a few pieces by him (mainly from Gundam: Unicorn) but whoa, he's written some good music and there's indeed some resemblance to YK's soundtrack music. Mainly: a melodramatic approach, use of percussion, a liberal mixture of acoustic, acoustic classical, rock and synthesizers/computers, and scarcity of humorous pieces.

Sawano doesn't cite YK as influence though in Wikipedia, instead he brings up Hisaishi and Kanno among others. I wonder why because in my view his style represents a departure from both of them in comparison to YK.

Edit: I've now previewed most of Sawano's full OST albums (except some more recent ones). To me, he's no match for YK as a soundtrack composer. There's an overemphasis on emotion in many of his works at the cost of subtlety and space for abstraction. A lot of emotion and suspense, but much less either honest substance or reflection. Reminding me of a Zimmer-like Kanno pastiche, but I think Kanno is the better composer. The overall style is fairly masculine, even American, in comparison to YK, whose ambivalence and peculiar moralism I really appreciate.

There was one exception though: "Blue Exorcist" OST 1. This soundtrack was different from the rest in a good way. It also exhibits Sawano possibly sounding his closest to YK.
 
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haha this thread makes me confused a bit. title reads "influence on other music" but then people list composers who are like Kajiura. i guess OP meant influence on their listening of other music I dunno :"I thought of how much i like yuki's music that i'm starting not to take liking to any other musics easily !!!"

if I have to go by the title (which to me is more interesting), MICHIRU https://vgmdb.net/artist/26400 could also fit. Sawano is also influenced by Kajiura I think. By influence of course I mean I can hear similarities, not that the artists proclaimed as such.

I realized I'm not listening to many young composers. makes sense in a way.

if I have to go by the trend of the thread, I can't believe no one said Kenji Kawai. His fusion, electronica, use of the orchestra, traditional instruments, atmospheric and emotional pieces are on par with Kajiura's music (sometimes better or worse). He does use female vocals quite a bit but not as much as Kajiura. The styles are very similar imo.

Akiko Shikata... yea could be influenced but I'd say the style of mixing different voices and composing is different. Takumi Ozawa is more electronica techno heavy. Neither is on Kajiura level.

Taku Iwasaki is another name who I think is as weird as Kajiura, in fact weirder. His soundtracks are super varied, super funky. I find some of his works just too chaotic but when he gets it right it's really good.

I always thought Yanni is similar to Kajiura in spirit : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv3O0uw4_V0 but he isn't as weird as Kajiura lol.

crossover with vocals with synth pop: how bout the old classic that is Bond ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d0f39knNVY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvWOKmYwLB0 but it's not similar to Kajiura just in the same fusion genre maybe

(weird = original, mixing different things together etc etc)
 
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Κιnda unrelated, but if anyone misses Pripri there is a new anime called Spy Kyoushitsu that has similar style (spy girls in victorian era)
 
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wat11 said:
haha this thread makes me confused a bit. title reads "influence on other music" but then people list composers who are like Kajiura. i guess OP meant influence on their listening of other music I dunno :"I thought of how much i like yuki's music that i'm starting not to take liking to any other musics easily !!!"

if I have to go by the title (which to me is more interesting), MICHIRU https://vgmdb.net/artist/26400 could also fit. Sawano is also influenced by Kajiura I think. By influence of course I mean I can hear similarities, not that the artists proclaimed as such.

I realized I'm not listening to many young composers. makes sense in a way.

if I have to go by the trend of the thread, I can't believe no one said Kenji Kawai. His fusion, electronica, use of the orchestra, traditional instruments, atmospheric and emotional pieces are on par with Kajiura's music (sometimes better or worse). He does use female vocals quite a bit but not as much as Kajiura. The styles are very similar imo.

Akiko Shikata... yea could be influenced but I'd say the style of mixing different voices and composing is different. Takumi Ozawa is more electronica techno heavy. Neither is on Kajiura level.

Taku Iwasaki is another name who I think is as weird as Kajiura, in fact weirder. His soundtracks are super varied, super funky. I find some of his works just too chaotic but when he gets it right it's really good.

I always thought Yanni is similar to Kajiura in spirit : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv3O0uw4_V0 but he isn't as weird as Kajiura lol.

crossover with vocals with synth pop: how bout the old classic that is Bond ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d0f39knNVY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvWOKmYwLB0 but it's not similar to Kajiura just in the same fusion genre maybe

(weird = original, mixing different things together etc etc)
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Thanks for the Kawai and Iwasaki recommendations! I actually previously had one album each.

I personally preferred Iwasaki to Kawai on the whole, though there was significantly less Kawai's stuff available on YouTube. I especially enjoyed the more recent works by Iwasaki, perhaps more than any other anime composer of the 10s and 20s that I've listened to. He's shown that he can renew his approach to music, which I admire in a musician. And in general, he's become a much better composer than in the past I think.

I ended up purchasing nine more albums by Iwasaki, and two more by Kawai. I would have enjoyed a third by Kawai but it was just impossible to obtain, it's apparently a very rare item.
 
YKWorshiper said:
I ended up purchasing nine more albums by Iwasi, and two more by Kawai. I would have enjoyed a third by Kawai but it was just impossible to obtain, it's apparently a very rare item.
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What did you end up getting?

I have picked up several Kenji Kawai albums second-hand over the years (Patlabor, Sky Crawlers, You're Under Arrest the Movie and others).
 
By Kenji Kawai:

Dragon Fist

NHK Original Masters Vol.2: Apocalypse (I think this triple album is his magnum opus and the sound quality is just out of this world; I generally enjoyed Kenji Kawai's film works more than his anime works)

By Taku Iwasaki:

Witch Hunter Robin 2

Bincho-tan

Angel Heart (though I found disc 1 a lot weaker, it's a double album so I decided to get both)

Gatchaman Crowds

Tvanimation Noragami Noragami no Oto

The Irregular at Magic High School 1, 2 and 3

Cop Craft

I thought I had obtained JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE Battle Tendency [Musik] as well but maybe I hadn't, the discs are still on their way 😀

There were many OSTs by Iwasaki that I was undecided about getting so I could purchase more by him in the future. But since I always want to minimize the chance of disappointment in music purchases, I decided to start with these nine.
 
unless you are super rich @YKWorshiper you will never be able to cover the entirety of Kawai discography. he is super prolific, much like Kajiura or Oshima...for better or worse of course.

If I had three seconds to speak, I would recommend absolutely strongly urgently Avalon, Fate, Cinema Symphony Concert, Seven Swords, Ghost in the shell. or you know you get them by other means hehe
 
wat11 said:
unless you are super rich @YKWorshiper you will never be able to cover the entirety of Kawai discography. he is super prolific, much like Kajiura or Oshima...for better or worse of course.

If I had three seconds to speak, I would recommend absolutely strongly urgently Avalon, Fate, Cinema Symphony Concert, Seven Swords, Ghost in the shell. or you know you get them by other means hehe
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Thanks 😊 I've Avalon and a FLAC album of Yoko Kanno's Ghost in the Shell music, I think it's The Standalone Complex going by memory. Maybe I should check out Kawai's take on that concept and revisit Kanno's too.
 
I was very intrigued by Kawai's Antarctic Journal, but there was simply no way to get it in any format, I even checked some torrent sites haha. A few YouTube tracks suggested it was just the type of music that suits Kawai.

On a related note, I was amazed by Sawano's Blue Exorcist 1. It's a very strong album. It's a bit weird that I liked only this one by him. He got all the pieces right for this, and then some.
 
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