What are you listening to right NOW?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Daichi
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A sign of a strong female contemporary-style vocalist, in my books, is that she can sing strong/compressed vocals high in her range (not just in the comfortable middle), as well as sing breathy for effect in the highs, but also that she has good dynamic control and can sing soft high or low without defaulting to breathiness for "softness", like so many lesser singers do.

MIKI has all this AND a good head voice, not fully classical (like REMI) but leaning that way if she so wanted. I mean in the Moira Harmonia, she was harmonizing high up with REMI.

MIKI"s real wheelhouse is that bright, cutting, energetic mask belt. Her soul/jazz experience means she's able to ad-lib and freestyle notes when given space, and if the genre needs it. Maybe that's part of the reason she's compared to that older jazz singer (can't recall her name now). Not many Japanese singers can do this well unless they're really into jazz; they just do simple progressions or repeat a stock one every time.

MIKI then again has ability to bring in the warmth when needed, including able to go fairly low too. Her tone was my favourite in the Moira Harmonia, especially when she was doing low harmonies. Distinctive and with that smooth vibrato too! Giving a cool/mysterious vibe to her performance.

Let me stop here. 😍
 
One last thing.

I was thinking earlier in the week that in an alternate universe/lifetime MIKI could have worked with Kajiura, singing some of the popular FJ classics we know. I mean she could replace virtually any of the mezzos and do the songs justice.

She could easily have been a regular for any Japanese high-level vocal group, just seems to have not been picked up or had a commensurate career opportunity (maybe her agency was the issue). She also doesn't seem to have gone the idol route coming up, rather I suspect (without any evidence yet) she was more of a session/backing vocalist (like Yuriko Kaida), so there wasn't as much opportunity to get that kind of attention/exposure.

I do appreciate the fact that Revo sought to use and picked a lot of unique vocalists for his projects, giving them a lot of opportunities for singing on his larger stage and be featured on his reasonably successful projects. I do not know if they were under similar management, though, like most of the Kajiura/Kalafina girls, which made them more accessible.

Edit: In terms of contracts.
 
Kugayama said:
〜Not an angel Just a dreamer〜~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pvg_2vrzESo
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I was pleasantly surprised to see many singers I recognized!

So it's a celebration of anime! A massive honor for those that were invited!

I do think there were more important artists than some of the younger girl groups that were invited.

[Edit: 100-year celebration of anime]
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goYGwJNDobY

I was surprised at the characteristics of Japanese music (J-POP) taught by an American university professor!​

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This excellent American music educator of J-Pop helped me understand more about basics of J-Pop and why it's so appealing to us fans.

It's fully subtitled so I hope you enjoy it too! (He's really cool and has a great channel where he goes more in-depth too).

48 minutes well spent!
 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5zBoNYNQz0

FictionJunction - ひとりごと/Hitorigoto (ENG SUB)[vol.#16 ～Sing a Song Tour 2021～]​

This song is such a simple, heartfelt love song, and the ladies totally nailed it. Kaori was delightfully cool in the lead, contrasting with Joelle who was more emotional and appealing. A nice range in their presentation vocally and visually. Yuriko and Keiko were floating above and flowing below as atmosphere.
 
Lúa said:
I was craving some Miki
https://youtu.be/F3VK8E_q8uQ?si=2pDFDvupMvo8lSeW
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Oooh! This was so good!

MIKI is so underappreciated. She was and is such a versatile vocalist! She's definitely gospel-influenced too!

You know even in the US, a lot of Black American ladies coming out of the gospel culture couldn't get many opportunities in the US pop world in the 70s-80s, so a lot of them went into Europe to do dance and house hits, and the like! I just refer to this to talk about MIKI's versatility.

MIKI could sing anything basically. She could be a rock queen like Mari Hamada (they share the same first-name, coincidence) with those high cutting belts that can cut through heavy guitar instrumentation. She can definitely since house/old-style pop/disco. She can sing musical theatre on stage, I am quite confident. She can sing jazz/gospel because she can do spontaneous runs around the scale and key changes (for comparison, most of our FJ girls cannot do that easily). She can do JPop. She can do choral (I'm sure because of her vocal control, head voice and messa di voce). I do believe she can sing folk too! If she were an American with this voice she would have had a lot of fans early on and maybe a bigger career!

The only thing she probably wouldn't be able to do well is full classical and of course operatic (since that's a specific style requiring years/ decades of training to do properly).

MIKI is a true singer indeed! I wonder if she grew up in this social generation and could self-promote with social media how that would affect her visibility...
 
T
grunty said:
I forget, was that solo song of hers with Takanashi ever actually released? Like, for purchase.

Edit: (changed link to official upload)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YLg7ulSCbA

I think this is the one I'm thinking about. Unless there was another.
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That ending note! And her chest voice notes had this grand almost operatic resonance at some places.
I'm still looking for info on her musical training.
 
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