Tsuyoku tsuyoku tsuyoku
I expected instruments. I FEEL CHEATED.
Why did we only get 45 seconds of this, hidden deep in the making? What were these "band" shots even for? They didn't appear in the PV nor in the booklet, only in the promo before. Were they promote the promotional video? If so, why spew such falsehood?
Look at all the shiny instruments! And none of them require electricity! Analogue little beauties. <3
Ohkura's drum strap made me smile. Might look cute and nostalgic, but there are good reasons marching band drummers have proper harnesses for their drums.
lol Yoko. March those saints! (He's getting better. It's so great to follow his progress.)
Maru with an acoustic bass. A rare and delicious treat. Mmmmmh.
Hina's accordion is, of course, the big surprise here. I highly doubt it's more than prop (he didn't even open the clasp that allows you to pump it), but still. Love it.
Not having the band appear in the PV excuses the weird instrument choices, though. Fun fact: none of the instruments they're holding appear in the song. There's no blues harp in Tsuyoku tsuyoku tsuyoku, nor an accordion. Yasu, Ryo and Maru have acoustic guitars/bass where the song has electric ones, and Yoko has his trumpet instead of bongos and timpanis. Granted, you could make a case for Ohkura's marching drum, but it still has little to do with a full drum set. Seeing them "play" the song on those instruments in the PV would have been weird.
Tsuyoku tsuyoku tsuyoku is, as many have pointed out, not one of Kanjani's greatest releases; still, personally, I think both song and PV are among the better drama tie-ins. A good incarnation of something inherently meh, so to say.
Yeah, okay, standing around in slow motion is not very exciting, and the black & white with a dash of colour is overused, but...
... the muddy field is a refreshing change from the usual urban or CGI settings in Johnny's PVs. The landscape really works for me, and the mirror hut as well.
To me, there are two interesting things about the song. The first is more of a random observation. I wondered about stressing syllables in Japanese before and Tsuyoku tsuyoku tsuyoku is a perfect example for what I don't get. In the song's refrain, they sing "tsuyoku tsuyoku tsuyoku", stressing a different syllable every time. Pick an English word (or maybe a word from your mothertongue, whatever it is) and try to sing it in the tsuyoku rhythm. In most languages, that won't work. "Wonderful wonderful wonderful", for example, makes me cringe because in "wonderful" the first syllable needs to be stressed, and stressing any other just sounds stupid. But it seems to work in Japanese, and "tsuyoku" is not an exception: there are a lot of words that I noticed are stressed differently in various songs (take "(sono te wo) hanasanaide" in Misetekure - in spoken language, you'd stress any syllable but the i). Does anyone have some insight in this? Is Japanese, as a whole, a language in which stressing syllables just doesn't matter? Or are they simply so used to butchering words in songs to fit the rhythm that no one bats an eye anymore?
The other interesting thing is more objective: Tsuyoku tsuyoku tsuyoku is, to my knowledge, the first Kanjani song that was written for Kanjani band. Usually, Kanjani's songs are written from a purely business musical perspective, just as "good songs", and when Kanjani play them, they have to somehow make it work with what they've got. Ryo and Yasu have to divide lead guitar duties between them; the keyboard part is often far too complicated for Hina, so he gets a severely simplified one hand version; Yoko operates the chimes, the only regularly featured percussion instrument, and plays the bongos even though most songs don't have bongos parts just so he doesn't stand around idly. It's not ideal, and must suck especially for Yoko and Hina.
Now Tsuyoku tsuyoku tsuyoku has two interesting guitar parts, a simple yet important keyboard part, it features bongos and even a bit of timpani. Every member of Kanjani gets a part they can play with their abilities, every part is important, and there are no additional tracks that need to be played by a backing band, brass or strings. That's new and, in my opinion, very special. This song is truly written not for Kanjani8, staff-reliant boyband that likes to hold guitars, but for Kanjani band, 7 mediocre musicians.
The band focus is also why I'm not a fan of that PV for this song. If there ever was a song that justified a PV concept like "band in CGI-land", "band walking on ocean" or "band in dye factory on orange day", Tsuyoku tsuyoku tsuyoku is it.
Oh well. We'll always have Music Station.
If you haven't seen it yet, watch it! They mess up a few times (and οnce again I bow to Ohkura; there's a damn good reason they keep giving him the bridges in band songs, and it's that he's made of stone and will not be deterred from his singing no matter what happens around him) but those are all stupid mistakes made out of nervousness, not because they're trying to take on something that's too hard for them. In general, they're pretty solid, everyone gets their chance to shine and they sound like the recording without extra musicians or tracks. The written-for-band thing really pays off.
What do you think?
Why did we only get 45 seconds of this, hidden deep in the making? What were these "band" shots even for? They didn't appear in the PV nor in the booklet, only in the promo before. Were they promote the promotional video? If so, why spew such falsehood?
Look at all the shiny instruments! And none of them require electricity! Analogue little beauties. <3
Ohkura's drum strap made me smile. Might look cute and nostalgic, but there are good reasons marching band drummers have proper harnesses for their drums.
lol Yoko. March those saints! (He's getting better. It's so great to follow his progress.)
Maru with an acoustic bass. A rare and delicious treat. Mmmmmh.
Hina's accordion is, of course, the big surprise here. I highly doubt it's more than prop (he didn't even open the clasp that allows you to pump it), but still. Love it.
Not having the band appear in the PV excuses the weird instrument choices, though. Fun fact: none of the instruments they're holding appear in the song. There's no blues harp in Tsuyoku tsuyoku tsuyoku, nor an accordion. Yasu, Ryo and Maru have acoustic guitars/bass where the song has electric ones, and Yoko has his trumpet instead of bongos and timpanis. Granted, you could make a case for Ohkura's marching drum, but it still has little to do with a full drum set. Seeing them "play" the song on those instruments in the PV would have been weird.
Tsuyoku tsuyoku tsuyoku is, as many have pointed out, not one of Kanjani's greatest releases; still, personally, I think both song and PV are among the better drama tie-ins. A good incarnation of something inherently meh, so to say.
Yeah, okay, standing around in slow motion is not very exciting, and the black & white with a dash of colour is overused, but...
... the muddy field is a refreshing change from the usual urban or CGI settings in Johnny's PVs. The landscape really works for me, and the mirror hut as well.
To me, there are two interesting things about the song. The first is more of a random observation. I wondered about stressing syllables in Japanese before and Tsuyoku tsuyoku tsuyoku is a perfect example for what I don't get. In the song's refrain, they sing "tsuyoku tsuyoku tsuyoku", stressing a different syllable every time. Pick an English word (or maybe a word from your mothertongue, whatever it is) and try to sing it in the tsuyoku rhythm. In most languages, that won't work. "Wonderful wonderful wonderful", for example, makes me cringe because in "wonderful" the first syllable needs to be stressed, and stressing any other just sounds stupid. But it seems to work in Japanese, and "tsuyoku" is not an exception: there are a lot of words that I noticed are stressed differently in various songs (take "(sono te wo) hanasanaide" in Misetekure - in spoken language, you'd stress any syllable but the i). Does anyone have some insight in this? Is Japanese, as a whole, a language in which stressing syllables just doesn't matter? Or are they simply so used to butchering words in songs to fit the rhythm that no one bats an eye anymore?
The other interesting thing is more objective: Tsuyoku tsuyoku tsuyoku is, to my knowledge, the first Kanjani song that was written for Kanjani band. Usually, Kanjani's songs are written from a purely business musical perspective, just as "good songs", and when Kanjani play them, they have to somehow make it work with what they've got. Ryo and Yasu have to divide lead guitar duties between them; the keyboard part is often far too complicated for Hina, so he gets a severely simplified one hand version; Yoko operates the chimes, the only regularly featured percussion instrument, and plays the bongos even though most songs don't have bongos parts just so he doesn't stand around idly. It's not ideal, and must suck especially for Yoko and Hina.
Now Tsuyoku tsuyoku tsuyoku has two interesting guitar parts, a simple yet important keyboard part, it features bongos and even a bit of timpani. Every member of Kanjani gets a part they can play with their abilities, every part is important, and there are no additional tracks that need to be played by a backing band, brass or strings. That's new and, in my opinion, very special. This song is truly written not for Kanjani8, staff-reliant boyband that likes to hold guitars, but for Kanjani band, 7 mediocre musicians.
The band focus is also why I'm not a fan of that PV for this song. If there ever was a song that justified a PV concept like "band in CGI-land", "band walking on ocean" or "band in dye factory on orange day", Tsuyoku tsuyoku tsuyoku is it.
Oh well. We'll always have Music Station.
If you haven't seen it yet, watch it! They mess up a few times (and οnce again I bow to Ohkura; there's a damn good reason they keep giving him the bridges in band songs, and it's that he's made of stone and will not be deterred from his singing no matter what happens around him) but those are all stupid mistakes made out of nervousness, not because they're trying to take on something that's too hard for them. In general, they're pretty solid, everyone gets their chance to shine and they sound like the recording without extra musicians or tracks. The written-for-band thing really pays off.
What do you think?