Thought of the Day: GHOST
So I mentioned in an earlier post how I will let you guys know on what my favorite musical performances of GACKT-san are.
Well, every live performance of GHOST deserves kudos. Yet, I think the one at the "WOWLIVE! THANKS FOR MUSIC" is the most riveting. While you could get a better close-up of GACKT-san's gorgeous face at the "Music Station" tv program, you don't get the same surge of adrenalin (or is it dopamine?) as when you are in a stadium with thousands of other spectators. Also, his lip-syncing wasn't as obvious.
But yes, I loooove GHOST!
However, when I showed the music video to a friend before she lost her patience with me, she called it creepy.
Now personally, I agree with her that the story plot of "foreign janitor being tormented by dancing cyborgs" did put me off a bit. Yet the close-ups of GACKT-san face were by far some of the sexiest! (Apparently GACKT-san wrote in his blog back then that he had an incredibly hard time not blinking while filming that video. The man deserves big props for that, because he looks really good in the finished product!)
Anyways, that had me thinking: what makes the dance from GHOST so popular? Usually robot dances run a high risk of being criticized as lame. So I watched his WOWLIVE! performance more closely, and I came up with the following reasons why it is so acclaimed:
1) He's not wearing tacky armor
On the contrary, he is wearing one of his sexiest outfits that probably came from his own (enormous) closet: a sleeve-less shiny black leather top with shiny black leather pants and high boots complete with a fur-trimmed long black overcoat. 100% GACKT, 100% sexy.
2) He is actually singing notes with words
While his voice is slightly auto-tuned in this song, he is still leading. Robotic(?) songs would try to computerize(?) the singer's voice to fit in better with the theme, but with the cost of removing all emotion and thus making the track obnoxious.
Hearing GACKT-san's voice is key because when you see him dancing and singing the lyrics, you can feel the message he's delivering that he is tortured and just wants to get rid of it all so that he may feel solace. You can't get that from a computer's voice.
3) The dance demonstrates GACKT-san's fitness.
Robot dances usually involve snappy choreography in order to go with the techno upbeat. Sometimes they would be cheesy, but not in this case. There would be times when GACKT-san actually moves like a cyborg, and the reason for that is because he could tolerate high strains on his muscles. He is a karate maniac after all! A great demonstration of that would be at less than 3 minutes into the performance.
4) Beneath it all, it is still GACKT-san.
This pretty much sums it all up. When he performs GHOST, while he may portray a cyborg, we could see from the clothes, the voice, and the movements that it is our beloved GACKT-san nonetheless.
Now that I've come to the conclusion at how cool the GHOST performance is, I couldn't help but compare it to Michael Jackson's "Thriller."
I mean, aren't they both similar cases? Both performances (and story plot)seem creepy at first, but they're highly acclaimed overall.
I also mentioned in an earlier post how GACKT-san was compared to MJ in an interview. What do you think, guys? Even though he is more of rock than pop, does GACKT-san have what it takes to become the long-running world sensation as Michael Jackson?
Personally, I don't think GACKT-san is planning retirement anytime soon.