Not Really Weekly Update
I'm back from Sakuracon! I found the best BRS merchandise ever, check it out (apologies for photo quality, my digital camera has died):
Yeah, you're all jealous of Herp Derp Shooter.
In the meantime, we appear to have rocketed through 200 members and are fast approaching 250. This is excellent army growth! New guys should note we have an IRC channel, details of which are in the profile just below ze rules, and a series of primer posts here for you to further your own or other people's knowledge of the fandom.
Apparently, while I was away, I missed only the best week ever - in the space of simply catching up my shortlist has grown to about 20 songs so I figure I'd better do a post now and I can then either skip the next Monday post or do a short one, depending on how many new songs come out. This might be a bit rushed, it's late.
New Songs:
【鏡音リン・レン】秘蜜〜黒の誓い〜【オリジナル】
(Secret Nectar ~Dark Oath~ (hitoshizuku), Rin + Len, Goth Rock, PV)
Hoooooly balls. Alongside an insanely pretty PV comes this amazingly well-done tale of Rin and Miku and forbidden-slash-unrequited-love and crossdressing and PRETTY GOD DAMN EPIC BAW not to mention the most badass Kaito I've seen in ages, yessssss. This song is fantastic, perfectly done with gorgeous violin and organ.
【鏡音リン】 trick art ! 【オリジナル曲】
(trick art! (DATEKEN), Rin, Jazz Pop)
Absolutely gorgeous bit of jazz from Dateken here. Rin's voice is crystal-clear and completely suited to the gentle and wonderful piano and drums of the main track. I nearly cried when the gorgeous bass got a solo.
初音ミク - month of music
(month of music (meijuni), Miku, Indonesian Pop(!))
This wasn't a track I expected to put near the top of this post. It's a little rough and a little repetitive, but then I started listening to it again, and again, and again... best of all, it's Indonesian and a Nicodebut, how cool is that? Miku's voice is gorgeously crisp and clear, and for some reason the track just utterly grips me in it's ridiculous cute playfulness.
【古川本舗】 mugs 【初音ミク】
(mugs (古川), Miku, Easy Listening)
An absolutely amazing soft, lilting ballad of an easy listening track. The real highlight here is Miku's voice. This isn't, on further reading, the Append Miku - instead it's a heavy distortion of her standard voice, intended to make her sound more breathy and whispering, used to excellent effect within the video. Hit up the acane_madder tag attached to the video for the nicosinger this distortion is named after and emulating for some excellent versions of Miku and Gumi tracks.
【オリジナル曲】ユアハイネス☆マイプリンセス【男性ボカロ】
(Your Highness, My Princess (pantan), Sensei + Len + Gakupo + Kaito, R&B)
I don't think, given that title line, that I really need to indicate just how amazingly ~fabulous~ this video is. If you can't figure out this track might be just a little bit special from that combination of singers, genre and title, there's no hope for you. Just relax and let the fantastic strains of Vocaloid's own boy band soothe your ills.
【オリジナル曲】演劇テレプシコーラ【初音ミク】
(Theatrical Terpsichore (hachi), Miku, Soft Rock)
Terpsichore meaning 'delight of dancing', if like me you weren't already aware of the word and needed Floor's Greece geeking to tell you. New hachi is usually guaranteed to go high up on the list, though this is something a little different and odd from his usual, marching beats and harsh chords giving way to a triumphant chorus.
【初音ミク】 素晴らしい世界 【オリジナルPV】
(Wonderful World (pinokio), Miku, Pop Rock)
This is a good, solid energy-driven rock track from Miku, and for once, in a post full of bizarre styles and unusual robots, it even counts as a refreshing change. There's nothing much to complain about here - if I were to say anything it's that the guitar needs to be a touch quieter, as Miku's voice is regularly lost in it - but there's a great enthusiasm to the manic playing.
【鏡音レン】ショタショタ★フィーバーミラクルトゥナイト【カバー】
(Shota Shota ★ Fever Miracle Tonight (???), Len, Eurobeat)
This isn't actively a new entry in Samfree's Robot Robot series of eurobeat tracks, and is rather a remix and rewording of an April Fools UTAU/utattemita track done in the same style as Luka Luka, Miki Miki and Gumi Gumi. I can't say I'm, er, particularly taken with the Shota Shota meme, and if you've heard the others you'll know exactly what to expect. As generic as it is, though, it's still entirely solid, but if you want to listen to the original UTAU/utattemita version it's over here.
【ハク(LOLA) ミクMEIKO】ヘレシー・マンション【オマージュ・アレンジ】
(Heresy Mansion (maigoddo), Haku + Meiko + Lola, Opera Rock, MMDPV)
Crazed blindfolded rocker maigoddo is back with yet another angsty rock song done with an accompanying MMD video, only this time it's more and operatic and less thrashy than his previous offerings, not to mention including an actual LOLA MMD figure rather than reusing Kaiko. This is slightly weird for him, and I admit to laughing when it devolved into a rendition of That One Song They Sing In The Persona 2 Velvet Room, but... it's pretty nice.
【初音ミクオリジナル曲】シカーダ【PV】
(Cicada (21st Century), Miku, Folk Pop)
A ridiculously adorable video now. Combining folksy morris-dancing-style drumming and some fantastic acoustic guitar, matched with a delightful paperwork video. This seems to me like a natural match for Harvest, a Rin video from some time ago, for the same general feeling and sound. A great video to start spring with.
【鏡音レン】 escapade 【鏡音リン】（オリジナル）
(escapade (raika), Rin + Len, Jazz)
The second 'Vocajazz' entry of the week, I leave it up to our resident experts to decide if this is proper Jazz or just jazzy pop - I'm not very good at telling the difference myself, but I can at least recognize that this is one seriously unusual and really pleasant offering for Nicovideo standards, terribly smooth music marred just slightly by voices that were a little too far on the robotic and off-sounding side.
【初音ミク】逃避遊戯【オリジナル】
(Fun Escape (猫虫), Miku, Candy Pop)
Anime-OP-tastic! You just knew I had to include something ridiculously cheesy, and here it is - a thumping and ridiculously saccharine pop song filled to the brim with crazy engrish and chiptuney backing. This is basically completely blatant and you may freely kill me now.
【初音ミク】サクラサク【オリジナル】
(Sakura Bloom (hachioji), Miku, Club Pop)
Okay, I lied, here's another cheesy one. I really like this, but then again I'm me and I'll tend to go for clubby poppy stuff in a heartbeat; this is very pleasant to my ears and I bopped along happily all the way through. If you're confused about the video, the school theme is thanks to the fact that the title also reads as a phrase for 'success in exams'.
【初音ミク】「帰り道」【オリジナル曲】
(The Way Home (nio), Miku, Easy Listening)
There's not a lot to say here - this is a lovely soft crooner of a track with some toe-tapping piano and a crisp Miku voice that all combine to make a song perfect for gently nodding off to. Nothing special, but nothing bad.
【初音ミク】壊人間機械(ブロークンヒューマンマシン)【オリジナル曲】
(Broken Human Machine (machigerita), Miku, Angst Rock)
Oh machige. You still won't return our calls, and you make a video like this? We're not feeling the love, man. Joking aside, this track's a little much for me; while the combination of thrash angst rock and chiptune(!) is seriously interesting, the Miku's all over the place and the entire thing is too over the top for me to really cope with.
PVs / MMDs:
【初音ミク】ロミオとシンデレラ【PV】
(Romeo to Cinderella (PV) (doriko), Miku, Pop, PV)
The song really shouldn't need introducing if you've spent any time at all on this community - one of the most famous songs around, it's been given a shiny new 3D PV treatment that has most of NND in a tizzy right now. Either done from scratch or else excessively Blendered from an MMD starting point, it's terribly shiny and you should go have a look.
【初音ミク】April Fool【手描きPV】
(April Fool (PV) (binyu), Miku, Easy Pop, PV)
I was ready to seriously cut someone when this didn't appear on the ranking, until I realised it was actually first released last year, and this is just a rerelease with video attached. Straight from the school of tear comes this gorgeous easypop track, soft tones and gentle lilting xylophone perfectly intact. Utterly relaxing, I really, desperately like this track.
【MMD】ネルドラム１２：るらら♪
An unabashed demonstration of some of the capabilities of MMD Band Edition, featuring Neru drumming her way through a song at a gorgeous 60 fps, together with all the careful animation that entails. Excellent timing and it's kind of adorable.
【MMD】 テトさんたちで Dream Fighter 【ちょっと改】
I haven't properly gone through all the new UTAU tracks that popped up for Teto's birthday, so I can't properly compose a post just yet (HINT HINT moonka) but in her honour, have this MMD choreography of Perfume's hit Dream Fighter. (This video also kind of highlights one of my problems with the Lat!MMD models at the moment - they've all got the same face. You can tell the old models apart distinctively, but this Teto looks just like Miku found a wig. Plz to fix this, NND people.)
Yeah, you're all jealous of Herp Derp Shooter.
In the meantime, we appear to have rocketed through 200 members and are fast approaching 250. This is excellent army growth! New guys should note we have an IRC channel, details of which are in the profile just below ze rules, and a series of primer posts here for you to further your own or other people's knowledge of the fandom.
Apparently, while I was away, I missed only the best week ever - in the space of simply catching up my shortlist has grown to about 20 songs so I figure I'd better do a post now and I can then either skip the next Monday post or do a short one, depending on how many new songs come out. This might be a bit rushed, it's late.
New Songs:
【鏡音リン・レン】秘蜜〜黒の誓い〜【オリジナル】
(Secret Nectar ~Dark Oath~ (hitoshizuku), Rin + Len, Goth Rock, PV)
Hoooooly balls. Alongside an insanely pretty PV comes this amazingly well-done tale of Rin and Miku and forbidden-slash-unrequited-love and crossdressing and PRETTY GOD DAMN EPIC BAW not to mention the most badass Kaito I've seen in ages, yessssss. This song is fantastic, perfectly done with gorgeous violin and organ.
【鏡音リン】 trick art ! 【オリジナル曲】
(trick art! (DATEKEN), Rin, Jazz Pop)
Absolutely gorgeous bit of jazz from Dateken here. Rin's voice is crystal-clear and completely suited to the gentle and wonderful piano and drums of the main track. I nearly cried when the gorgeous bass got a solo.
初音ミク - month of music
(month of music (meijuni), Miku, Indonesian Pop(!))
This wasn't a track I expected to put near the top of this post. It's a little rough and a little repetitive, but then I started listening to it again, and again, and again... best of all, it's Indonesian and a Nicodebut, how cool is that? Miku's voice is gorgeously crisp and clear, and for some reason the track just utterly grips me in it's ridiculous cute playfulness.
【古川本舗】 mugs 【初音ミク】
(mugs (古川), Miku, Easy Listening)
An absolutely amazing soft, lilting ballad of an easy listening track. The real highlight here is Miku's voice. This isn't, on further reading, the Append Miku - instead it's a heavy distortion of her standard voice, intended to make her sound more breathy and whispering, used to excellent effect within the video. Hit up the acane_madder tag attached to the video for the nicosinger this distortion is named after and emulating for some excellent versions of Miku and Gumi tracks.
【オリジナル曲】ユアハイネス☆マイプリンセス【男性ボカロ】
(Your Highness, My Princess (pantan), Sensei + Len + Gakupo + Kaito, R&B)
I don't think, given that title line, that I really need to indicate just how amazingly ~fabulous~ this video is. If you can't figure out this track might be just a little bit special from that combination of singers, genre and title, there's no hope for you. Just relax and let the fantastic strains of Vocaloid's own boy band soothe your ills.
【オリジナル曲】演劇テレプシコーラ【初音ミク】
(Theatrical Terpsichore (hachi), Miku, Soft Rock)
Terpsichore meaning 'delight of dancing', if like me you weren't already aware of the word and needed Floor's Greece geeking to tell you. New hachi is usually guaranteed to go high up on the list, though this is something a little different and odd from his usual, marching beats and harsh chords giving way to a triumphant chorus.
【初音ミク】 素晴らしい世界 【オリジナルPV】
(Wonderful World (pinokio), Miku, Pop Rock)
This is a good, solid energy-driven rock track from Miku, and for once, in a post full of bizarre styles and unusual robots, it even counts as a refreshing change. There's nothing much to complain about here - if I were to say anything it's that the guitar needs to be a touch quieter, as Miku's voice is regularly lost in it - but there's a great enthusiasm to the manic playing.
【鏡音レン】ショタショタ★フィーバーミラクルトゥナイト【カバー】
(Shota Shota ★ Fever Miracle Tonight (???), Len, Eurobeat)
This isn't actively a new entry in Samfree's Robot Robot series of eurobeat tracks, and is rather a remix and rewording of an April Fools UTAU/utattemita track done in the same style as Luka Luka, Miki Miki and Gumi Gumi. I can't say I'm, er, particularly taken with the Shota Shota meme, and if you've heard the others you'll know exactly what to expect. As generic as it is, though, it's still entirely solid, but if you want to listen to the original UTAU/utattemita version it's over here.
【ハク(LOLA) ミクMEIKO】ヘレシー・マンション【オマージュ・アレンジ】
(Heresy Mansion (maigoddo), Haku + Meiko + Lola, Opera Rock, MMDPV)
Crazed blindfolded rocker maigoddo is back with yet another angsty rock song done with an accompanying MMD video, only this time it's more and operatic and less thrashy than his previous offerings, not to mention including an actual LOLA MMD figure rather than reusing Kaiko. This is slightly weird for him, and I admit to laughing when it devolved into a rendition of That One Song They Sing In The Persona 2 Velvet Room, but... it's pretty nice.
【初音ミクオリジナル曲】シカーダ【PV】
(Cicada (21st Century), Miku, Folk Pop)
A ridiculously adorable video now. Combining folksy morris-dancing-style drumming and some fantastic acoustic guitar, matched with a delightful paperwork video. This seems to me like a natural match for Harvest, a Rin video from some time ago, for the same general feeling and sound. A great video to start spring with.
【鏡音レン】 escapade 【鏡音リン】（オリジナル）
(escapade (raika), Rin + Len, Jazz)
The second 'Vocajazz' entry of the week, I leave it up to our resident experts to decide if this is proper Jazz or just jazzy pop - I'm not very good at telling the difference myself, but I can at least recognize that this is one seriously unusual and really pleasant offering for Nicovideo standards, terribly smooth music marred just slightly by voices that were a little too far on the robotic and off-sounding side.
【初音ミク】逃避遊戯【オリジナル】
(Fun Escape (猫虫), Miku, Candy Pop)
Anime-OP-tastic! You just knew I had to include something ridiculously cheesy, and here it is - a thumping and ridiculously saccharine pop song filled to the brim with crazy engrish and chiptuney backing. This is basically completely blatant and you may freely kill me now.
【初音ミク】サクラサク【オリジナル】
(Sakura Bloom (hachioji), Miku, Club Pop)
Okay, I lied, here's another cheesy one. I really like this, but then again I'm me and I'll tend to go for clubby poppy stuff in a heartbeat; this is very pleasant to my ears and I bopped along happily all the way through. If you're confused about the video, the school theme is thanks to the fact that the title also reads as a phrase for 'success in exams'.
【初音ミク】「帰り道」【オリジナル曲】
(The Way Home (nio), Miku, Easy Listening)
There's not a lot to say here - this is a lovely soft crooner of a track with some toe-tapping piano and a crisp Miku voice that all combine to make a song perfect for gently nodding off to. Nothing special, but nothing bad.
【初音ミク】壊人間機械(ブロークンヒューマンマシン)【オリジナル曲】
(Broken Human Machine (machigerita), Miku, Angst Rock)
Oh machige. You still won't return our calls, and you make a video like this? We're not feeling the love, man. Joking aside, this track's a little much for me; while the combination of thrash angst rock and chiptune(!) is seriously interesting, the Miku's all over the place and the entire thing is too over the top for me to really cope with.
PVs / MMDs:
【初音ミク】ロミオとシンデレラ【PV】
(Romeo to Cinderella (PV) (doriko), Miku, Pop, PV)
The song really shouldn't need introducing if you've spent any time at all on this community - one of the most famous songs around, it's been given a shiny new 3D PV treatment that has most of NND in a tizzy right now. Either done from scratch or else excessively Blendered from an MMD starting point, it's terribly shiny and you should go have a look.
【初音ミク】April Fool【手描きPV】
(April Fool (PV) (binyu), Miku, Easy Pop, PV)
I was ready to seriously cut someone when this didn't appear on the ranking, until I realised it was actually first released last year, and this is just a rerelease with video attached. Straight from the school of tear comes this gorgeous easypop track, soft tones and gentle lilting xylophone perfectly intact. Utterly relaxing, I really, desperately like this track.
【MMD】ネルドラム１２：るらら♪
An unabashed demonstration of some of the capabilities of MMD Band Edition, featuring Neru drumming her way through a song at a gorgeous 60 fps, together with all the careful animation that entails. Excellent timing and it's kind of adorable.
【MMD】 テトさんたちで Dream Fighter 【ちょっと改】
I haven't properly gone through all the new UTAU tracks that popped up for Teto's birthday, so I can't properly compose a post just yet (HINT HINT moonka) but in her honour, have this MMD choreography of Perfume's hit Dream Fighter. (This video also kind of highlights one of my problems with the Lat!MMD models at the moment - they've all got the same face. You can tell the old models apart distinctively, but this Teto looks just like Miku found a wig. Plz to fix this, NND people.)