The Best and Worst of the 160s

[Vadim]

Bazooka Girl - "Money Funny Dollars" is something I am familiar with.
As a person who apreciates wackiness in all shapes and forms,I 'still find
the HRG delivery of these hyper girl voices rather too obvious.
If u push it too far it goes beyond funny and starts getting old
with ppl who may have smiled at hearing first tunes of this variety.
I think it's the case where HRG could derive more benefit from
going back to beutifill romantic female vocal songs that graced
their golden age records in the 90-s.
If u have such fantastic powerfull chick vocals capable of beutifull singing,
why go and destroy that beuty with unecessary and unsuitable
vocal processing? I think it's perhaps a happy hardcore touch to
making otherwise good pieces of music overly immature sounding.
Apparently it may amuse the 4-th graders for a whole of 15 minutes...
But if that's a Target audience for these projects,I am all passe...

[DJ Mike]

Sorry to quote your entire post, but it seemed like a rather blatant attack on HRG Attack....and where did the hate for BBB come from?

Vibration is Aewsome, but 100x better when Gino Caria was on the team(though there isn't one song from Vibration that I don't like)

Wow, boy, did you ever miss the point.

There is no "hate" for BBB or Hi-NRG, but they aren't exactly leading the way in this decade. BBB started out fantastically and quickly became very repetitive - this felt like a decade that could've used one more mix album to keep things padded out - but I guess Avex feel it hurts their sales to not release new songs as often as possible.

I have NO idea where your assumption that I'm attacking all Hi-NRG females came from, you've clearly not listened to these songs and compared them to the real Hi-NRG greats. These latests mock-ups have had their female vocals warped and stressed about with electronically so much that they just don't sound good anymore.

Hi-NRG songs have had some exceptional power in the past. "I Want Your Balalaika" was a fantastic example of going more experimental with wacky vocal sounds, and it was done with control and good measurement. Songs like "Baby Gold" have none of that; no power, and over-experimenting with wild abandon - and crucially don't even match up to being listenable Eurobeat.

[Vadim]

DJ Mike shure did gotten that dog by the tail, I recon.

[drnrg]

D.J. Mike wrote

Hi-NRG songs have had some exceptional power in the past. "I Want Your Balalaika" was a fantastic example of going more experimental with wacky vocal sounds, and it was done with control and good measurement. Songs like "Baby Gold" have none of that; no power, and over-experimenting with wild abandon - and crucially don't even match up to being listenable Eurobeat.

While I agree That "I Want Your Balalaika" is 100x lot better than Baby Gold, but still a great song!
I still think that HRG is better than say ABeatC. They can also use female vocals (Lollita, Go Go Girls) to a hyped up level where only dogs can hear. So it is a bad example when comparing the quality of HRG songs. Besides I love hype vocals from any label!
I have heard HRG since the beggining of TIME. Obviously thier sound changes with the X, but I really do not see the difference in thier hyped vocals when compared to ABeatC. It's just a matter of personal preferance.
As for BBB originality...Some of us like that thier songs sound similiar. Besides they are never actually the same. Something allways changes, weather it be the b-melo or chorus or just the lyrics...something allways changes.
FYI Eurobeat,High NRG, or even Italo always use the same formula throughout the years. It wouldn't be Eurobeat with too many experiments, especially the sorry attempt at borrowing from other styles. Trans and Techno to be completely specific. It just doesn't work.

I guess I can get a little carried away when it comes to defending labels like TIME, HRG and Saifam. I just really would not like any undesirable changes in those lables or for them to stop appearing on SEBs ,because of negativaty.

D.J. MIKE wrote

Songs like "Baby Gold" have none of that; no power, and over-experimenting with wild abandon - and crucially don't even match up to being listenable Eurobeat.

You are entitled to your own opinion, but I think those comments go too far!

[Wataru Akiyama]

Bazooka Girl - "Money Funny Dollars" is something I am familiar with.
As a person who apreciates wackiness in all shapes and forms,I 'still find
the HRG delivery of these hyper girl voices rather too obvious.
If u push it too far it goes beyond funny and starts getting old
with ppl who may have smiled at hearing first tunes of this variety.
I think it's the case where HRG could derive more benefit from
going back to beutifill romantic female vocal songs that graced
their golden age records in the 90-s.
If u have such fantastic powerfull chick vocals capable of beutifull singing,
why go and destroy that beuty with unecessary and unsuitable
vocal processing? I think it's perhaps a happy hardcore touch to
making otherwise good pieces of music overly immature sounding.
Apparently it may amuse the 4-th graders for a whole of 15 minutes...
But if that's a Target audience for these projects,I am all passe...

I agree with you wholeheartedly. "Money Funny Dollars" made me want to dig my eardrums out with a screwdriver.

[beat freak]

I don't hear A-Beat-C pitching up the vocals. Their problem has been the instruments are overpowering the vocals and it's getting hard to hear them. Norma's songs and the Yellowfin song are good examples of this.

The pitching occurs when Avex does the megamix. Like Karen's Everlasting Love was probably 8x faster than the original mix, which we will never hear. The Go Go Girls songs (I Wanna Be Fat, Go Go's & The Monkey's etc) use faster vocals, but I think that's just the way Elena sings. She has a great chirpy but powerful voice.

HRG on the other hand seems to only think there is one kind of female and two kinds of male vocals. I used to think that there was only one female vocalist on HRG cause they all sound exactly the same, but Cheeto tells me there are many different female vocalists. I blame the producers for making them all sound nasaly and squeeky. I'm sure the vocalist sounds good otherwise.

A Beat C is definately much better than HRG at writing songs, producing songs and picking good vocalists. You can even hear their influence on songs now by SCP, HRG & Delta, as they are doing more romantic styled songs now.

[Jion]

Well I wouldn't say the influence is from A-Beat C. The influence is directly from Avex who dictates the style they'd like on SEB. For example if Supermarket A decides to only buy apples and no oranges and you were a farmer and you had a contract with Supermarket A, would you produce oranges? Of course not, you'd give them what they want to buy.

[para_rigby]

I personally didn't like the SEB 70 megamix because the alot of the vocals on the cd were messed with terribly. My best example was Doctor Doctor where Clara's vocals were so high pitched I didn't recognize that it was her singing it.

Can Avex possibly not screw with the vocals on a Super Eurobeat megamix for once?

[drnrg]

That is one the main reasons that I do not buy SEB mixes. The first being that the song is cut short, but the second is those pitched up vocals and songs. Almost 10 bpms more faster than SEB series. TOOOO Fast for my taste

[Nine]

That is one the main reasons that I do not buy SEB mixes. The first being that the song is cut short, but the second is those pitched up vocals and songs. Almost 10 bpms more faster than SEB series. TOOOO Fast for my taste

I'm complete opposite of you, I love all the mix albums avex puts out - i love to hear how they mix all the songs together, i love how there are a lot more songs than just your usual 18 (even if they've been heard before), and I love that they shorten the lenght and speed up the music. I listen to a lot of my music 1 minute at a time. There are some songs I like to sit down and listen to the whole 4-6 minutes of, but my attention span is too short and I love to hear a lot of different songs in a short period of time. My favorite nonstop albums are the 70 songs 70 mins kind, they rock! (Plus, I love the little mix some of them come with at the beginning of the CD, all 70 songs mixed together for a 3 minute ear orgasm! hehe)

[Sadie]

That is one the main reasons that I do not buy SEB mixes. The first being that the song is cut short, but the second is those pitched up vocals and songs. Almost 10 bpms more faster than SEB series. TOOOO Fast for my taste

I agree with this statement. I generally don't like the nonstop albums. There are exceptions to this, but generally speaking, I'm not too fond of the nonstop mixes. I almost died listening to "Supertonic Lady" on SEB 160. The voice.... Of dear, I couldn't take it. It was pitched up so much.... Wow.

[Densetsu13]

That is one the main reasons that I do not buy SEB mixes. The first being that the song is cut short, but the second is those pitched up vocals and songs. Almost 10 bpms more faster than SEB series. TOOOO Fast for my taste

I agree with this statement. I generally don't like the nonstop albums. There are exceptions to this, but generally speaking, I'm not too fond of the nonstop mixes. I almost died listening to "Supertonic Lady" on SEB 160. The voice.... Of dear, I couldn't take it. It was pitched up so much.... Wow.

Interesting to hear that, because I died when I heard Supertonic Lady on SEB 160 too but for the complete opposite reason that I thought it sounded perfect at that speed XD Yeah his vocals were pitched up, but I would have love dit all the same if that was the songs original BPM and he sang it normally at that speed (but then that would defeat the purpose of the topic which is pitched up vocals ).

I dunno, I'm like Phil where I adore megamixes for the exact same reasons (although when it comes to SEB I still prefer they keep non-stops out of there and for the decade anniversaries. I'll buy other albums if I want to hear a megamix thx). Only then to do I find it excusable to have hyper pitched up vocals. Pitched up I can only deal with in certain cases. While I may still enjoy a song that has pitched up vocals, it is only because my ear has become so deaf to the effect that it doesn't bother me anymore, but believe me when I say that I would rather hear their vocals at a normal pitch, or if it MUST be pitched, just less so.

Boy do I miss the older days of Hi-NRG...

[Shawaazu]

Can Avex possibly not screw with the vocals on a Super Eurobeat megamix for once?

I've figured that the megamixes are the place these mixers can screw with the vocals as they feel like. It's always fun hearing them in megamixes and remix works. I especially like it in Night Of Fire (New Generation Mix), Jolie (Best 2002) and the Kiss To Kiss sample in 160.

I usually find it kinda boring if they don't screw with the songs in mixes

I'm complete opposite of you, I love all the mix albums avex puts out - i love to hear how they mix all the songs together, i love how there are a lot more songs than just your usual 18 (even if they've been heard before), and I love that they shorten the lenght and speed up the music. I listen to a lot of my music 1 minute at a time. There are some songs I like to sit down and listen to the whole 4-6 minutes of, but my attention span is too short and I love to hear a lot of different songs in a short period of time. My favorite nonstop albums are the 70 songs 70 mins kind, they rock! (Plus, I love the little mix some of them come with at the beginning of the CD, all 70 songs mixed together for a 3 minute ear orgasm! hehe)

I agree the megamixes albums are the ones I listen to most, and the ones I usually buy too Sure, I always do love to hear the full version of specific songs but as said above I love to hear what they do with the songs or what samples of older songs they put in. And sometimes if I hate a song when I listened to it in the normal version and when I hear it in megamix version I actually like it more e.g. Suzy Lazy - Tell Me Baby.

[drnrg]

very interesting reasons. I think you youngsters should listen to some older Italo Mixes and see how they sounded back then. Not too pitched up and actually you could hear the song transend to the other in a longer break. I was actually facinated by mixing and did it for many years, but nowadays just not the same. It's mostly cutting from one song to another.
In reality the art of mixing was actually making the fans think that the mix effect was actaully the same song. I think the older TIME,FLea and ASia and even early ABEATC had that efect when mixed at the right TIME. That is why a lot of Eurobeat sounds the same and uses that same formula even though nowadays the mixes pretty much suck

here are a few examples of how some songs sound so similiar you actaually fooled when the mix transends.
Helena- With You_____Francis Cooper- All The Day
Mike Hammer- Hot Love____Mark Farina- Gun Fire
Annalise -Taste Of Love___NRG Boys- Heart & Body

Just a few examples, but those of you who know DeeJaying, get my point

[DJ Mike]

The problem is that the EB labels have dispensed with long intros and outros to their songs, turning them from club-friendly mixes into radio-friendly songs. That, and I guess they figure this whole idea of "quick cutting" is a phenomenon that has become associated with ParaPara by now and they should stick with it.

And this doesn't necessarily apply just to the radio edits Avex does for their CDs - the so-called "Extended" Mixes still suffer the same problem. Oh how I wish they could do some kind of Club SEB album with modern tracks, where the mixes of songs are built up slowly to allow proper seamless mixing

M;.