Let the freak out of your soul!

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Bore
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Let the freak out of your soul!

Post by Bore » 27 Feb 2013, 21:28

Albeit speculations and emoing left and right about the future of Super Eurobeat, we ended up receiving more of our "precious" music. Starting a new decade is always a big deal since it would only seem logical that if they kick off a decade, they'll endure through the whole 10 albums. Well at least that's what I am hoping! Either way, 221 came out, it's been reviewed left and right, but I'm a tad late as usual, but better late than never. And thus I present to you the EP review for: Super Eurobeat 221 at the reviews page.

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Post by WNight » 27 Feb 2013, 22:50

Oops double post
Last edited by WNight on 27 Feb 2013, 22:56, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by WNight » 27 Feb 2013, 22:52

So basically, you pretty much liked all things SCP on this album?

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Post by Bore » 27 Feb 2013, 23:54

Pretty much yeah, the variety was what made the label stand out strongly this time around. Then again, I did like most of the songs to some extent. Excluding Cy-Ro and Powerful T.

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Post by #Infinity » 28 Feb 2013, 01:57

I disagree with most of your ratings for this album, but we do share the same favorite and least favorite tracks, rather ironically. Personally, I'm most surprised that you're able to give a rating as high as 8- to Down Down Down, yet during the 160's you expressed downright hatred for classics like Queen and Now and Forever.
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Post by Lebon14 » 28 Feb 2013, 02:02

Good review Bore! Now, I wonder why I gave Power & Love such a high rating... I can't seem to come back to it now... :\
椛ちゃん、助けてぇぇぇぇぇ!

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Post by Bore » 28 Feb 2013, 02:06

#Infinity wrote:I disagree with most of your ratings for this album, but we do share the same favorite and least favorite tracks, rather ironically. Personally, I'm most surprised that you're able to give a rating as high as 8- to Down Down Down, yet during the 160's you expressed downright hatred for classics like Queen and Now and Forever.
And for a reason I would say. Queen was one of the most unexciting Saifam songs of the 160s. They had plenty of awesome songs to boot back then and Queen was hardly that special. And for Now And Forever.... well honestly can't even remember the whole song, which speaks for itself.
Down Down Down is very similar to Dance Boom Boom, as in it's a track that people seem to downright hate for whatever reason. But I do like both tracks and I have zero problems saying that Down Down Down is far far far better than Queen.

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Post by #Infinity » 28 Feb 2013, 02:21

Down Down Down is just so...boring. Emily Guerra delivers a really tepid vocal performance, and the airy instrumentation certainly doesn't make up for that. Queen may not have fostered the most interesting melody, either, but it still excelled by the sheer strength of its hammering production and sharp vocal performance by Mauro Farina.
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Post by drnrg » 28 Feb 2013, 09:30

Decent review, though I found the sction on Cy-Ro's track a little cruel. "totally void of any musical soul" could be one of the most harshest lines I've seen on one of your reviews....and I've read them all. I'd expect something like that on one of Jay's or #infinty's reviews; even I ;do it, all the TIME, but it surprised me a little comming from you. Not a bad thing. The raw honesty is appreciated, just took me a little by surprise that's all.

Anyway, so glad to see you appreciated the Rich Hard and Dave Rodgers songs.

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Post by #Infinity » 28 Feb 2013, 19:31

drnrg wrote:Decent review, though I found the sction on Cy-Ro's track a little cruel. "totally void of any musical soul" could be one of the most harshest lines I've seen on one of your reviews....and I've read them all. I'd expect something like that on one of Jay's or #infinty's reviews; even I ;do it, all the TIME, but it surprised me a little comming from you. Not a bad thing. The raw honesty is appreciated, just took me a little by surprise that's all.
It's because it is void of any musical soul. Ten years ago, Hi-NRG Attack was constantly experimenting with new ideas and took a fresh direction with every new release. Here, they're just rehashing the same generic, Festari-led, Bb-minor fest that lost all of its value years ago. Anybody who can seriously rate Born To Be Wild In My Car as high as Super Knife or even anywhere near it has either completely forgotten about Hi-NRG Attack's older material or curved their expectations under this new low standard. The blunt truth is that a 5+, using Bore's scale, is entirely justified for this track and not "cruel" as you say.
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Post by drnrg » 01 Mar 2013, 09:26

#Infinity
It's because it is void of any musical soul. Ten years ago, Hi-NRG Attack was constantly experimenting with new ideas and took a fresh direction with every new release. Here, they're just rehashing the same generic, Festari-led, Bb-minor fest that lost all of its value years ago. Anybody who can seriously rate Born To Be Wild In My Car as high as Super Knife or even anywhere near it has either completely forgotten about Hi-NRG Attack's older material or curved their expectations under this new low standard. The blunt truth is that a 5+, using Bore's scale, is entirely justified for this track and not "cruel" as you say.
Well, I completely disagree. If you read my review;Cy-Ro's track happens to be my favourite on the disc and I stated the reasons why, which go far beyond than just the song. You are right about "Superknife" being a lot better, but than again "Superknife" is not competeing against "Born to Be Wild In My Car" on this cd. The 10+ I gave Cy-Ro's track is the grade it gets among it's peers on this cd; which I believe is the best presentation of a Eurobeat extended track. If we start comparing the Eurobeat tracks of 200s to the classic vinyl era of 90-96 than why even bother with the new material. It's all inferior to its predesesors.

All in all; I wasn't actually complaining about the rating Bore gave the song. He stated his reasons why. I was just taken a little by surprise of his choice of words. That line particularly.Not really his style, you see....but that said; I'm not at all surprise you were the one who choice to retort. But seriously, you sound just a bit more angry with the label than usual :???:

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Post by #Infinity » 01 Mar 2013, 11:56

drnrg wrote:Well, I completely disagree. If you read my review;Cy-Ro's track happens to be my favourite on the disc and I stated the reasons why, which go far beyond than just the song. You are right about "Superknife" being a lot better, but than again "Superknife" is not competeing against "Born to Be Wild In My Car" on this cd. The 10+ I gave Cy-Ro's track is the grade it gets among it's peers on this cd; which I believe is the best presentation of a Eurobeat extended track. If we start comparing the Eurobeat tracks of 200s to the classic vinyl era of 90-96 than why even bother with the new material. It's all inferior to its predesesors.

All in all; I wasn't actually complaining about the rating Bore gave the song. He stated his reasons why. I was just taken a little by surprise of his choice of words. That line particularly.Not really his style, you see....but that said; I'm not at all surprise you were the one who choice to retort. But seriously, you sound just a bit more angry with the label than usual :???:
To be honest, I think the biggest overall problem with Hi-NRG Attack, more than anything else, is their current production style. In the late 90's and early 2000's, their synthesizers were crisp and juicy. Softer tracks employed beautiful chimes during the synth hook, while more aggressive feats resorted to powerful harmonizations. Born To Be Wild In My Car, as well as most other 2010's HRG songs, don't have any of this. Instead, the synths are thin and noisy, the bass is virtually nonexistent, and the synths are rarely harmonized. Also, the drum kicks sound like someone slapping on tin foil rather than smooth hits. All of these little elements make for incredibly cheap soundscapes, and it severely detracts from songs that could have been a lot better.

However, even with production flaws being considered, the label's suffering creativity is still a pretty big issue, as is the case with Born To Be Wild In My Car. If we're considering this track, first off, the chord progression is just that same stock Bb-minor structure used in other disposable tracks like Rock 'N Roll Royce, Maximum Speed, and Demolition Man. This approach has been done to death, and Born To Be Wild In My Car brings absolutely nothing fresh to build upon it. A tune using a generic chord structure can still work if the melody offers enough hooks (see Light My Fire by P. Stone for a good example), but that's certainly not the case here. None of the phrases have any kind of real direction and sort of just muddle together a bunch of random notes within the key. Just compare the chorus of BTBWIMC to that of Light My Fire's - the latter puts clean emphasis on the "Bang, Bang"'s while methodically offsetting them with the rest of the lyrics. It's easy to follow and is deliberately constructed. With BTBWIMC, the chorus just drops the already-convoluted (not to mention nonsensical) title and then follows upon it with a mess of notes that don't follow any coherent pattern. The production drowns out the song enough as is, but when the tune itself doesn't have any notable hooks whatsoever, the impact is virtually nonexistent.

Festari's vocal delivery is absolutely awful throughout this track. He's barely even on key and completely runs out of steam by the chorus. This wasn't always the case; he brought whole-hearted performances to earlier songs like Super Kaiser, Pistol Man, and Black Night Cadillac. Here, he doesn't sound like he's even trying, as if he was hung over from the night before when he recorded all of his lines.

You may praise this song for a variety of tiny details, but for me personally, they're just trivial specks that hardly matter, considering the severe flaws regarding the horrid production, stock chord progression, lack of hooks, and amateurish vocal performance.

Considering how everybody here vociferously complained about A-Beat C during 2007 and early 2008, I can't believe I'm one of only a few people to realize just how badly Hi-NRG Attack has suffered in recent years. I'll admit the recently-released Kissing Me by Jeff Driller is substantially better than Born To Be Wild In My Car, thanks to its wonderful synth melody and hookier vocal tune, but it's still marred by the same horrible vocal and synth quality that killed BTBWIMC.
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Post by drnrg » 02 Mar 2013, 23:30

Amazing how we can be so Day N Night on this particular Cy-Ro track, yet be spot on about other Eurobeat. Aside from you; i've never really come across another member who even mentions the awesomeness of Funky Warriors or Millenium. Crazy Eurobeat world we reside. :D in

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Post by #Infinity » 04 Mar 2013, 11:24

drnrg wrote:Amazing how we can be so Day N Night on this particular Cy-Ro track, yet be spot on about other Eurobeat. Aside from you; i've never really come across another member who even mentions the awesomeness of Funky Warriors or Millenium. Crazy Eurobeat world we reside. :D in
Both of those tracks you mention are great, but especially the former in particular. That intro sure kicks up the adrenaline, and the vocal phrases are some of the most convicting of any Time song of that era. Actually, the_ditz has told me personally before that he absolutely loves Funky Warriors, and he's not usually the first person to laud anything performed by Gino Caria.
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Post by Jay » 05 Mar 2013, 03:14

Funnily enough, the Cy-Ro verdict was basically the only point of similarity between Bore's review and my own. HRG are capable of great things, as they demonstrated with their slower, Italo-inspired productions in the 200s, but I'm willing to bet that nobody will remember this Cy-Ro track in a year or two. I doubt even you will, drnrg.

Are HRG the new Saifam?

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