The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All - Ch. 113.5 - Manga Soundtrack Booklet + Sumiko Arai Interview

[definitionofinsanity]

The manga has already touched on this, but considering that western music is already less popular in Japan and has to compete with K-pop and idols... this is actually pretty damn cool.

 

[0ri]

Wowee I've been tracking the unofficial mixtape of songs referenced in the story, and now there's an official one! 6 of the 10 official tracks were not called out in story.

there's already been an official playlist for a while now
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG6fBBVI-p6pi6K-cJW7WO5keNaI8nAB2

 

[MushroomRetainer]

I really thought that little star in the "I think it's worth listening to" speech bubble was an asterisk and kept looking for a translator's note to provide more context for the quote for entirely too long before realizing it's just a random star effect.

 

[Zhulok]

Huh for some reason I expected an actual album from this manga to be a little less... mainstream.

 

[Doritos420]

the bafflement at weezer has to be a generation gap thing. from my perspective, if you're putting together a collection of alternative music from the nineties, you're basically obligated to put at least one song from the Blue Album on there. yes, they got very bad a decade later but the blue album is one of the classics of the 90s.

 

[cranscape]

Huh for some reason I expected an actual album from this manga to be a little less... mainstream.

It's not mainstream to the Japanese audience (outside of the older Japanese Joe Koga types likely). But it's also related to what songs were both relevant in the manga AND could be licensed. In that sense it's a pretty good sign they were able to get these tracks.

That said I would have loved Bad Nerves to get in on this since they had been mentioned in the manga and did a short music video for the manga on their socials way back. And I like them.

 

[Kekryn]

Huh for some reason I expected an actual album from this manga to be a little less... mainstream.

The music references have all been very mainstream so far. This is sort of like kids in high school in the 90s preferring 70s rock and talking about Led Zeppelin and the Who. Mainstream as hell but seen as cooler and from a cooler time.

 

[DarkeLourd]

That’s what she considers good music? It reads like an autogenerated Spotify Playlist for “Classic Rock”, not something worthy of a Vinyl print.

No Ska? No punk? But Bon Jovi and Beck? BECK? But Mr Brightside is the real nail in the coffin, it immediately lets you know everything.

If you had bothered to read the interview in this very chapter, Beck would be the most obvious fucking include ever. She talks about how Beck was her dad's favorite musician and his music was formative for her growing up. And in general, she talks more about liking grunge and doesn't mention ska or punk (though obviously she likes the latter at least, because bands like Misfits and The Offspring have shown up).

Also maybe you forgot because it was years ago, but Loser and You Give Love a Bad Name were specifically on the playlist that Aya gave "onii-san" way back at the beginning of the manga that eventually led her to realize "onii-san" and Mitsuki were the same person. (Heart Shaped Box was too, but I notice nobody's complaining about that no matter how mainstream Nirvana is.) So not only have they already been in the manga, they're plot-relevant songs.

Huh for some reason I expected an actual album from this manga to be a little less... mainstream.

You gotta keep in mind that this album is obviously aimed at the Japanese audience for whom there is a greater barrier to entry for this kind of music. It's MEANT to be entry-level (though that does make the fact that it's on vinyl a bit of a strange choice).

My only complaint is the omission of Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon was the album that first got Aya into western rock, according to a flashback chapter) and Foo Fighters (the Dream Window album was the first album "onii-san" recommended Aya, and they later had a serindipitous moment together over the release of But Here We Are).

 

[mgRdr]

The music references have all been very mainstream so far. This is sort of like kids in high school in the 90s preferring 70s rock and talking about Led Zeppelin and the Who. Mainstream as hell but seen as cooler and from a cooler time.

Been there, except for me it was not the 90s, but early 10s

 

[Angry_Panda]

UUUUUGGGGGHHHH... people talking about vinyl. As someone with 3200+ LPs (3/4 of which are classical), DO NOT MAKE IT A 'SACRED RITUAL' THING. It's just a transport for music. It's no different than how you listen on a set of earbuds while walking around. It's just about three generations less convenient. It doesn't sound 'better,' it just frequently sounds 'different.' If I hadn't gotten into it at college over a quarter century ago, when it was cheap and plentiful because everyone was getting rid of it, I would have taken the advice I give to most folks who ask about starting out now - DON'T, unless you have a really compelling reason. (And no, 'I inherited a couple dozen beat-to-shit classic rock LPs from my uncle' is not a really compelling reason.)

My only complaint is the omission of Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon was the album that first got Aya into western rock, according to a flashback chapter) and Foo Fighters (the Dream Window album was the first album "onii-san" recommended Aya, and they later had a serindipitous moment together over the release of But Here We Are).

Not sure about Foo Fighters, but Floyd rights would be really expensive to get, so I'm thinking that's a factor.

 

[MidnightGear]

green yuri manga
blue album

sure bro

 

[Thrembs]

That’s what she considers good music? It reads like an autogenerated Spotify Playlist for “Classic Rock”, not something worthy of a Vinyl print.

No Ska? No punk? But Bon Jovi and Beck? BECK? But Mr Brightside is the real nail in the coffin, it immediately lets you know everything.

Uh, Beck is a given.
That song was EVERYWHERE for a reason.
from memory, by someone who doesn’t listen to beck.

in the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey
butane in my veins and ? the junkie
with the plastic eyeballs
spraypaint the vegetables
? and the beef cake pantyhose

So kill the headlights and put it in neutral
? with a loser at the cruise control
…



but Bon Jovi is trash.

 

[Thrembs]

UUUUUGGGGGHHHH... people talking about vinyl. As someone with 3200+ LPs (3/4 of which are classical), DO NOT MAKE IT A 'SACRED RITUAL' THING. It's just a transport for music. It's no different than how you listen on a set of earbuds while walking around. It's just about three generations less convenient. It doesn't sound 'better,' it just frequently sounds 'different.' If I hadn't gotten into it at college over a quarter century ago, when it was cheap and plentiful because everyone was getting rid of it, I would have taken the advice I give to most folks who ask about starting out now - DON'T, unless you have a really compelling reason. (And no, 'I inherited a couple dozen beat-to-shit classic rock LPs from my uncle' is not a really compelling reason.)


Not sure about Foo Fighters, but Floyd rights would be really expensive to get, so I'm thinking that's a factor.

Most music after 1994 sounds worse on LP, because of the brick wall limiting on things as part of the loudness war, and all the bass pumped in, and the fact that bass isn’t centered, and there’s too much of it, and too much of it is below 40hz…

The very idea of buying, say, Lorna Shore on vinyl is laughable. Look at the waveform in audacity or something. Just a big rectangle.
I like their songs, but the recordings sound terrible. Just a wall of bees and a series of explosions. It sounds like protools.
Live recordings of them taken on iPhones sound better…


If they’re not completely mastered for vinyl you’ll get a weak, noisy experience.

CDs are inferior in most ways, on a pure technical level… if you have an expensive and/or vintage p, belt-driven, well-maintained turntable with a good needl…. until you’ve played the platter enough times. CDs don’t pop or hiss. Dust is inevitable.

You can stream almost ANYTHING with higher quality than either CD or LP nowadays. An iPhone with good cans (not a cheap get. Expect to pay over 150 for good cans. I don’t own good cans atm. Been out of engineering for 8.5years) is better than a fancy system and an LP.

The very acts of cutting the plate and pressing it into the vinyl inevitably affect the sound.

This comic over-does it, but when I put some albums on, it was like watching a movie. You look at all the fancy stuff on the cover, page through the lyrics sheet, maybe it’s a gatefold, or a double disc so you have more to read. I had a few that came with a big old book! Illustrations and ish. I still don’t own the German edition of “Ashes” by Christian Death… I have first and second USA runs, the first-run French on, and the British one. They all have different art, and different booklets. Different numbers of platters between regions… Even old, worn vinyl (my USA or British were pretty crackly. Been a while without a turntable) of that sounds better than the CD, because there wasn’t enough care put into mastering it for vinyl.
The fact that you need to flip it means you end up paying more attention. That specific

You can do these things without a bunch of mechanical stuff just by choice, but it’s interesting to have it just handed to you that way. The ritual happened out of necessity, so people leaned into it.
Then they stopped, aside from Albini et al and various other indie artists.

Times are different. Things change.
We can get more out of music by watching music videos or listening in more contexts due to everything being portable.

Vinyl forces a certain level of active listening (or you end up listening to the lock groove forever)

 

[Angry_Panda]

Vinyl forces a certain level of active listening (or you end up listening to the lock groove forever)

This is why my office system has a table with automatic return - if I have my head down in something for work, it'll prevent that.

I generally listen to between two and eight LPs over the course of a work day (I work from home), depending on how many calls I have scheduled, so I'm really not inclined to view the whole process as something 'special' - it's just how I listen to music. The 'good' system has no distractions in the room it's in, though, so when I want to do critical listening I can focus more easily.

I generally agree with most of the rest of what you're saying - I have a copy of the original pressing of No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom that is brickwalled garbage. (Oddly, the reissue I have of Oasis's Morning Glory is decent - loud, but not fatiguing. They must have done some work on the master for that.) I will volunteer that personally, while I have a pair of Sennheiser 600's and a capable amp driving them, I still don't like headphone listening compared to a proper set of speakers.

 

[Thrembs]

This is why my office system has a table with automatic return - if I have my head down in something for work, it'll prevent that.

I generally listen to between two and eight LPs over the course of a work day (I work from home), depending on how many calls I have scheduled, so I'm really not inclined to view the whole process as something 'special' - it's just how I listen to music. The 'good' system has no distractions in the room it's in, though, so when I want to do critical listening I can focus more easily.

I generally agree with most of the rest of what you're saying - I have a copy of the original pressing of No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom that is brickwalled garbage. (Oddly, the reissue I have of Oasis's Morning Glory is decent - loud, but not fatiguing. They must have done some work on the master for that.) I will volunteer that personally, while I have a pair of Sennheiser 600's and a capable amp driving them, I still don't like headphone listening compared to a proper set of speakers.

Agreed on all points, I guess I just bought different things and have things set up differently.
I only mentioned cans because they plug into an iPhone.

If I ever got set up and did some studio engineering, I would never even bother trying to work with anything but acoustic, country and indie acts, because a metal or pop-rock group would hate the results.
I learned to engineer from a member of the silent generation (z”l) and my fav engineer is Steve Albini. I want to put mics in the right places and have the band play. a couple overdubs.

I don’t know how to make good-sounding radio-friendly stuff. I know how to make it sounds like a band is in the room.
I know what I’m good at and it’s making a band on a stage louder, and how to make a band in a room sound like a band in a room.
Engineering is one of 4 things about myself I will brag about.
A fifth that I brag about half-jokingly is that I’ve turned 3 married women gay.
Well, I know you don’t turn anyone anything, but I have been the first woman 3 married women have been into. I married the first one for 8 years, which is half the reason the others got blocked.

 

[Angry_Panda]

I don’t know how to make good-sounding radio-friendly stuff. I know how to make it sounds like a band is in the room.
I know what I’m good at and it’s making a band on a stage louder, and how to make a band in a room sound like a band in a room.
Engineering is one of 4 things about myself I will brag about.

I was taught that the recording/mix engineer should focus on getting a good dynamic mix, and leave the compression to the mastering engineer. From what I understand, it's easier for the mastering house to do their job if the mixes they get aren't already trying to squash everything. (Admittedly, my mixing education was ancillary to my music composition major rather than being the focus, so I'm not going to claim a lot of special knowledge on that front, but I have done both session and front of house work enough times that I'm comfortable behind a desk in either environment.)

 

[Kirin-kun]

I had forgotten to translate the liner notes. This is now fixed.

 

[Thrembs]

I was taught that the recording/mix engineer should focus on getting a good dynamic mix, and leave the compression to the mastering engineer. From what I understand, it's easier for the mastering house to do their job if the mixes they get aren't already trying to squash everything. (Admittedly, my mixing education was ancillary to my music composition major rather than being the focus, so I'm not going to claim a lot of special knowledge on that front, but I have done both session and front of house work enough times that I'm comfortable behind a desk in either environment.)

Well, ”engineer” “producer” and “mastering“ are a pretty complex Venn diagram.
Albini handles the whole thing himself on a project. From the mics to the master plate.

individual tracks may or may not need processing with compression and such, the person at the board may need to step in and tell the producer there’s a phase problem and maybe get another take on the guitars because of bleed from a drum mic or the guitar is all in a frequency range that conflicts with the yadda yadda…

If you give me a the gear, I can turn out a clean mix that won’t blow your system or be a flatline of piss.

a lot of the mixing techniques taught in SOME schools are completely bonkers, too.
Mixing from the trim?! Really? Before the pre-fader sends? Mess with the noise floor and sub mixes just to adjust the level?
All kinds of shit that goes against the way devices are designed to function.

It’s a technical skill, with only a little art involved. Big production stuff makes me itch. I like some of the results of that (and the list is long going all the way back) but it’s not what I can or want to do.

Live, the person at the board, plugging in cables, running the monitors… all part of the sound engineering team. The person at the board is “running the mix” but unless you’re working solo (I pity your joints down the line) then it’s such a team effort it’s a gradient between “engineer” and “tech”.

Terminology, sizes of teams, workflow… all of this stuff varies.

I’d have someone fix errors in my master. As in, come in and master it again, based on my attempt. I’d probably go too light on… everything.

 

[_Keyboard]

How can I delete my comment?

 

[beThereShortly]

Fucking Bon Jovi and Weezer. Fuck ooooooff! If you're going to be a vinyl poser at least listen to music for posers!