Single AKB48 34th [Suzukake no Ki no...] 13/12/11

He sort of looked to me like he wanted to kill himself though Or maybe he just has that expression a lot? I'm not familiar with him...

Yeah, there's one more thing that makes AKB live singing a difficult venture, I think most people don't really think of it, and that's simply the fact that they're pop songs. Pop songs are technically and counter-intuitively more difficult to sing because the singer is forced into using that unhealthy throat voice that makes the singing sound bright and shallow. You can kind of sneak some diaphragm in there for sustained notes but if you don't want to sound like you're singing a choral piece, unfortunately the way to avoid a tone that's too rich for pop music is just to sing in a technically unhealthy way. It doesn't lend a lot of support or breath control to counterbalance all the dancing.

Do you even know what a loli is? Majority of 48group members wouldn't even fall under that label and it's one that's only used ironically anyway (usually to describe HKT because they're the 'young and cute' group). My god, with the way you constantly spew venom about this or that, I really wonder why you're even here, you seem to hate the group.

 

I prefer that we discuss AKB and its members and not the members of this forum.

 

And I prefer we discuss the members without attaching the wrong labels to them in a generalizing sort of way in order to knock them down for their efforts, so I guess we're at an impasse.

 

Good point To me he looked sort of resigned, like "well, I am getting paid for this after all so I might as well go for it"
I can think of at least one or two other guitarists who'd have projected more cool or fun images, but it was really interesting as is to see the composer behind Suzukake and Kimi no koto ga suki dakara.

Coincidentally, for those who are curious, I did a quick search and found out that Oda's 55 and has been in the industry since the late '70s. He's worked as a producer and singer-songwriter in addition to his composition work. It seems that as a solo artist, he's released 21 singles and 15 albums! To be honest, I don't know how I couldn't have stumbled across his name before somewhere.

 

Oh wow, that was one of the worst AKB lives I have ever heard. ^^; Honestly, I think one of the big reasons is that they are not used to blending their voices, which is extremely important when singing with 15+ people. If they just practiced more it would get so much better. They don't have to sing live all the time, but if they want to sound decent when they perform live then they have to practice. It's usually not this bad--the music fair performance of Heart Ereki was great. Many of the members are good when singing solo or with just a couple other people.

I wish they performed live in the theater more often. The fans who go to the theater would not be as offended as a huge audience if they sounded terrible at first, lol. And yeah, they're an idol group, but there are plenty of idol groups who sing live almost all the time and sound decent. I know that for AKB is difficult--they have so many mics so it is hard to mix them, and they perform so often that if they always sang live they would destroy their vocal chords... But I Would like to see it more often. The performances on AKB48 SHOW! are a great start.

 

Yikes. Props to them for being able to keep a stable voice though. Yay Yuko for not getting out of tune! Notice that for the bridge of this song Yuko/Mayu and SayaMilky had to smash their heads together to be able to be heard in the mic, something that's not done when lip-syncing, heh. And Annin forgot to do the clock hands moving motion while doing Mariko's part. Just wished that Kojiharu and Sayanee were able to save the song though

Suzukake was good. Sounds like the studio version. The 'Suki! suki' etc' part was a bit out-of-breath, but they were jumping around anyways.



I would really love if they were to perform a concert totally live one day, and not just lip-sync to it. For all 48 songs throughout except UZA, I guess. If only there were an 'easier' dance choreo for them to follow in times of live singing, especially with SKE.

 

The use of "loli" may differ in different regions but this can be a hint.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/loli

I think it originates from the movie "Lolita" but maybe Stanley Kubrick used an older term.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056193/?ref_=nv_sr_1

I use it for a girl who are acting in a situation where she is to young, not for a specific age.

The musicians in this video must have feel a lot of pain for listening to this disharmonies.

 

Tentoumu Chu!'s song title is 'Erande Rainbow' (選んでレインボー)

Sounds colourfull, haha

 

I don't like the excuse "but they're dancing! Of course they can't possibly sing live and sound good".

Yes, of course it is more difficult to sing live while dancing, but there are other groups, even idol groups, who consistently sing live while dancing and sound much better than this. I think the difference is that they practice it that way and AKB doesn't. They don't know how to control their breathing while dancing because they never have to... Until they do, like on this, and it sounds

 

If I may write it in a different way. All instruments in a orchestra must be tuned in together otherwise it sounds terrible, and thats also must be done with the voices. Obviously they don't do this in AKB, therefore it sounds bad. If its only because they are young or if they don't practice enough I don't know, but the voice are normally become better and better with increasing age. Therefor I think it would be better if they use the older members for live singing and not these young girls, which I call lolies. Stop pushing them everywhere and everytime.

Let me post a better example. ABBA always sound perfect and that's not by chance. The sound engineer Michael B Tretow said in an interview that Agnetha and Annifrid spent hour after hour singing and calibrating their voices for perfect sound. No disharmonies there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW3HN_pvbE4

Most people can do it if they practice.

 

Senbatsu probably doesn't get a lot of chances to practice together, no need to turn it into a new vs old thing... Obviously the older gen girls are a lot more familiar with the song and their positions. I do wish AKB spent a bit more effort in their live singing, but I found the performance good enough to be enjoyable with a few cringes here and there (and might I add that Kojiharu an older gen provided one of those cringe moments)

It's possible to sing good live while dancing, sadly AKB chooses not to practice that enough, but we already know that really..

 

I'm not looking for a "fantastic" musical performance from AKB. But if they're going to appear singing live on TV, they should at least manage to be pleasant to listen to. Part of Heavy Rotation were so out of tune and poorly blended I was cringing. I think there should be some standards and not lower them so far that "doesn't sound like a screeching cat" is considered good enough.

"Great" may be too much to shoot for, but how about "okay"? I'd consider that one live Heart Ereki performance perfectly acceptable, but parts of this particular performance were kind of embarrassing.

 

Quick reply to rka. Yes, but they don't slipped in there on a banana peel. They practiced and practiced and practiced ...

 

Takeuchi Miyu sings quite well, and she's seventeen. Same goes with Okada Nana (sixteen) and Oomori Miyu (fifteen). Oh, and Iwata Karen's (fifteen) Hana wa Saku sounds really good as well.

 

Stop. Stahhhp. The thread is getting really irritating to follow. Please stay on topic.

Quite honestly I don't see the issue with the performance. It's pretty standard and hardly any different from other performances of the song / other instances of the group singing live. It's still on the good side. I've heard far worse coming from them. Jeez, I've heard far far worse coming from Hamasaki Ayumi or Every Little Thing - multiple times. We're talking AKB, not Yo-Yo Ma. They are what they are. They got through Suzukake somehow, so all is dandy.
FNS Kayousai as such is a program where traditionally all the artists sing live. Check the full broadcast. You'll see there's a bunch of performances every year that sound bad in one way or another. Often the singing isn't good, other times the acoustics don't seem right. That half a dozen girls shouting into mics at the same time isn't gonna sound as pleasing as the Brandenburg Concertos is a given.

@ gotbild: You shouldn't call every younger member "loli" so indiscriminately. It comes off as ignorant and is slightly rude towards fans of these members. I don't want to see people calling the older members "grandmas" either... (although that would be more in line with what you hear here in Japan).
There aren't even any particularly young members on stage during "Heavy Rotation". It's pretty much the most representable group of current members.

 

The funny thing is, they actually are using older members for live singing...

Oshima Yuko is 25

Yukirin is 22,

Takamina is 22,

Sasshi is 21,

Sayaka, Milky, Yui are 20.

Minegishi Minami is officially 20 but since I heard the 3 musketeers laugh when Minegishi said she is 20 I have reasonable doubts about her age.

All of AKB Senbatsu is over the age of 18. So you're argument goes where...? Nowhere, exactly.

 

I was trying to listening to it again for maybe a better analysis but it was already private. That's life.

 

You just want to comment on something to say that Akicha should be there. Even if you didn't mention her. We know it.

Oh, well.

The live was not so good, but I think they don't have so much time to practice these lives than the theatre ones. And maybe those aren't 100% live, but still... I bet Takamina and Mayuyu know better how to blend their voices than Mayuyu with Yuko.

Or something.

 

I don't get why we compare AKB with ABBA - different times, for one thing, and for another, different types of groups. Idols are only partly about singing. Yes, they weren't fab, but like HRP said, some top notch artists like Ayumi have been awful as well.

This is the senbatsu being pushed, so deal with it - it really won't stop for a while yet, not when it is being successful (or at least, not a total failure). Old and young has nothing to do with voices - its really the arguement I hate the most about AKB. Talent will get you places, but hard work will help a lot, regardless of talent - and neither of those are dependent on age or experience.

Some parts of HebiRote were awful, but so were the other songs. I wonder how many people have listened to other live performances of theirs before? HebiRote was quite good compared to other performances of it - I was presently surprised by Yuuko.

But either way, this is all irrelevant. We should only be discussing the 34th single here. Tentomu's song sounds interesting. Is there still no preview for Mosh and Dive though? I just want to know if we're getting a Christmas song or not

 

I'm kinda disappointed with the fact that there is no MV for tentoumu chu's song. This is an unit comprised of the fresh young members. How are we supposed to appreciate their freshness, cuteness and youthfulness without seeing them in action? Listening to their voices is not enough for me please let them perform the new song in a concert or something.
Luckily we still have the MV of Love Shugyo to cover for the loss of freshness. Wonder if the girls will have ninja outfits seeing that there are some ninja movements in the choreography