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Messages - Ulquiorra4th

Pages: 1 2
1
General chat / Re: Toshi Appreciation Thread
« on: August 22, 2018, 06:53:12 PM »
What did Yoshiki do to Toshi? I've been off the forum for at least a month so I'm out of the loop on this. btw the new forum looks cool, I think it did need shaking up after looking one ways for years, great job.

2
General chat / Re: X JAPAN Lyrics Translation
« on: June 26, 2018, 05:14:34 PM »
Never known the lyrics to Break the Darkness before, that's really cool. You can pretty much tell what the lines are meant to be, imo there's a lot of great lyrics there.

3
Toshi / Re: Toshi's participation in 2018 UTAGE!
« on: June 26, 2018, 05:02:39 PM »
It was a really amazing performance, right until the last ten seconds, he ruins so many great performances by going overboard when he's already done enough, not having proper control of his voice, and not stopping himself when he knows his voice is going. sorry guys but the ending is part of the whole thing being good, don't know why I'm seeing posts saying "perfection, he didn't put a foot wrong".

If Toshi does that in a live performance in the west on a big live tv event like the X-Factor type stuff/festivals or even potentially at the Japanese Olympics when trying to get mainstream popularity in the west, then it wont happen for them. The general public will not suddenly fanboy them they'll be put off and remember that horrible screeching hoarse throat sound they had to endure for 10+ seconds. Imagine if he did this https://youtu.be/vo7G4cTWsmI?t=422 in that kind of live tv situation, ooh yeah this is the great new band all you hundreds of millions of people should fall in love with.

I thought Toshi was finally moving away from this since he's been doing a lot smarter things with his voice recently, was so close to being the best Say Anything performance since the 2008 Tokyo Dome one imo, bleh.

4
Toshi / Re: Toshi's participation in 2018 UTAGE!
« on: June 12, 2018, 03:50:39 PM »
This is either going to be awesome or a beautiful disaster,  I can't wait.

5
Toshi / Re: Toshi's Remarkable Voice
« on: May 19, 2018, 02:07:13 PM »
Didn't expect to see this on his instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/BicQdAfhOvU/?taken-by=toshl_officia

It's good to hear him doing more falsettos nowadays, I wish he would learn a less thin sounding falsetto though, and do them more like Robert Plant/Rob Halford does them. Aways felt he has the potential to be even better than them at those high notes.

6
Toshi / Re: Toshi's fantastic sense of fashion
« on: May 19, 2018, 01:51:41 PM »
Hah! Yes! That's awesome, come on Toshi the next time you do a 'Visual Rock Night' with your solo band wear that classic getup! This is really cool that he's done this. And come on he doesn't need the mask, his eyes look fine to us no matter what scars are there, don't lock yourself away from people anymore.

Get X-Japan to do a special two nights where the whole band wear the classic gear, and a plays a few more of the old songs like Vanishing Love, like Luna Sea did at some concert around 2011/2012.

7
General chat / Re: X Japan Album.. coming soon!!
« on: May 19, 2018, 01:41:01 PM »
This does seem to lean more likely towards the album actually happening, MM being a part of a track on the album puts a responsibility on Yoshiki to not let down his friend in terms of release timing, and letting him down could cause word of mouth to spread amongst western musicians and impact his and the bands reputation. On top of all this it feels like Yoshiki has finally come to the end of producing/finalizing all the new songs for the album over the years, we haven't heard 'La Venus' for a while, but Hero/Beneath the Skin when you hear them live sound like they've been pretty much finished for a few years now, and we got a much more full version of Kiss the Sky on the acoustic tour, though there's much more to that song still apparently.

It just seems like it's coming together, the first half of the new songs, I.V, Jade, BTBF, Without You ect. were finished years ago (wish Scarelt Love Song was a part of that, some of the best atmosphere I've felt in an X song, too bad.) and now we have the other half of the new songs that have been peformed live for years and sound good, really feels like their done and the mixing's being finalised to me.

Only thing i'm concerned about with this release date is that this song with MM sounds like a new one, so that's a whole new song yoshiki's got to complete as well as the mixing of the whole album by the end of the year (though most of that should be done now already imo), I think that's perfectly reasonable and comfortable for someone who's not being overly picky/perfectionist to do, but Yoshiki is those things most of the time, from what we've been shown.

8
Toshi / Re: AK-69 ft. Toshl: Brave
« on: May 17, 2018, 01:54:03 PM »
Very awesome song, Toshi fits really nicely here, and he does a really awesome high note in the background at 3:13, wish he sung a bit more than the two choruses we've heard in the previews, great song anyway.

9
The Concerts / Re: Coachella with surprises
« on: April 27, 2018, 01:57:04 PM »
The amount of youtube videos I've seen with the titles "MARILYN MANSON ft x-japan" annoys me. Uh nope, other way around people. Still it does give X publicity no matter what, but maybe more if X were written there as the main act which they were, I think the amount of "Marilyn is all that matters!!...who are these X dudes..." type comments would've been a little less.

10
The Concerts / Re: Coachella with surprises
« on: April 25, 2018, 06:44:39 PM »
That Rusty nail video was great, toshi sang that as well as he did at Lolapalooza, it's great hearing he can still sing that strongly. I.V was great too. Jade was alright, for me it just shows he sings too high sometimes and his voice sounds very thin, his vibrato was sounding gappy, that Rusty Nail video is where his basic tone should be, pretty much for all songs.

11
General chat / Re: YOU + youtube
« on: April 24, 2018, 12:05:23 AM »
This is a very rare version of Blue Blood, the last few years I've never seen this video anywhere except this one upload on yt, never heard of this gig itself anywhere either, it's muffled audio quality, but it's one of my favourite versions of Blue Blood, top 3 for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW0U_fqSsvw

Edit: found another couple of vids from that show, 20th Century Boy, great version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpjZ99mB-cY

Weekend

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksKU7QzgM2U

12
You could get Media Player Classic, it's one of the best media players and it supports .ts files.

13
So, the pro-shot concert we have, was it from the 10th or the 11th? Because I thought someone said it was the first day the 10th (can't find the post), but I have a couple of vids here that say they're the 10th, but it's not the same live as the pro-shot.

First video contains the first four songs, and the second is X. I think Toshi was great on day 1, but sang better here imo, especially on X.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV_EP0R8exM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgkeKfOE7Lo

14
The Concerts / Re: Coachella with surprises
« on: April 18, 2018, 05:02:30 PM »
We're...we're back! Thanks whoever got that all sorted out. And thanks for the interview, I like how confident Yoshiki is here.

15
The Concerts / Re: Coachella with surprises
« on: April 16, 2018, 09:20:31 PM »
I went on the Coachella subreddit and outside of one X fan who made a thread and got literally one reply, I couldn't find a single thread or discussion on X, so I wonder how much people noticed them, it's not just them, I'm guessing it's the same for every new act who's played at the festival and people there have never heard before, people mainly want to talk about acts they're already a fan of and for nostalgia purposes. They definitely got a good reception/reputation from this though, and next weekend will most likely be better for them.

16
The Concerts / Re: Coachella with surprises
« on: April 16, 2018, 07:14:11 PM »
Y does noone mentions Kurenai?  :D

When I and others here have mentioned Sugizo's guitar sound problems I think we're mainly refering to the kurenai gutar solo, at least I am, are we missing something else? the only other thing to mention I guess is Toshi's voice, but it was just the same/as good as on the other songs.

17
The Concerts / Re: Coachella with surprises
« on: April 16, 2018, 05:04:39 PM »
I just relistened to Jade and I think this is one of Toshi's better versions of it, I'm not sure what people mean here when they say it wasn't great and he picked up after that.

Btw, I hate when they essentially stop the song after Toshi finishes singing the bridge, I've always way preferrered the first two years they performed it, where Toshi's singing in the bridge was an epic build up to the last chorus repeating again. It's always been crap since then when they decided to stop the song after that to get the crowd to sing it back to them when imo the chorus doesn't fit that kind of crowd interaction, and then they go back to the chorus, it weakens that moment when it used to blast into the last chorus, it used to feel powerful.

I though performing to a whole crowd who's never heard them before, they'd stop doing that for this one show and go back to the old way they did that section, but nope, they really confuse me sometimes lol.

18
The Concerts / Re: Coachella with surprises
« on: April 16, 2018, 03:21:55 PM »
X Japan is now a legacy band, and there is nothing wrong with that. To think they can "make it" in the West/ U.S. is simply foolish. If Yoshiki realized this 10 years ago, I feel as though they'd be in a much better creative space, now

As for nowadays, I still don't think it's impossible, but extremely unlikely now unless they get moving, have this album out within a couple of years, or do a glorious show at the Olympics, infact album in the West + Olympics would do the trick, but depends on how Yoshiki's physical/mental health improve from here, it's still possible they can do it.

I reckon they definitely could've made it ten years ago quite easily, and sticking with the old album plan of lots of the old songs redone with english lyrics mixed with new songs would've gone down a storm (I think Scars for example would be a well loved song, and it has a modern Muse era type rock feeling to it). the old songs weren't popular because of the language, they're unique compared to any other band I've heard, even the songs most comparable to other metal bands, I understand Yoshiki not wanting to be stuck in the past and have "look at us Westerners look how popular we were with this style in the 90's" as their selling point, but at the same time, their songs are timeless in a way and Yoshiki would never have needed to advertise at all that "half the songs in this album are old ones btw", just release them plus some new songs under the banner of a new album, first introduction to the band in the west and it would've turned out great imo.

19
The Concerts / Re: Coachella with surprises
« on: April 16, 2018, 02:41:12 PM »
Just mirroring some things others have said, the theatrics related to things that people there would've had no idea about were unnecessary and would've been a turn off, it's just as much of a problem as when they did it at the Lolapalooza show, no one's going to get it, and if you want new people to see a show where some of this info can be presented in a way that they can take it all in/understand the history, do it at shows that will either be broadcasted worldwide or get released in some form, big shows like MGS, Wembley, or the Olympics if they end up performing there. This is also a case of just trying to load new peoples minds with too much info at once instead of playing the songs and letting people concentrate on the music.

However, it being X they of course didn't fail on bringing top moments where they get their most crazy with Toshi shouting "we are, we are", then Toshi playing on the drums while Yoshiki's shouting, and yo's final drumrolls with Toshi shouting and all that, while it's definitely very confusing to that kind of crowd who's never heard them before, it's no doubt exciting, infact not knowing what's going on in the moment could make it more exciting in a way.

Big question imo is, does all that at the end make those people forget about Sugizo's terrible sound during the solos and toshi's constant cracking during 'X' that came before the "we are, we are" crazy stuff? I think Toshi carried the show before 'X' when a lot of their things were going to sh**, despite apparently not being able to hear himself through the whole thing, he was singing extremely well (I thought his vibrato sounded different than usual though, maybe not hearing himself explains it), barely a crack from his voice before 'X', and even though some of the crowd participation in songs like Kiss the Sky was too much for that crowd (only the third song in? Really guys?), I think Toshi led those people well into understanding what to do, from what I could hear it sounded like a lot more then the three rows of X-Japan fans at the front who were singing the "woah woah woahs", at least it sounded like they were trying to remember what toshi sang and give it a go.

It's hard to tell which side the people there leaned towards, either 'confusion/terrible guitar sound' or 'some excitingly paced songs with a great singer (except the end gulp) who's good at entertaining them and getting them interacting'. It's like a confusing mix of both which could make people think "I didn't like a lot of the things they did, but they're very entertaining and wierdly interesting and I'll probably ckeck them out next weekend, hope that singer doesn't crack as much".

But there will also undoubtably be people there who are only into the rap, rnb, dubstep, chill thing and couldn't give two flying f**** about guitars and structured songs like that, or anything before the 2000's, and don't want to hear anything emotional either, that was a given from the off though.

Overall it all probably turned out okay reception wise, and X-Japan will be there next week and hopefully show them more of what they're like performance wise. Yoshiki keeping his speech to one minute and saying some basic things was probably the most wisely restricted and 'presenting themselves as a new band to new people' thing they did the whole show.

20
The Concerts / Re: Coachella with surprises
« on: April 15, 2018, 04:48:06 AM »
So, who else is super hyped about this?  8)
Shall we discuss the thing in real time here like back in the good ol' days or shall we create a Discord group?

I am super hyped! I can't move from the screen, though, as I will be recording full screen with my recording software.  Damn, y'all have fun.  I wish I could chat with you all but it's impossible with this program.

Do you have a tablet or phone you could post here from?

21
The Concerts / Re: Coachella with surprises
« on: April 15, 2018, 02:14:13 AM »
Great to to speak to you again too. Yep, was both relieved and panicked, just barely making this and almost missing it. Just got to the end of Rusty Nail on the Zepp gig video from a couple days ago, and I thought Sugizo's guitar died on him during the last chorus, but I think it's actually the sound mixing, Heath's bass is louder than usual, and I'm hearing bass notes I usually don't and I can barely hear the guitar, I thought Sugizo hit a bum note and the guitar just shut down on him or something lmao.

Also from Zepp gig, "alright you motherf***ers WE ARE X!!!!!!!!!!!!!!-lalalalalalala I'm walking in the rain"

What the hell lol.

Sorry to talk about an unrelated gig in this thread, but idk gotta talk about something while waiting for this live. I like the new down tuned sound, I think there's a couple of notes in Kurenai where Sugizo and Pata could play it with a bit more exitement (Toshi as well) even if it is down tuned, but for some reason the new tone has given the songs their unique sound back a little more, in some ways it feels more like the albums/ hide's live sound to me, don't know if I'm crazy or just haven't watched a vid of Sugizo playing them in the original tuning in a while, but I always felt even though he mostly replicated hide's sound correctly during the songs, the way they sound now (if they keep it that way) feels a little closer imo, even if it's a step down.

Toshi was awesome, he was acting really hype, even more than usual frontman wise, great mix between raspy and clean vocals, he was mostly very clever on when he held back and sang in a different style for some of the high notes, he lost it pretty badly on X though, he could've controlled himself there, bah! Last chorus was great though.

Anyway can't wait for this show, it's four hours away now.

22
The Concerts / Re: Coachella with surprises
« on: April 15, 2018, 01:31:33 AM »
Hey guys, had probably half a years mini break from the forum, just decided to come back on and coincidently landed right on a live show day, so easily could've missed that. Excited to see the Coachella live show (that's 6 1/2 hours from now I believe), from what I've seen of the other acts so far (only a couple) I'm very curious as to how X is going to go down with their 80's metal and very sad ballads amongst a modern crowd of dubstep fans. Right now I'm going to watch the Zepp gig show, wonder how X's songs sound tuned a step down.

23
The Concerts / Re: X Japan 2017 World Tour - Acoustic Special
« on: September 11, 2017, 01:38:17 PM »
Get 'em while they're hot, a few new videos! (Unless I'm told otherwise)

Most importantly, Angel. Beautiful version, returner you'll want to hear this one.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UKfnlkIyClg

Hero

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XCPhz0a2ilM

Forever Love

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PXDOk4ZgVXc

Part of Endless Rain, finishes just after the solo ends.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAz6H66AnQ

24
General chat / Re: Your New Favorite Song
« on: September 11, 2017, 12:32:12 PM »
Btbf is pretty good imo, when Toshi gives the chorus some umph at the start of it, which he does on some live versions, he takes some of the pop vibe out of it, which makes it sound great. And the catchyness/message of the song I think would be a popular single in the west. Add to that the heaviest riffs (or maybe equal to Jade) out of the original three songs, longer solo then you hear in most modern rock sounds nowadays, it's a nice song

What potentionally ruins the song by far though is the womans voice during the bridge section, uuuuugh. I'll hold back on that, for reasons.

Hero - 'I slit my skin'.   *headddesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*

25
Yoshiki / Yoshiki plays Mario Kart 8
« on: September 06, 2017, 06:55:52 PM »
I just found this video, the idea of Yoshiki playing this is too awesome not to post.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_g4-hQmXtec

2:41:30 in the video is when he makes his way over to the controllers, it seems they're in a mini tournament setup, there were people who played it before Yoshiki and the others there went up.

2:45:40 is when the race starts, because of the way they've set this up you can't really tell which screen Yoshiki is, but based on his reaction to the only car that stalled at the start (bottom left) it's most likely he picked Link, lmao of course he did. Btw he does a second race immediatly afterwards.

Edit: yeah he's definitely Link.

Agh the video's been removed, well without that we don't really have a thread. xd

26
Toshi / Re: Toshi Live 2015
« on: August 24, 2017, 11:20:24 AM »
Well I wasn't really refering to him having trouble hitting key high notes, I was refering to him choosing to make his natural voice tone sound the highest it ever has, and his voice is sounding thin with no power/projection sometimes because of it, I could be wrong, but it feels like this is a new vocal direction he's deliberatly doing and I don't think he notices what it makes it sound like at times, he can easily bring his tone down and have a fuller sounding voice.

But yeah, when it comes to hitting certain high notes in a fast paced song you may not hit it and your vocals will crack instead when you're a little older sometimes, however being inconsistant with reaching the high notes/cracking has always been a problem for Toshi, and a lot of great singers don't have this problem, there's still famous rock/heavy metal singers around in their 60s not cracking like Toshi does, in recent years, I can sort of agree with you though it's probably due a little bit to the overworking on his vocals/beatings he went through during that time, that maybe he can never 100% recover from.

However I think you have to recognise that Toshi is doing more over the top antics on stage that would wreck his or any singers voice than ever before. In the 90's he probably shouted on stage to the audience more than any other singer, that's why he's my favourite front man as well. But now, he's shouting a lot more than he even did back then, there's very few moments in some shows where he's not screaming his lungs out, like at the end of kurenai instead of singing 'cry in deep red' he'll shout "ah yeeeah!!" five to ten times in a row, followed by him almost literally killing his voice intentionally at the end of art of life. If he feels his voice is starting to go, he should end the note right then and there, instead he intentionally screams it raw and wrecks it, on top of all the other screaming.

Singers are also not meant to talk before a show or really during it, so pretty much all singers keep it brief, Toshi on the other hand as well as all the screaming will talk to Yoshiki for fifteen minutes on stage, on three seperate occasions during the same show, Yoshiki really not helping him there. I also don't believe he sings enough, X only does a couple of shows a year, and as far as I'm aware he only does a few solo shows a year.

I think you have to take all this into account plus other singers older than him who still reach powerful notes and don't crack, to me it's extremely likely that these are the majority reasons his voice gives out so much live, not because of his age or hoh imo, if you listen to 'X' during the recent acoustic live, he couldn't sing 'kokoro moyase' without a bad voice crack, and that was the slow non agressive acoustic version, that didn't happen a few years ago. I just can't see it as an age problem, it's something he can fix if he changed certain things he's doing like shout a bit less, lower his voice sometimes so he'll have a stronger tone like in the 90's.

In some way his vocal technique probably isn't 100% correct which is why his voice has always cracked, at this point I think he should recognise this and be privately learning vocal control with somebody.

Eh if noone's discussing this further because I put people off with how long it is, welp I'm sorry it's just how I feel about some of his singing right now and I was detailing the things I think he's doing to weaken parts of his voice, but that's just seen as rambling on I guess. Toshi's still my favourite singer and none of this is meant to be overly critical or mean spirited in any way.

27
General chat / Re: Final stage of X Japan's new album
« on: August 23, 2017, 09:01:25 PM »
One of the few things I think we can give Yoshiki out of this whole thing is that some of the 99% comments from him were based on the original album project which was '50% old songs redone in english 50% new ones' that Yoshiki then changed his mind on and scrapped completly (though even by that time he'd still made too many '99%' comments about that old project for too long at that point) along with all those new music videos they filmed, however we're still hearing "we're almost there!" (basically 99%) every year since then and now 2017, when we shouldn't, because Yoshiki is taking really, really long to create four/five new songs after BtBf in 2010. Yeah one of them is gonna be a mini Art of Life apparently, but it's still taken too long. xd

28
Toshi / Re: Toshi Live 2015
« on: August 23, 2017, 06:59:29 PM »
Alright I've been thinking about this a couple months now, and wondered if I should say it or where it would be on topic, this thread's good for it so I'm sorry but I've gotta get it out. lol

Toshi is my favourite singer probably always will be, and after seeing several of these solo concerts he's done and the shows he's done with X the last few years, while I like the way he sings now in some ways, and in certain areas he's a better singer then he used to be (he sings much more passionatly than he did in the mid 90's) I think for the last few years he's been singing a bit too high, to the point where a lot of times his vocals sound very thin, and he's not projecting very well because of it (Kurenai at Lunatic Fest 2015 for example), his voice gets hard to hear in some X shows next to the instruments, imo it's just not as nice sounding as it used to be when his voice gets thin.

When you listen to him in the 90's you'd think very few male singers have a higher tone then him, and I don't think he needed to take it any further. If you don't know what I mean I'll give some examples, he's struggling recently with simple things he could do in 2009-12, like there's video of him doing Pink Spider at a recent solo show, and he wouldn't sing most of the choruses, you could tell he didn't want to do it, and all he needs to do at the end of the chorus is hold a couple of strongish notes for a few seconds.

If his voice was in great condition it would be very simple vocals to do, but to me it sounds like he's having trouble projecting his voice a lot of the time now, (during X ballads is where he projects consistantly well) other examples of this is Blue Blood at one of his recent solo shows, and if you ever watch the official pro-shot of the Wembley show, his vocals were thin all the way through.

He had a consistantly stronger voice both clean and raspy only four/five years ago, imo he's just started singing too high without ever varying it, and it's effected other parts of his voice too. If you can't hear it and you think his voice is at the best it's ever been in all areas that's totally fine, this is just how I feel about it.

I will add this is most of the time, not always, there's a couple of solo shows where he isn't going too high for the most part (his voice could sound stronger though) and in the X acoustic gigs he was pretty good, awesome moments in those shows.

29
General chat / Re: Final stage of X Japan's new album
« on: August 23, 2017, 06:14:54 PM »
All you can see of the thread title on the front of the forum is 'final stages of X-Japan'

Me: *sigh* welp, had a feeling this could be coming, Yoshiki's done himself in too much this time, too many wasted oppurtunities over the years, it could've be- reads full thread title *Cough!Cough!* I mean, yes, the new album, that thing, that's going to come out soon, like the last 50 times, yes.

30
Taiji / Re: Why Taiji was fired by Yoshiki
« on: August 04, 2017, 02:59:18 PM »
Since Yoshiki said Taiji 'did something' bad rather than 'said something' bad it sounds like something Taiji physically did something, we know that the biggest and main problem between the two and what they clashed over most was musical differences, the more ballad focused direction Yoshiki was starting to take the band into.

I'm just imagining that if Taiji did get overly obsessed with everything being perfect about the band, and was just at his wits end (herherher) with Yoshiki and what he was doing with the new songs, not just the new songs they'd been performing live for a year or two at that point, but probably new songs only he and the other band members had heard in studio. I wonder if Taiji (before I say this, I'm obviously not trying to say Taiji was a bad person, just that lots of people do stupid things when particularly angry) in a moment of real frustration, changed some of the tracks in studio without permission, maybe he secretly recorded heavier guitar/bass parts, or even deleted recordings Yoshiki had done and recorded new guitar bits over vocal and drum tracks.

I'm just coming up with a theory like this partially based off stories from other bands in the past, it would absolutly get you fired from a band for 'doing something' without being physical violence, and a situation Yoshiki and Taiji both regretted and forgave each other later. As for Yoshiki still not wanting to say what Taiji did, it could be that he doesn't want to hurt Taijis reputation with fans in any way, and now that he's gone after they had that great reunion in 2010 he doesn't want to drag up that past too much in his own mind either, since they became friends again.

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