Conventional Wisdom: My First Japanese CDs - "Fiction" - Yuki Kajiura

So, back in the blog about L’arc-en-Ciel's greatest hits, I confessed that I only bought it that CD because I thought it’d have their FullMetal Alchemist theme on it, which it did not. I further said that I WANTED to make a big milestone out of the first Japanese album I bought that wasn’t a soundtrack, but this particular CD was disqualified on that technicality. Well guess what? IT HAPPENED AGAIN! Here we have ANOTHER album that could technically count as my first non-soundtrack purchase, but I once AGAIN bought it under the mistaken believe that it DID have a certain theme on it. The added irony is, despite not technically being a soundtrack, Fiction actually DOES have songs from several different anime on it, just not the specific one I wanted.

Yuki Kajiura became a fairly big deal as a composer right around the time that I first started seriously keeping up with the anime industry, so I couldn’t help taking note of her name. I think .hack//SIGN was the first place where I actually heard her stuff, but Noir was the one that really stuck out to me. At the time, I’d only ever seen the one episode that came on a Newtype USA disc, but I was especially impressed by the opening theme “Coppelia no Hitsugi.” It’s a really cool, slightly spooky/gothic bit of Jpop that I honestly liked a lot better than the show itself. So when I heard that Yuki Kajiura was releasing a solo compilation album that’d contain songs from several of the anime she’d worked on, I of course figured her theme to Noir would be on there and gobbled the disc right up. Of course, people who actually pay attention to things already know that “Coppelia no Hitsugi” is actually by the group Ali Project and Yuki Kajiura had nothing to do with Noir’s opening OR closing themes. Yes, I was quite embarrassed when I realized I’d done this crap a SECOND time.

But enough about the music that’s NOT on Fiction, what’s there to say about the songs that ARE? Conveniently enough, you can describe just about every single track on the album via a breakdown of the opener: “Key of the Twilight.” Supposedly this song is from .hack//SIGN, though I must confess I have no memory of hearing it in the show anyplace. Before I popped the disc in the first time, I assumed it was going to be the show’s opening theme, what with the whole “named after the mcguffin of the show” bit. But now, the actual theme song for .hack//Sign is “Obsession” …which is ALSO not included on Fiction. Man, Past Me was really batting a thousand on reading the track listings on these albums, huh? Actually, the closing theme “Yasashii Yoake” isn’t here either.  I guess there was some kind of legal complication with songs previously released as “SEE SAW” instead of Yuki Kajiura solo works… Wait, where was I? Oh right, talking about the songs that ARE on Fiction. Digression aside, “Key of the Twilight” really is a great microcosm of the whole album and Yuki Kajiura’s style in general. The melody has a vaguely European folk feel to it, with some Classical/Gothy minor key chord changes, bolstered by prominent mandolin and acoustic guitars and big violin solos, while vocalist Emily Bindiger lays several layers of vocals down singing some VERY pretentious lyrics. The whole thing would probably come across as generic New Age were it not for the pulsing techno beat underneath throughout. While not quite Rave levels of energetic, the drum beat does sync up with all those plucking guitars and make everything feel more propulsive than it really has any right to. It’s sort of like a Eurodance Lorena McKennitt, if that makes any sense. Not bad, although I’ll tell you right now, this is another album that I NEVER would have owned were it not for the anime connection.

Speaking of which, let’s go ahead and plow through the other anime songs contained on Fiction before I really got full music critic on the album. Along with “Key of the Twilight,” .hack//SIGN is represented by “Open Your Heart” and “Fake Wings,” both of which have pretty much the same sound going for them. I don’t remember “Open Your Heart” any better than I did “Key of the Twilight,” but I DEFINITELY remember “Fake Wings,” one of the show’s big “poignant moment” musical cues. It’s not the same version as was used on the show, but that actually makes it more recognizable to me, since it cuts straight to the most memorable vocal cue (“Shine… Bright morning light…”) “Fake Wings” is one of the more pure Folk songs on Fiction, focusing entirely on Emily Bindiger’s singing and acoustic accompaniment, with no Industrial pumping trying to give things an edge. And trust me, I’ll have more to say on that in a bit.

In the meantime, we have two tracks from Aquarian Age, which is a show I’d COMPLETELY forgotten even existed until I went back to revisit this album. Neither of the two songs, “Zodiacal Sign” and “Awakening” seem to have been the main themes for the show, though I THINK “Awakening” may have been used as the closing credits on the final episode. Again, I have NO memory of this show even being a thing. “Awakening” feels a lot like a more Japanese version of “Fake Wings,” with the same Folk/New Age ambiance. “Zodiacal Sign,” on the other hand, is probably the most Techno track on all of Fiction, with waaay more rave-ready beats piled on top of each other. Honestly, it sounds a lot more like an Anime Opening Theme than whatever forgettable Jpop ditty they ACTUALLY used.  Seriously, I went and listened to the actual Aquarian Age theme while writing this, and I’ve already forgotten what it was. Of course, I MIGHT find “Zodiacal Sign” more memorable than I otherwise would because it reminds me a lot of what Kajiura would go on to write for Madoka Magica. Those Techno beats sit underneath a lot of cryptic, multi-layered chanting and big, gothic chord changes, and a general sense of ominous tension. Slap some crunchy Metal guitars on top of all that, and it’d totally sound like a B-side to “Magia.” (Incidentally, the lyrics for “Zodiacal Sign” are apparently in a jibberish language Kajiura made up, because apparently Yoko Kanno isn’t the only one who does that)

Finally, there’s the songs from Noir, the ones that are ACTUALLY on the disc, and not just figments of my hasty assumptions. Actually, even there I have to be a bit weird, since the Japanese edition of Fiction has three Noir tracks (including “Lullaby”) while the MY CD only has two: “Salva Nos” and “Canta Per Me.” And I gotta say, as annoyed as I may have been regarding how Fiction and the Noir soundtrack overlapped, I do think the versions of both songs featured here are a LOT more solid than the ones I’d eventually hear on the “real” soundtrack. The original version of “Salva Nos” has these weird Jazz elements mixed in with the pounding Techno beats and the big pseudo-Classical choir, while Fiction’s version is way more focused and rocking. It’s still a fairly typical “serious action scene” musical cue, but it’s effective at being that. And then there’s “Canta Per Me.” A lot of people single this out as one of Yuki Kajiura’s best songs, to the point that the fansite I’ve been using to double check a lot of my facts for this blog is actually called “canta-per-me.net”). And you know what? I can’t disagree. “Canta Per Me” is probably the most purely Classical song on all of Fiction, just a frantic strings section underneath some big Opera vocals, and it really stands out as a result. I actually think the slashing, staccato strings create a greater sense of drama and tension than any of the rocking out on “Salva Nos.” Also, the version on Fiction features Deb Lyons’s vocals rather than the original’s Yuriko Kaida, which is ABSOLUTELY a step up, since Lyons gives the song that extra bit of melodramatic hugeness. “Canta Per Me” is easily the best track on Fiction, and I’m not JUST saying that because it’s the one track that doesn’t sound like everything else.

…although that IS a pretty big strike against the album. Taken all at once, Fiction’s mix of Classical melodies, World Music instrumentation, and techno beats gets really samey really fact. The new tracks recorded specifically for the album are some of the worst offenders in this respect. “Vanity” stands out a little bit for being a waltz in an album full of 4/4 songs, but otherwise it’s just another melodramatic tune in a whole pile of melodramatic tunes. “Winter” is a gentle ballad that replaces the drama of “Fake Wings” or “Awakening” with some noodling accordions, which isn’t much of a step up. Title track “Fiction” is actually my least favorite song on the whole album, with weirdly dissonant verses that sound less like a deliberate attempt to sound experimental and more like the vocalists just didn’t have working headphones to hear the track they were singing over. “Cynical World” has a similar problem, with too much drums and Industrial loops and violin solos taking the place of clear melodies any time the Gregorian chant-esque vocals aren’t there to focus things. That said, it DOES have a really hilarious point mid-way through where the ominous Industrial rumble finally breaks into the full band soloing… with a drum break straight out of “In The Air Tonight.” I’m not even kidding, the song manages to simultaneously go all Celtic/New Age while also becoming a blatant Phil Collins rip off. It’s like if Michael Mann had directed The Wicker Man, which I KNOW makes no sense, but is the only way I can think of to explain what “Cynical World” sounds like. It’s the single funniest moment in all of Fiction… in fact, it’s the ONLY funny moment in an album that’s otherwise drowning in unbearably pretentious melodrama.

Pretty much every album I’ve revisited over this series of blogs brought be back to the earliest memories of my Otakudom, and Fiction is certainly no exception… but it DID remind me of a side of weebness that I’d mostly tried to forget: the pretentiousness. You know what I’m talking about, that terrible fourteen-year-old wearing a clashing mix of Hot Topic and cosplay materials in public and overreacting to everything and telling total strangers about why they should be reading that one manga and getting in arguments over why their fanfic is so much better than everyone else’s and basically taking EVERY. FREAKING. THING.  way too seriously? Yeah, Fiction feels like the perfect soundtrack to that, the aural equivalent of making a Kingdom Hearts OC, then dedicating an entire tumblr blog to it. This is the musical cue that played when “Big Hairy College Student Mecha Fan” was replaced as the stereotypical anime fan by “Middle School Goth Wannabe Sephiroth Enthusiast.” The word “cringe” gets abused far too much for me to be comfortable using it, but that’s what I kept thinking as I listened to song after song of swooning neo-Classical melodies and wilting mandolin flourishes and lyrics about the midnight sun hanging in the sky and being on the edge of Hell and sharing your fears in the silent redemption. Actually, that’s a whole extra thing unto itself: the lyrics on Fiction are BAAAAD. Like, not quite to the nonsense levels of some of Cowboy Bebop’s headscratchers –we may be standing on the edge of Hell, but at least nobody is speculating on what Hell SMELLS like here– yet it’s still pretty high on the Pretentious Nonsense-omiter. These are the lyrics I’D write when I was fourteen, but at least back then I could blame the fact that I was still an idiot child. Yuki Kajiura was thirty-eight when Fiction came out. I’m almost that old NOW. There is no excuse.

It also doesn't help that the anime many of these songs are attached to haven’t aged well in my eyes at all. In particular, .hack//SIGN is especially regrettable to look back on, embodying a lot of the pretentious, meandering, time-wasting tropes I’ve come to dislike about anime in general. I find I’ve come to associate this exact kind of music with long, slow panning shots across a single frame while somebody out of frame talks for, like, two straight minutes without really saying anything. I know it’s not fair to hold the soundtrack accountable for the sins of the animation studio, but we’ve had several blogs in a row where I lavished praise on albums thanks to my happy memories that were only vaguely connected to them. It’s only fair that I be honest when those memories go sour. And really, the very fact that my mind wanders enough to HAVE these grumpy thoughts about shows and fandoms is a testament to how little the music itself grabs my attention. After all, Noir doesn’t do much for me these days either, but listening to “Canta Per Me” doesn’t leave me thinking about how leaden and mopey that show is, because I’m too busy enjoying the song as just a song. The rest of Fiction blurs together into such a dreary smear that my brain can’t help but look for other things to occupy it.

So, yeah. Fiction kind of gives me the jibbles because of how much it reminds me of that one kid at Suncoast striking up unsolicited conversations about cosplayer drama. And even if you don’t have that hang up, I still think you’d have to have some VERY specific tastes to enjoy it as anything more than an early aughts relic. Again, it’s an extremely repetitive album, and even at just eleven tracks (in it’s American incarnation, at least) I think it wears out its welcome by the end. Maybe it won’’t for you if you really, really dig this whole Classical/Folk/Electronic mash-up the album has going… which I really find myself struggling to find comparisons to. I made that “Eurodance Lorena McKennitt” joke earlier, but honestly, the thing I find Fiction reminds me of the most is early Jars of Clay. If you didn’t listen to a lot of Contemporary Christian Music in the mid-90s, that probably means even less to you than the first reference, but I can totally picture any one of Fiction’s songs in a playlist next to “Flood” or “Liquid” or anything else off their first album. If that doesn’t do anything for you… well, “Canta Per Me” is worth having in this version over the one on the Noir soundtrack. I dunno if that’s worth buying the whole album for, though.

Looking back over what I’ve written so far, I feel like I’m being a bit too harsh on Fiction. I don’t actually hate it or think it's objectively terrible, even if it DOES remind me of objectively terrible fourteen year old weebs more than I’d like. It just doesn't really have enough going for it overcome those unfortunate connections. I suppose any one of these songs on their own would be fine, but taken all together in a single dose is just overkill. Man, this is easily most negative one of these blogs yet, and I’m sure I’ve ticked off any .hack or Noir fans reading this, too. Aren’t you glad you paid at least two buck for the privilege of reading this? Well, don’t worry. The next few blogs are going to be a lot more positive. The very next one in particular will be significantly more poppy, more energetic, more… Puffy…