Lately I have been all about the Kill Bill Soundtracks…I love both tracks by Meiko Kaji. Now I know she O’ren Ishii’s psycho sidekick and she has no albums…but does anybody know of bands/artists whose music is similar?
I’m not familiar at all with Japanese music and don’t know of a source where to even start exploring…so who here can recommend me music that’s similiar to Flower of Carnage/Urami Bushi??
Thanks
[slight nitpick]
Actually, Meiko Kaji didn’t star in Kill Bill, just provided the music. Chiaki Kuriyama played O-Ren’s bodyguard Gogo.
[/slight nitpick]
Back on topic, a quick Google search shows that Meiko does have have at least one album (seeing as this is a best-of), although I’m guessing they’ve only been commercially released in Japan.
Seeing as it’s all in English though, I’d imagine that website will ship merchandise internationally. If not, at least you have an album title to search for elsewhere on the net.
Legoland I stand corrected…I thought she played the razorball wielding sidekick cause one of the links I followed on Google lead me to a site with a pic. To me it looked like the razorball wielding girl…
I’ll look into that best of…
Thx
Eh, like Legolamb said, Meiko Kaji didn’t play the sidekick. She was born in 1947, she’d have to be the youngest looking 56 year-old ever!
Anyway, the song in Kill Bill is called Shura no Hana, which got translated as “The Flower of Carnage”. It was recorded in 1973 for a movie called Shura no Yuki-Hime ("Snow princess of carnage, litterally). Meiko Kaji played the lead character and sang the music. Quentin Tarantino used the song because the movie was one of his major influences for Kill Bill.
The style of the song is called enka here. This is definitely not a style of music considered to be particularly cool by the younger generation. I do know a few people in their 30s who have been shocked to discovered that all of a sudden, they didn’t mind enka anymore. That’s a sure sign of old age.
Enka is a bit like the country music of Japan. Songs are usually about sad things like loves lost, loneliness, feeling nostalgic for your home town. Nostalgia is a big enka thing.
Most enka, honestly, sounds ridiculously the same, and a lot of it is pretty sappy crap. The older stuff tends to be a bit better IMO.
Your best bet for CDs is the greatest hit one Legolamb found. Here’s a link to a page from HMV Japan where you can listen to track exerpts. I have to say, it’s a pretty good CD, you’ll have a hard time finding anything better in that genre.
If you’re curious about what enka sounds like now, check out Kiyoshi Hikawa, one of the most popular (and youngest) signers nowadays.
Jovan,
Thank you so much for the info…I’ll look into things.
Whether it’s hip or not, quite honestly, is not my concern. It’s not like I’m planning on rushing off to find a group of Japanese friends and pretend that I discovered the most awesome thing around… 