SPACE SHOWER Music Video Awards 08

I don’t have a habit of looking forward to music awards. However, music award nominees are often good sources to find great music, especially in the new artiste category. Take this year’s SPACE SHOWER Music Video Awards for example. I somehow came across the nominee list, and some of the nominees in the new artiste category caught my interest, namely 9mm Parabellum Bullet and Monobright.

I took the trouble to go through all 5 nominees, but it seems like the real competition will be between the 2 bands mentioned above. WISE sounds like a typical rapper, and I hate senseless rapping. SONOMI’s song sounds like typical Japanese pop, and there’s a whole lot of those out in the field already. I have no idea what to say about Superfly’s song, except that it doesn’t suit my taste. If 9mm Parabellum Bullet or Monobright don’t win, I would have to think that there is seriously something wrong.

Now that the battle comes down to the remaining two, it’s only fair that I show more support to my favorite. Balancing my support when it comes to such cases just simply isn’t my style.

My vote goes to 9mm Parabellum Bullet, not that I have any voting rights anyway.

Discommunication

Discommunication is 9mm Parabellum Bullet’s nominated song.

Here’s some background on the band. Their first release was a mini-album named Gjallarhorn, on 8th December 2005. I’m not sure why they are in the new artiste category, since it’s been 3 years since they joined the Japanese music scene. You can check out the rest of their discography here.

Personally, I don’t think Discommunication is one of the band’s best song. However, I do have to give it due credit. Without it, I would not have started listening to the band and loving their music. The band’s latest album Termination was released last year, 14th November. The first press pricing for the album is 1999 yen, while the standard usual price is 2500 yen. Even for the standard price, I felt that this is extremely worth purchasing. Their music’s awesome. Anyone who loves Jrock should really get this. I was rather glad that this band isn’t Visual Kei, since I dread the makeup and all the weird dressing.

The World

Out of all the 12 tracks in the album, my favourite songs are The World, Suna no Wakusei (砂の惑星） and Heart-Shaped Gear. The rest of the songs are worthy of your time too, so don’t neglect them. And of course, I’m definitely getting their album, as well as looking out for any of this awesome band’s releases.

As for Monobright, the thing that really caught my attention when I first saw the PV of their nomination Mikansei Raiotto was not the song, but the glasses. All 4 members don the same-looking glasses, so I actually thought that it was some effect in the PV. It was only after I visited Monobright’s official website when I realised it was actually 4 different people. I had a good laugh after coming to that realisation.

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Did anyone else have the same thought?

Comparing this song to Discommunication, I would have to say that Discommunication is much better, be it in the lyrical aspect or the tune aspect. That’s not the only reason why my support goes to 9mm Parabellum Bullet. I listened through the albums of both bands, and I felt that I had a much greater liking for 9mm Parabellum Bullet’s album. Compared to what I have been constantly listening to (Bump of Chicken, Tsubaki and Asian Kungfu Generation), it gave me a fresh yet familiar feeling. The rocking in the music is of a music higher level, but it stops just right before the level of it being categorised as noise.

I’m not saying that Monobright isn’t good, so please check them out too. It’s just that sometimes, there can only be one number one.

Besides the new artiste category, there are 2 other categories that I am looking out for. The Rock category, with my support going to Asian Kungfu Generation’s After Dark, and the Group category, with me cheering on Bump of Chicken’s Hana no Na (花の名）. The chances of them winning aren’t exactly very high, since they are other great bands such as Mr Children in the same category. However, no matter what the result turns out to be, Bump of Chicken will still be one of my favourite bands.