Board 8 > Raetsel and the Alts finish ranking 784 songs [+ Bonus Songs]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Two long tracks from Dimuzio for today:

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Thomas Dimuzio, Alan Courtis - A Bare Bones Empty Skin:
https://open.spotify.com/track/5xOV33RYtOK2b2t8tE2EtU?si=60bf98d7b59f498a

Estimated Score: 50.00

Going with one long track today. Unfortunately, while I do love some atmospheric tracks, this one feels kinda.... slow. The first ten minutes are like "walking along an abandoned railway track" which is something, but surprisingly minimalist and uneventful. By the time we shift to the high blast of chaos we were looking for, I'm already a bit tired due to how long it took to reach it...

Also, for being chaotic, it's also not as chaotic as I might like? It does have a somewhat alien feel to it while keeping the "railway" feeling running underneath the track, which is different, but I just don't really vibe with it. It's unfortunate because I feel like I should love his work; I like atmospheric tracks & chaos, he seems to specialize in atmospheric chaos, but none of the tracks are hitting right. Ehh.... maybe one more song.

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Thomas Dimuzio, Alan Courtis - As If Your Bones Were Pancakes:
https://open.spotify.com/track/2dxqpUqmGrFVgCwij0SZ51?si=1e8731f2e38142b8

Estimated Score: 52.00

It's very... busy for most of the track, but... yeah, I'm afraid that his work may just not be for me. Or if it is, then it's going to take a lot of effort to find & my attempts at clicking aimlessly aren't going anywhere. Well, having tried songs both short and long, I suppose I'll move along to some other artist tomorrow; perhaps I'll give him another shot before this ends because i still feel unsatisfied with this result--I swear he has to have *something* I love in his discography, his style seems perfect for me--but I could use a break.

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Forgive the even slower pacing for the moment. I'd forgotten Wrestlemania was this weekend (and, for whatever cruel reason, also an NXT events because clearly we needed three WWE "Premium Live Events" in two days) and that's sucking up most of the free time. Two songs today, a song from the unlabeled pile which turned out to be a VTuber song & then another of UF8's VTuber songs because we might as well keep the theme going at that point:

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3DLIVE /Hololive Zankyou Sanka / :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QH4fuFbY0E

Estimated Score: 53.9002

A nice enough song, though it feels kinda average as far as Vtuber songs go. i'm afraid this one just didn't have much of an impact

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Ganbaruuko - Kawatareno mamade (composers: Tokyo Terrace Music Production):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo7y8M7gaBk

Estimated Score: ....60.00, possibly?

I see what you meant by her having multiple voices, presuming the higher pitched section that sounds like a guest singer is indeed her. While I'm not as fond of her second voice, and the song does feel like it goes on a bit long, I did generally like this. The energy vaguely reminds me of one of the Zombieland songs (Saga Jihen, I believe) & the lyrics are pleasingly intriguing:

A swirling, desolate earth, waves of electrons rustling
Beyond the accumulated desires of people
Under the cover of the darkness of the world I created, I run again

Between the gloomy shadows
A little suspiciously flickering neon
A hotbed of bargaining and smuggling

So most of the song is easily at least a few points beyond the 60 point level. The higher pitched interlude and the sped up section that immediately follows it aren't as good--I don't really dislike them, but they're likely sub-60 points, and there's a sort of a "how much do they hold things back" question that I haven't resolved yet. I'm thinking the song ends up somewhere in the 60s, so I'd likely toss it into the Clump where it can be more easily evaluated in the context of other liked songs.

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Raetsel_Lapin posted...

I see what you meant by her having multiple voices, presuming the higher pitched section that sounds like a guest singer is indeed her.

yeah that's her usual voice. i wasn't sure how to properly convey how much of a surprise it was to me that she dropped a song in this singing voice i'd never heard prior since it's totally different. (it's also the main reason i incuded it)

Three quick writeups because I'm still exhausted from staying up all night for Wrestlemania.

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Ganbaruuko - Muzai (composers: Tokyo Terrace Music Production):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKfRv3so-xw

Estimated Score: 59.92 [Upgraded to 60.00]

A few of the higher pitched notes at the chorus are not to my liking, but the rest of the song has a pleasingly smooth groove to it. One of those relaxing, toe-tapping songs that is quite pleasant to listen to. I'm not as drawn to it as her other song, so I'd probably start it just below the 60 point Wall & would expect both of her songs to move up a bit on relistens.

...eh, let's just go ahead and put this one exactly at 60 points and move the last song up to 62 points now. That feels better to me.

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Re:A projecT - Tsurezure Pieces (composer: Lemm):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZAPekA255A

Estimated Score: 57.19

Not a bad track. The instruments are harsh in a way that I'm not particularly into, though I still haven't identified which types of harshness I like or why to have much insight on that end & everything on the track is generally good. No complaints about the three of them or the song, though it does feel like a step below the "I like this without reservations" tier.

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Hoshikuzu Len - Honjitsu wa Seiten nari (composer: TOKOTOKO):
https://open.spotify.com/track/2UYvna8PuTqalHfqgqL6oQ

Estimated Score: 60.00

He's not the greatest singer, but there's an infectious energy and joy in his performance that makes the song really easy to get into & enjoy. While not my favorite, a burst of pure joy is always worth smiling at & I'd say I liked this--it's another pretty easy addition to the 60 point tier, at least.

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Shall try to get to the longer song from the Cats musical tomorrow, once I'm more rested.

One more VTuber song, the promised Cats song, and another of the songs I didn't label when adding them to the list (a Touhou song that mashes up many genres, to be precise):

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Kumogahata Yaya - Platinum Plume (composer: Nanakusa Crim):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDJep8hFeJE

Estimated Score: 59.Something ; I suppose I'll go with 59.90 to have an actual number here. [Upgraded to 60.00?]

Ehhh... I think I want to try listening to this again tomorrow before saying anything.

[The Next Day]

It's another song where I'm not quite sure, honestly. The dreamy ambiance is rather nice and... well, I don't know. I've listened to this a third time and something about her vocals which are simultaneously whispered & louder than expected is making it hard to decipher how much I like it. I don't think I'd be giving it this many tries if I didn't like it, but I'm also not 100% convinced that it should be that far up the list. So... score starts at "I like this", but I could imagine a 10 point shift in either direction in the future.

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CATS - Gus the Theatre Cat / Growltiger's Last Stand:
https://youtu.be/paepYX9E6iU

Estimated Score: 61.135

Gus the Theatre Cat: : 57.40. There is some fine character work here. Jellylorum's actress has a nice, almost operatic voice & Gus' actor does a fine job portraying an older actor looking back at his life and criticizing today's youth. I don't know that it really stands on its own as it's more of a character introduction than a standout song, but it is enjoyable enough. Also the meow was funny.

Growltiger's Last Stand: 64.87 ; Wow, I was not prepared for how powerful the actor's voice would be when he stopped doing his old man voice. That's quite an impressive transition. And yeah, this number is pretty far out there, even by the musical's standards... cutting away from the main plot (what little plot there was) to have a recreation of a Victorian-era play with bits of opera in it about a villainous cat is... something. I'm not sure there even are words to describe what this is, but I really dig his voice when he goes for the operatic portions & I like villainous song ("From Gravesend up to Oxford, he pursued his evil aims") & non-human characters & fiction within fiction. So, I mean, I'm absolutely here for this. I cannot fathom why it exists, but I'm here for it. His shift back to the old, broken Gus at the end of the song is also commendable & I find him to be quite a talented actor.

Average Score: 61.135. It's a fun experience that I enjoyed watching and listening to, though I find his operatic singing towards the middle of Growltiger's play to be the only section that I'd really want to listen to on its own as a piece of music. It's very well performed and a nice experience to watch, just perhaps not what I'm often looking for in terms of music--still, very much worth the time & I'm glad to have seen it. Sad that it's often cut, though I do understand all the reasons why.

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Paradot - Ultimate taste [U.N. Owen Is Her? Arrangement]
https://youtu.be/_YnwnxSE2UA

Estimated Score: 57.55

An arrangement of a Touhou song that frequently changes genres, Naturally, this results in a score that bounces all over the place... some parts I like, some parts I quite actively dislike. The segments with a one-note thump-thump-thump beat are not to my liking, but the style shifts are frequent enough that it doesn't focus on any one segment long enough for it to become hated. Best segment is either Artcore or Lo-Fi Hip Hop, worst segment is either Hardstyle or Hardcore..I think it all works out to a song that I kinda like? It does have enough high points that I could see moving it up a tier, but I'm not quite there tonight.

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Raetsel_Lapin posted...

Not a bad track. The instruments are harsh in a way that I'm not particularly into, though I still haven't identified which types of harshness I like or why to have much insight on that end

yeah i think Lemm regularly has issues balancing treble, had a feeling this would be how this one fared

Raetsel_Lapin posted...

He's not the greatest singer, but there's an infectious energy and joy in his performance that makes the song really easy to get into & enjoy. While not my favorite, a burst of pure joy is always worth smiling at & I'd say I liked this--it's another pretty easy addition to the 60 point tier, at least.

honestly i personally think he might've actually been the best singer in the agency he was in (which includes the people in the song above it). shame they terminated the group he was in within a couple of months since they weren't getting enough views

Raetsel_Lapin posted...

It's another song where I'm not quite sure, honestly. The dreamy ambiance is rather nice and... well, I don't know.

not gonna lie i don't blame you, it's not a song i care about either. I really just included it because I was like "oh yeah i should include a song from crim" before realising that was the only one i'd listened to in the last couple of years (and the other one i thought about including had been deleted). it's fine but unremarkable

Raetsel_Lapin posted...

I think it all works out to a song that I kinda like? It does have enough high points that I could see moving it up a tier, but I'm not quite there tonight.

honestly i'm not sure if i'd even rate this one at 5/10, i just posted this purely because it's ideal for comparing genres

Raetsel_Lapin posted...

CATS - Gus the Theatre Cat / Growltiger's Last Stand:
https://youtu.be/paepYX9E6iU

Estimated Score: 61.135

Gus the Theatre Cat: : 57.40. There is some fine character work here. Jellylorum's actress has a nice, almost operatic voice & Gus' actor does a fine job portraying an older actor looking back at his life and criticizing today's youth. I don't know that it really stands on its own as it's more of a character introduction than a standout song, but it is enjoyable enough. Also the meow was funny.

Growltiger's Last Stand: 64.87 ; Wow, I was not prepared for how powerful the actor's voice would be when he stopped doing his old man voice. That's quite an impressive transition. And yeah, this number is pretty far out there, even by the musical's standards... cutting away from the main plot (what little plot there was) to have a recreation of a Victorian-era play with bits of opera in it about a villainous cat is... something. I'm not sure there even are words to describe what this is, but I really dig his voice when he goes for the operatic portions & I like villainous song ("From Gravesend up to Oxford, he pursued his evil aims") & non-human characters & fiction within fiction. So, I mean, I'm absolutely here for this. I cannot fathom why it exists, but I'm here for it. His shift back to the old, broken Gus at the end of the song is also commendable & I find him to be quite a talented actor.

Average Score: 61.135. It's a fun experience that I enjoyed watching and listening to, though I find his operatic singing towards the middle of Growltiger's play to be the only section that I'd really want to listen to on its own as a piece of music. It's very well performed and a nice experience to watch, just perhaps not what I'm often looking for in terms of music--still, very much worth the time & I'm glad to have seen it. Sad that it's often cut, though I do understand all the reasons why.

It gets even stranger. The Italian Aria part wasn't originally part of Growltiger's Last Stand. Instead, there was a THIRD song called The Ballad of Billy McCaw that Growltiger and Griddlebone sang together. That's right, it was a song within another song, within another song. So the whole Gus the Theater Cat part ended up taking like 15-20 minutes.

Billy McCaw was replaced for a couple reasons. One, it sounds totally out of place, sounding nothing like the rest of the show. And two, it is notoriously hard to sing. I'm a better than average singer and I can't do it. At least not in this key (I sing bass and baritone).

Here it is, if you're curious. This is just Billy McCaw, without the rest of Gus/Growltiger:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwH7fP62TEo

It's a pretty nice song in it's own right. It just doesn't belong in Cats.

Sadly, all of Growltiger's Last Stand has now been officially retired from the stage show. I count myself lucky to have see it live when they were touring in Norfolk.

Glad you liked Wheel of Time. Wish I had nominated it instead of And Then There Was Silence. No other Blind Guardian song has the Eastern music feel that WoT has. Not sure why they did that.

Just an assortment of music, not... sure if taking music still but eh

Decided- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22BUu974a2E

Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo OST - Main Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2ynIkdWyrQ

Sheep Raider OST (...I want to say someone's nominated this or mentioned it before but I might be imagining that?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o09Vygd5DHE&list=PL8D92393BACD4F09D&index=1

Time Crisis: Crisis Zone Music - STF 1- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXmvs-rQhd4

CJones posted...

No other Blind Guardian song has the Eastern music feel that WoT has. Not sure why they did that.

I just assumed there was some Middle Eastern influence somewhere in the books and they were trying to illustrate his journey through a desert area without using lyrics. If that section doesn't really connect to the books either, then I am truly baffled. I'll get to that Cats song later in this post.

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IhatethisCPU posted...

Just an assortment of music, not... sure if taking music still but eh

Sheep Raider OST (...I want to say someone's nominated this or mentioned it before but I might be imagining that?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o09Vygd5DHE&list=PL8D92393BACD4F09D&index=1

Yeah, post as much as you want, I'm still chipping away at things. The song from the last level of Sheep Raider was nominated, I think at the second topic though it may have been the third... I'm not sure about the rest of the soundtrack. It's certainly probable that it was mentioned or discussed since one song was fully ranked, but I have no way of being sure without going back through the archives.

I'll listen to the full soundtrack before this topic ends. I'll take your other three songs right now, alongside the Cats one:

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Cats - The Ballad of Billy McCaw:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwH7fP62TEo

Estimated Score: 56.179 [Upgraded to 59.46]

...Okay, I honestly wasn't prepared for a drinking song about a parrot.

*ten minutes later*

...I think that's about it? The drastic shift in music, tone, and subject matter (Billy's not even a cat??) was too much even for me & I didn't think that was possible. I do kinda like the song and I think it's probably going to be fairly memorable--hmm, perhaps I'll revisit this later this afternoon.

[LATER]

It is a rather nice tune. It has quite a few earworm qualities to it & a fair amount of humor in its concept and execution (I'm told even the attacking Siamese cats join in during the chorus which is funny enough to imagine). I'm going to add an extra three points to move it closer to the 60 point mark. It's another of those tracks where there's a reasonable chance that I'd move it up in the future, but don't want to keep a bit of space between it and the next tier while trying to establish where everything falls.

Still, it's definitely neat and the most baffling drinking song I've encountered thus far, for whatever that's worth.

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Miho Onaka - Decided [Starlight Kid's Theme]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22BUu974a2E

Estimated Score: 60.00

Oddly charming and I'm not quite sure why. It doesn't entirely seem like my type of song with a rather pronounced beat, minimal lyrics, and random laughter... but I do seem to like this. ....Remind me to revisit this song in about two weeks.

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Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo - Main Theme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2ynIkdWyrQ

Estimated Score: 53.37

It's nice enough, but about the only thing that stood out to me were the ticking clock sound effects. I don't mind listening to it, but I also don't have any particular attachment or affinity for it either... it's fine, though definitely on the higher side of things that I would describe as fine.

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Time Crisis: Crisis Zone - STF 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXmvs-rQhd4

Estimated Score: 59.16

I may be undervaluing this one as well because it is a fairly repetitive song. It's only two minutes long, but the main melody is only a few seconds which makes the track feel much longer than it is... that being said, I do like it. There's a slow, ominous march feeling to the backing music which works nicely with the faster-paced melody. It's memorable and conveys a fairly neat ambience of dread. I'm not entirely sure how well it will hold up on repeated listens though; the rather short nature of the loop feels like it might cause the song to get a bit stale after listening to the full thing on a regular basis... though that is just speculation. I'd like to place it in the 59 point section and see how I feel about it a few times in the future before moving it up.

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irish warrior bedouins are pretty important in the books so they could've been trying evoke the waste

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Two-Mix - Break (Full Version):
https://youtu.be/MtrzrXcHvJU

Estimated Score: 59.66

This song does feel a bit long, but I reasonably enjoy it. The first minute and a half is a very shmup-style instrumental which feels perfect for weaving between bullets in space... which doesn't seem even remotely like what they were going for with this song, but is neat enough that I'll take it. The lyrical section that comprises most of the song is also fairly neat--I like the spoken sentences that the lyrics start with, though sadly they stop doing that gimmick rather quickly. Or at least it's not nearly as pronounced.

Either way, I like the band well enough & the lyrics are a pleasing type of romance... wanting to be held, being unable to admit the truth, it's all in that same vein of lyrics I enjoy. I will say that it's not immediately standing out compared to some of the other Detective Conan tracks---while I just heard this one, when I try to think back on how the song went, I keep thinking of "QUEST FOR LOVE! QUEST FOR ALL TRUTH!" which is not from this song. It's possible hearing it a few more times would help distinguish it from their other work, but still, I like it a fair amount.

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Architects - Impermanence [Live From Abbey Road]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUS-_CaMftE

Estimated Score: 58.77

Pretty good song! It' s a nice flavor of metal, having enough growling vocals to be very metal while still having some clear vocals & melodic choruses to avoid things becoming too metal.

Riding a torpedo
We wash away into the overflow
[..]
The seeds are sewn then we die alone, we die alone

Some lyrics I felt like pointing out. I feel like torpedo is a fairly uncommon word for song lyrics... bombs & explosions are a dime a dozen, but torpedoes are less common. Lyrics about dying alone give me that despair I'm looking for these days, so there are things to like here. It's not my favorite song by the band, but it's still enjoyable.

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Hong Kong Advertising - Ronghua Sausage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JoC99uBCfo

Estimated Score: 50.06

(Apologies for most likely not getting the sausage's name correct. Auto-translation is failing me, offering the options of "Wing Wah Sausage", "Ronghua Sausage", or "Splendid Sausage" and I went with the one that sounded best)

Well, it's no peanut commercial. Not bad though; I don't think I've heard of sun-dried sausages before this commercial and I'm not used to hearing sausages described as being sweet, so i'm mildly curious as to how they taste. I'd say the commercial did its job well enough; it informed of the product and hyped it up enough that I wouldn't mind trying some. It lacks a catchy beat like the peanut commercial or the hilarity of the Chewits dinosaur to be a really top-tier commercial, but it's more charming & higher scoring than most food related songs.

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EDIT: Fixed some typos.

First six Sheep Raider tracks with brief comments:

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Sheep Raider - Track 01:
https://youtu.be/o09Vygd5DHE

Estimated Score: 60.00

This song has a nice, mellow, almost smooth jazz groove to it. It doesn't make me envision anything special, but it's groovy enough that I'll add it to the pile of songs that I like.

The way this particular upload ends mid-note isn't great, but I'm also not going to hold it against the track. Or any other track from this OST that does the same thing, as I would imagine all of them do here.

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Sheep Raider - Track 02:
https://youtu.be/WiMky9D1bog

Estimated Score: 59.65

This song goes a bit harder, but not by much. There are occasional moments that the track has a "volcano level" feel to them, though not all that often. Though while it does have some type of vision, I think I'd place it a bit below the previous track; as nice as it is to get some imagery in my instrumentals, the smoother feel of the first track gives it a slight advantage.

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Sheep Raider - Track 03:
https://youtu.be/o6zfcN2rJsY

Estimated Score: 59.60

This song goes for more of a breezy, slightly windy day kind of feel. It's still pretty neat, though I think I'd take "slightly volcano-ish" over "slightly wind-ish" for my instrumental fantasies.

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Sheep Raider - Track 04:
https://youtu.be/hnRWPqR-9UY

Estimated Score: 53.04

This one has a funkier groove than the previous three songs and apparently I'm not in the mood for this type of funk this morning? I don't know... I'd suggest trying this song again on a different day, but I'm not sure there are any aspects of myself that it would particularly appeal to. It's certainly not bad and I'm glad they tried a different sound here, it's just not quite for me I'm afraid. Still, on the positive side of scoring at least.

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Sheep Raider - Track 05:
https://youtu.be/kpj-VLduJSw

Estimated Score: 66.37

Ooh, this one feels like a step above the others so far. It somehow combines feelings of cyberspace, Sonic the Hedgehog, and NiGHTS into this oddly captivating "running and flying through a computerized version of a windy forest"" sensation. I think this should definitely be five or six points ahead of the former OST leader (Track 01).

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Sheep Raider - Track 06:
https://youtu.be/kNf7cYQUbkA

Estimated Score: 49.80

Well... to be fair, whatever song came up next was going to have a hard time living up to Track 05. I'm afraid this one didn't make me think of anything and... well, it's fine enough that I don't mind listening to it, but it's the first one here that I don't really have anything positive to say. It's... fine, it's a fine track, just not remotely on the level of what preceded it.

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And after Easter break, the second half of Sheep Raider:

...also, apologies if this winds up double or triple posting, I'm having some internet troubles which is refusing to let this post. (I keep getting a "Your message is blank" error, in spite of this being very much not blank... think it's actually in this time though).

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Sheep Raider - Track 07:
https://youtu.be/wwidcxa3fmY

Original Score: 50.00
New Estimated Score: 58.707

Ah, Space Theme, the track that was nominated before. Let me dig up the old comments to fill space:

Name: Space Theme
Origin: Sheep Raider/Sheep, Dog, n' Wolf
Link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwidcxa3fmY" data-time="

Nominator: Flamander/Glacier (8/15)

(6.5, 6, 5)

[So space, much song.]

I feel like this song works better for Sonic Adventure 2's "Crazy Gadget" level than the actual level theme did. Seriously, try it out:

https://tubedubber.com/?q=yXMRkPfHV9k:wwidcxa3fmY:0:100:0:0:1

This song is perfect for Sonic trying to navigate a gravity maze in space. I'm less convinced it works for capturing Martian soldier...bird...things. Also not sure this level ever made sense. A game about capturing sheep and you suddenly have to go to Mars for the finale? Well, it's hardly the only Looney Tunes product to end in space for little-to-no apparent reason.

Song is fine. I've heard better VGM, but I've also heard a lot worse, so it winds up around here.

[Final Thoughts: Sorry for the lack of words about the song itself. It just feels so perfectly suited for "space vgm" that there's not much to think about.]

Well that didn't say much. On the positive side for this song, I can say that it's definitely memorable. Though it's been years since I listened to it, I instantly knew what this song was and could recall it in greater detail than most songs. Unfortunately, I'm still not super into it? It's good and I kinda like it, the exactly 50 (or 5, since I was using a traditional 1 through 10 scoring system at that topic) points was insultingly low, but it's still not exactly my favorite track from the OST.

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Sheep Raider - Track 08:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1tB33qcZNE

Estimated Score: 59.93

And we're back to a groovier funk sound on this track. I can dig it.. I don't quite think I like it enough to put it at the 60 point stage, but it's pretty darn close to it. Just a fun groove to chillax with for a few minutes, pretty neat.

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Sheep Raider - Track 09:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OpBrqVl8J8

Estimated Score: 60.00

It's another of those songs that almost reminds me of something, but not clearly enough for me to actually place it. It's got a 70s vibe to it and feels almost like incidental sitcom background music? It's like "Ohh, what wacky situation is Greg about to find himself in this week??" and I am oddly invested in finding out, in spite of there not actually being a show or a Greg. Alas, poor Greg, trapped in an eternal void of nonexistence. Song's neat, I like it.

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Sheep Raider - Track 10:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mNZMcibvI0

Estimated Score: 50.49

Not a bad song, but one that I find a tad boring. I don't know why... it's arguably the song on the soundtrack that's going hardest, but I'm just rather disinterested in its guitar work. I mean, it's decent enough that I'd keep it on the positive side of scoring, but I'd say this is one of the lowest points on the soundtrack.

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Sheep Raider - Track 11:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuOwaUzoqco

Estimated Score: 49.87

Jungle level!

*checks comments*

Hey, sweet, this actually is for a jungle level! Credits to the composer for creating a sound that fits the environment it plays in. I'm not personally into this type of sound, but it works well and accomplishes its goals.

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Sheep Raider - Track 12:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=774-ia-0rNI

Estimated Score: 62.00

Featuring the sickest bass groove on the soundtrack, this is one of the standout songs. I can't find much I want to say here (funky grooves that don't inspire any specific reaction are a common theme on this soundtrack), but I do like this one--think I'd put this one two points above the Clump because this groove slaps.

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Four more vtuber songs for the day; tomorrow will be spent on this week's "Rank the Tracks" and updating the Post Ranking Spreadsheet since I haven't updated that in quite a while... more songs on Thursday, presumably.
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Ueiku - Iku kara minna e/De Ueiku al iuj (composer: Mofuribito)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZsXO19HjuA

Estimated Score: 60.00

A surprisingly sweet song. I don't know why, but I was expecting something much closer to that Alien song from the main ranking. Instead, we have a genuinely sweet "thank you to everyone" track which is quite nice. I like this one.

Also something about her voice is reminding me of a Vocaloid, but I don't mind or know why it seems more artificial, so that thought isn't really going anywhere.

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Nemukawa Yumena - = I still love you (composer: Poteko):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr9yweX0wJs

Estimated Score: 61.80

A short and simple song about lost love. It actually hits a bit harder than expected... it's missing a hook or a really killer lyric that destroys me to push it into the top tier, but the simplicity of the song makes it feel a bit more sincere and I think it has a slight edge over all the songs in the 60 point clump. There's not really anything new here, but it's doing things I like in a way that I like, so I doubt it'd ever be in danger of dropping below the 60 point mark.

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Kuriyama Yanmi - Licorice (composer: Rainy Day):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn2NuY5rPMM

Estimated Score: 53.72

It's a fine song and I almost kinda like it? The electric guitar interlude is fairly neat (not really novel or unique, but it's neat) and the song itself is fine enough, but I'm not really connecting with it or *most* of the lyrics:

the city will one day die
people will die someday
someday the flowers will die

I do like that section, but it's not like the song or the rest of the lyrics really go for an apocalyptic "everything with die" vibe. The song is very much *close* to doing something I'd love in places, but it never quite gels together... definitely on the positive side of scoring and probably has decent odds of going up to the "Kinda Like" level, but I'd be surprised if this ever hit 60 points.

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Yusaku Nakano - Paper Airplane:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqh6Er21le8

Estimated Score: 50.00001

"The nostalgic scent of the night wind wipes my tears". (Bonus: He's at the beach while saying this)

Well, some of the lyrics do paint a very appealing picture. Nights, beaches, eternally thinking of someone who isn't there... the song is definitely hitting the right subjects, but I'm sadly not a fan of the song itself. I've been going back and forth between the 49.00 to 50.01 range for this track for a while now and think I'll go with "just barely into the positive" side because I want to give something for the environment the song paints.

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actually i suppose i didn't really mention it before but yusaku nakano isn't a vtuber at all lol

by the way i uh ended up remembering some other songs of note last week or so when looking into a specific composer's works. so..................... i was reluctant to do it because i said i was already drawing the line where i did before but i want to make an exception for these (it's an ideal point to interject them too since one of the composers i remembered is also up next in the existing list)

Shimanaga Ena - Kagirohi. (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbTyVwWiMj8

Shimanaga Ena - Capella. (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlgdf-mWrFk

Shimanaga Ena - mellow. (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QP6yLRI9SQ

Amemiya Chika - Momo no Hana. (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7X26biVhoc

Akatsuki Clara - Hibiki tsunagu uta. (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG8TahOz2cw

Sakuraha Rutoha - Yume no Ashioto (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94_rMA_XDOQ

Kazenagi Koa - Yume no Kaidan (composer: Nanba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN2abkjqAbM

Amemiya Chika - Yume no Atochi. (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhaJsSH90tg

Ikikae Rururu - Change!! (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX0Z8B9c6KA

Sesera Shikino - Yakusoku no Sora. (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOT8puBkpN4

Phil (amp_movie) - colors (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AHathB5FPU

Pleiades - Magical Party Night. (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIt09tLnM9s

Shimanaga Ena - Futari. (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEtv_KCbfcU

Hachun - Coffret. (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KllIxPUHWCw

Amemiya Chika - Christmas Song. (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3PAemYEkNk

YUKA NAGASE - Kakeru, Tomaru (composer: Takashiro Miyo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXyKCBIN_o0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9ZJBuzEcEU (remix)

Aitsuki Nakuru - Lucid Hallucination (composer: Takashiro Miyo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SHEMCwpZzc

sachi - puzzle (composer: Takashiro Miyo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE7kYxYhJFk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uffTGeMbzkQ (Miyo's self-cover)

sachi - Canvas (composer: Takashiro Miyo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEiho-XywEo

Aitsuki Nakuru - mirror (composer: Takashiro Miyo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KZOQJ_1xgw

Aitsuki Nakuru - whisper (composer: Takashiro Miyo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8RneF_QFJY

misha - Sayuragi (composer: Takashiro Miyo) (theme of The witch of the Ihanashi VN)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRoSLfEVfC4

Takashiro Miyo - Itsuka Dokokano Hakoniwa De (theme of upcoming VN Fujimi no Bara: Nike)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVGiftjiNB4

Takashiro Miyo - umbrella
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PeNr-_ZsHw

Sakurada Ragiko & Neco Clane - The Prequel (is already over) (composer: Daidai Myao)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=albGVg7ytdQ

Takanashi Neiro - Itsuka no Haru no hi no Koto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmMbLhPD3NM

sulawo - ofuton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5A1niUz69c

sulawo - ofuton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-BAnfYVPik

sulawo feat. Kashino Tsukune - Saikou no Shokutaku
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIxzyboeL4Q

Kashino Tsukune - Sonzai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzYu5ha5ghg

Re:A Project - Since-Re:ly ~ Sincerely (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xfeej2eC2U

Mameko - Yuurei Ressha wa Kyou mo Ouku (composer: Rissyuu)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU5ej0hBDu0

====

Momota Momo - Gyutto. (original: Mosawo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK1ZhKiTHLo

Queue - Take you to an alien (original: iyowa feat. SEKAI)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOTcW7UmVr4

Mamori Nezune - Wishing (original: Rem (Minase Inori)/Hige Driver/Shinozaki Ayato)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PghFqFCVx4w

Lamuril Ragna X' - Figu@mate (original: Mosaic.wav)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKfzKwT4eI8

Nanairo Temari - Catch You Catch Me (original: Hinata Megumi/Hirose Kohmi/Honma Akimitsu)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQsEoc7ibe8

Usuwa Suu - Memories of You (original: Kawamura Yumi/Meguro Shoji)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GwakHpgElY

I'll make a note about those songs and get to them someday.

Per usual, I'll likely be taking time off during VGMC's nomination period (the 19th through the 29th) as there will be hundreds of songs to try to listen to & I basically drop everything to focus on that each year. So just a heads-up about that hiatus before it hits. For now, four more of UF8's first batch of songs:
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Ken Namba - Hanasaku mori ni hibiku uta wa, atarashii monogatari no hajimari wo tsugeru. (self cover):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUNFfW56CmM

Estimated Score: 77.09

Why is this song so good?? Feels like it's been forever since we had a song come close to breaking into the top 5. Even the parts of this video that aren't really part of the song (the AIM Music Development logo jingle & the quiet outro which I *think* is just a video outro and not part of the song itself) are fire. I really, really like this song; I... don't quite want to jump it up to the 70 point tier and a quick relisten of Electric Callboy's Fuckboi confirms that I do prefer that song (though this is still the closest anything's come to knocking it out of the top 5), but still, this is definitely one of the best songs to come out of the Post Ranking thus far.

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Nanashi (Topia user) - Omoitsumugu (composer: n_o.b_o)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdsegpVy4aA

Estimated Score: 59.64 [Upgraded to 60.00]

Even if I try to forget it, it won't disappear
Only pain

Been a while since I noted a lyric for conveying sufficiently blunt paint. This isn't really a sad song, there's plenty of hope & determination:

I became strong enough to start walking
The words I want to convey now, from here
Beyond the circling seasons
I'm going to meet you

Which is fine. I actually like the optimism here, for whatever reason. The only low point is the very beginning of the song... it's all a bit uninteresting until things pick up a bit, so I'm not quite sure that I want to move it up to the 60 point mark.

...Though that portion is brief and I do like the vast majority of the song... yeah, let's go ahead and give it a little nudge so it can join the all-consuming clump.

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Kazuya Okada - Early Summ:eR::
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-oODTKKqF4

Estimated Score: 70.00

I actually really like his voice and the general atmosphere of this track. It does feel a bit long at over seven minutes, but I actually really like this one so I'm fine with it dragging on a bit longer than it probably needed to.

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AZKi - afterglow (composer: Daijiro Nakagawa):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiddR-oZta4

Estimated Score: 78.00

AZKi doesn't usually reach the very top of the scoreboards, but she's become someone that I always really look forward to hearing again anyway. It's just oddly comforting to know that she's still out there doing her thing. Or at least was; it's been a few months since her last video and this song is a painful goodbye. The only reason I checked to see if there were any songs after this one is because this one feels really final--with lines about this being the last time and it being for the best that we forget her, I'm a bit surprised that this *wasn't* a "goodbye forever" response since the song is very much saying that.

Aaanywho, this is one of her best songs and I really, really like the painful nature of this track. It's enough to place this as the fourth highest scoring song thus far, which is quite an achievement.

======================

Raetsel_Lapin posted...

Why is this song so good??

feeling pretty good about adding like 100 more of his songs now lol

Raetsel_Lapin posted...

it's been a few months since her last video and this song is a painful goodbye

i mean, she's still streaming actively and also certainly hasn't stopped being very active under her other name. see also: literally the next song

I'll move on to covering "The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love" next, as I feel like listening to a concept album tonight.

Trigger Warnings: Sex crimes, child murder

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The Decemberists - Prelude:
https://open.spotify.com/track/5jFkZSzm0lGuDEJ3Dc8xDa?si=4bab63f08a144467

Estimated Score: 53.00

I kinda feel like I should start at the halfway point because the nominated song (The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid) does a fine enough job recapping the first half of the album... but there could be some good songs hiding here, even if the story is familiar, so I'll go with the whole album.

Sadly, this is.... not a hidden gem, to be polite about it. The track opens with a long, monotonous, drone that does nothing for a full minute and a half. The song improves by the second half once we're joined by more instruments and some actual notes, but opening with so little music & having that nothingness consume half the runtime really holds the track back.

...That being said, I do like the song once it actually starts and I kinda dig the transition to the next song, so this is much closer to the "Kinda Like" level than I would expect.

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The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Wont Wrestle the Thistles Undone):
https://open.spotify.com/track/5t15y083cJ3iohiyfvcD4y?si=06eee1e944fe4383

Estimated Score: 55.00

Okay, the early parts of the album may be more... confusing than I had expected from my limited understanding. Margaret finds a wounded fawn, aids it, it transforms into a human, and she immediately gets pregnant with the deerman's child (she must really be into shapeshifting deer men. No judgment, just not where I thought we were going with any of this) while the band allegedly screams about a sandwich:

In a VIP Q&A they just explained that the yelling at the end is the name of a sandwich from a place they went to while recording the album. What.

It is at this point that I had to stop the album and do a few standard checks to make sure this is reality because "this is all a dream" would make more sense than this being how the album actually opened. I take back any criticism of Billy McCaw being out of place because that song did not break my perception of existence.

...Still, it's... novel enough that I kinda like it?

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The Decemberists - A Bower Scene:
https://open.spotify.com/track/15DcZmjj7xXS84GN6SEFUn?si=1e13ba63d14b4c98

Estimated Score: 49.76

An interlude with a heavier sound to it than the preceding tracks. It's not bad, but I'm less interested in this sound & not much gets to happen--a nun (at least, I think they're all nuns) is kinda bitchy about Margaret's pregnancy so she runs back to the woods. It's fine enough; it's an unobjectionable song that moves the story along, but not especially remarkable.

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The Decemberists - Wont Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga):
https://open.spotify.com/track/0vvMw4RVYcueUm3IiGfQf8?si=54b9e717cfab4224

Estimated Score: 56.39

In which Margaret searches for deerman (William) in the forest. I'm honestly not that interested in most of song, but I do find something incredibly enchanting about William's voice when he calls out to her. His section is quite short, but for whatever reason, I find it really elevates the song up to at least the mid-50's.

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The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love 2 (Wager All):
https://open.spotify.com/track/5ID0RkPntsnrSc53KWQbr8?si=481006fe77bc4deb

Estimated Score: 59.33

Having found each other, we now move on to the mandatory "romantic song about embracing love, even though it is forbidden" portion. It's actually pretty nice! It's surprisingly a rather sweet type of romance... it might have been sweeter if we'd done the romance before the pregnancy, but if you put aside anything that happened before this track (or will inevitably happen after this track) it's quite sweet, Not sure I want to move it up to the 60 point level, but it's at least pretty close.

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The Decemberists - The Queen's Approach:
https://open.spotify.com/track/4n7HOOyQnR7Lhg21tGin5T?si=7e442f1cd4d84150

Estimated Score: 50.94

<30 sec space-filling instrumental. It's just an incidental transition piece, so there's not a lot here... it's nowhere near memorable enough to score big in spite of its short length, but it does an okay job of building up the tension and establishing how bad things are about to get. It's... fine, I suppose.

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The Decemberists - Isn't It A Lovely Night?:
https://open.spotify.com/track/03CfLTRbl6uwlPZhJsrm84?si=e485c5cbc6334ca3

Estimated Score: 39.66

Nah, I'll pass on the "Margaret and William have sex while the Queen watches" song, thank you.

On an objective level, I'm aware that the song does quite a nice job of making me feel squicked out even without the context of the story--I find this entire song quite unpleasant to listen to, even if I were able to completely divorce it from all context, so it's probably doing a fantastic job at what it's trying to do. But... I kinda... *don't* want to be squicked out in this specific way? I may be getting more tolerant of blatant sex songs, but this one is a bridge too far.

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-The Wanting Comes in Waves / Repaid was in the main ranking and will not be revisited here, though I still enjoy it and find it to be on a level well above the previous tracks-

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The Decemberists - An Interlude:
https://open.spotify.com/track/0h6zNG0N1cgh4fj7blWeqX?si=8bd8cbef53ff412d

Estimated Score: 59.27

Is a nice interlude.

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The Decemberists - The Rakes Song:
https://open.spotify.com/track/5QTKgUArMLt1JzM2JXlYCN?si=93aa9dd49d224f03

Estimated Score: Ehh... I'll pass on scoring this one.

Yeah, a father mass murdering his children is a bit too far on the darkness scale for my blood. It's... not exactly triggering, but,,,, not exactly not triggering, either? Let''s just say I've known too many fathers abusing their children for me to be able to enjoy this. If I must be objective, I'd say the beat is fairly catchy & I like the way the way the Rake is portrayed: A villain so carefree and callous about his actions would be on the right track, were it not for the specifics of said villainy. I also somewhat enjoy the way he breaks the fourth wall, acknowledging his role as a narrator. On an objective level, this is a good villain song. It should be in the mid-50's, probably, but I just... don't want to deal with this or discuss why I don't want to deal with it. Apologies.

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-continued-

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The Decemberists - The Abduction of Margaret & :The Queens Rebuke/The Crossing:
https://open.spotify.com/track/7DjRxbsw5iL7u2JMRzvQln?si=135c95164fd543ea

https://open.spotify.com/track/0ZzdSvryv7vR0aIggcPXi6?si=e434116acac24e8e

Estimated Score: ...what? [That's the official score. I may or may not convert that to a number in the future.]

I'm combining these songs because I'm not entirely sure why they're separate to begin with. Anyway, The Rake just really wants to sexually violate someone & coincidentally stumbles onto Margaret (?). Then the Queen feels the need to tell him who she is (??) & her backstory with William (???) & is basically "oh sweet, I wanted to get rid of her, you should totally do sex crimes on her!" (????). In exchange for violating Margaret, the Queen will help the Rake cross a deadly river (?????).

...I don't think I get any of this.

1: So the Queen wanted revenge and just kinda lucks out that a murdering sex criminal happened to be a couple feet away? Okay.

2: Why even ask the sex criminal to do sex crimes? I mean... he kinda... was already about to do that?

3: Why tell the Rake ANYTHING? "Hey, violate this girl for me! I need you to do it because my son, who I turn into a deer every day, is in love with her. You know, I saved him when he was a baby<" and like.... no one asked?

4: So, the Rake is just cool with all this? I know he's a mass-murdering fourth-wall breaking sex criminal, but I think he'd at least be vaguely bothered or confused by some of this?

5: ...Where did that river come from? Like, everyone keeps coming and going from this forest, right? If he couldn't cross the river, then either he shouldn't have been here to begin with or he could just... take a different route out of the forest? [I guess William is following, but The Rake is on a horse so I don't see how he could keep up?]

It is a this point that I once again have to check and see if I'm actually awake because I feel "this is a ridiculously dream sequence" makes far more sense than this being an actual story. And yet, here we are.

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The Decemberists - Annan Water:
https://open.spotify.com/track/1ox5ibMmY16SjwNNVW6FuB?si=6baa58ff4f8f438d

Estimated Score: 60.00

In which William begs the deadly river to let him cross. ....Wait, if he's close enough to know they went across the river, shouldn't he have heard the Queen's rambling song?

....oh wait, William has a horse as well.

..........how does the deerman have a horse?

..................I'm not dead, right? I've established this is not a dream sequence, but I'm willing to entertain the possibility that I'm trapped in a very musical purgatory.

Right. Well, I think I like this song. It's purely nonsensical. We've got a man, who is sometimes a deer, on a horse, singing to a river and vowing to let the river have his "precious bones" if it lets him save his true love. "YOU MAY HAVE MY PRECIOUS BONES!" is just... I don't know, but I'm not letting the song get less than 60 points with a lyric like that.

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The Decemberists - Margaret In Captivity:
https://open.spotify.com/track/7t3fbRtuaMY0iO5RNeWZJm?si=dd147781c0ac4f2d

Estimated Score: 54.06

Well, mercifully the Rake merely vows to do *things* to Margaret and tell her how hopeless things are. It's... fine enough. Nothing really happens, but I think I'm quite okay with nothing happening after... whatever the fuck the past several songs have been.

*sees that the Rake is going to be murdered by ghosts in the next song* ....Oh, I was almost worried this story was starting to become coherent.

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The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!):
https://open.spotify.com/track/0qRHqLn1aeHT8JsgQIpaDb?si=531400b3a55a40aa

Estimated Score: 39.81

Nah, I'll pass on the creepy ghost children. I do like how the song opens with a sped-up version of The Wanting Comes in Waves, but I don't care for this from a musical or story standpoint. Musically, I don't like the ghost children choir, I just do not like the way the song sounds. Storywise, adding ghosts feels like a bizarre deus ex machina--after all this nonsense, our heroine is saved by GHOST CHILDREN.

I get the irony with the Rake saying he wasn't haunted by murdering his children, but then LOL HE WAS LITERALLY HAUNTED WHAT A GREAT PUN LOL. *headdesk*

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The Decemberists - The Wanting Comes in Waves (Reprise):
https://open.spotify.com/track/5omE6DiO9yOinKugnIHlqW?si=2bebb6559ceb4524

Estimated Score: 55.00

A brief reprise. It's nice enough; I like how it's now more frantic & I'm an idiot for not catching the play on words with the metaphorical waves of the initial song and the literal waves from the river until right now, in spite of knowing full well from the final song's title that everyone was going to drown. Well played.

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The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned):
https://open.spotify.com/track/2OnJ5RZuyi4dubXKY0gEWM?si=ef948ba6a3e44d53

Estimated Score: 66.93

Removing the song from the context of the rest of the album, I quite like this. Embracing your lover as you both die tragically is a bit of a cliche, but it's handled beautifully here with one of their best songs.

In context... it doesn't feel like a satisfying conclusion to anything. The Queen isn't even referenced, leaving her entire existence fairly pointless; for being a nigh omnipotent Goddess of Nature, all she really did was spy on her son having sex & telling the Rake to do what he was already doing. (Yes, if she didn't help the Rake cross the river, everyone would probably have survived.. but murdering everyone didn't seem to be her plan & with her powers, she could have just killed people directly if she wanted it).

Margaret got pregnant back in the first song and... nothing came from that. I was kinda expecting the Queen to save the baby in a history repeating sort of way, but I guess the unborn child died with everyone else?

Considering the ghost children saved Margaret, William didn't really accomplish anything? Yeah, yeah, tragic romance, he made it in time to die with her. Just typically the hero does something before dying tragically?

And... eh, it's fine. Just ignore how little sense getting to this point actually made and enjoy the doomed romance for its romantic doom-y-ness.

======================

So... that album was an experience. I am glad that I took the time to listen to it; while it's not a favorite, it was an unexpected journey. I thought knowing the mid-point (which recapped the early points) & the ending meant I had a good idea of what the story was... I did not. I very, very much did not.

I think I'll take tomorrow off... kinda need to decompress a bit after that experience, I think.

Well, I do have a few extra minutes today, so let's get one more song out of the way as a "not really a whole day, but still something resembling progress" day.

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Diablo Swing Orchestra - Exit Strategy Of A Wrecking Ball:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9vTJGgtZ2U

Estimated Score: 64.4 [the lack of a trailing zero continues to mean nothing, but feels appropriate]

Pretty neat song for the most part. It's a bit more metal than most of their nominated songs tend to be, but it's a lighter style that I don't mind & the song shifts to a more theatrical musical style for a decent portion of the track anyway. The lyrics arre also pretty great--a lot of fun metaphors and fun villainous-adjacent energy: If you'll forgive my quoting the entire first verse and a large chunk of the chorus:

I brought the stars to burn you,
I thought their beauty would turn you around
This state of chaos suits you,
But now I've got a nation to crush you on my command

I've come to erase you
I'm here to replace you
This time words won't save you

Just a lot to love all around lyrically. While it's not literal, the imagery is fun and offer enough interpretations to have fun envisioning things. On the other hand, I don't like the outro; it turns into a more generic style of metal and ditches the lyrical variety to just repeat one line. It's a short enough section to not tank the song's score or turn me against it, but it's a pretty good example of something I dislike. So... I think the mid-60s would likely be a good place for the song. Definitely something I like and a ways above the Clump, but with a decent amount of space remaining between it and the next tier.

Also, I'm surprised this song is six minutes long. It's one of those tracks that feels much shorter than it actually is thanks to the musical variety & compelling lyrics.

======================

Blegh. Sorry about having to take yesterday off as well, that was not in the plans... especially as I need to use this afternoon to finish this week's album at Rank the Tracks because with VGMC noms coming up fast, this may be my only chance to get that finished in time. So here are the last three songs before I go on break, featuring three more from the pile of YouTube links that I didn't label.

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Thank You Scientist - Life of Vermin:
https://open.spotify.com/track/3j9l5NX1HT8sko2tcjXdr3?si=073e957a3e8a4f42

Estimated Score: 60.00

I like this song. Not as much as Everyday Ghosts from the main ranking, but as that song had one of the most volatile scores which bounced up & down the list, it's possible that this is just a low point for Life of Vermin & I might more strongly connect with it on a different day.

System's failed us and we don't even notice
Losing touch, look what we've become
Everyone is scared of everyone
(Everyone is so afraid)
More laws than order

Feels like this might be the most political song (thus far) of the post ranking ranking, though not in a bad way. I don't really have anything to add here, it just feels like something I'm obligated to mention somewhere.

I like the bridge:

Crazy, why deny
The spirit still left inside?
The beast that we try to hide

That's definitely a metaphor I can work with, for obvious reasons. So... yeah, I like this song, at least well enough to add it to the Clump.

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-

======================

The Cure - Close to Me (Remastered):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7U1k147Qk4

Estimated Score: 38.46

I'm afraid this is one of those songs that I don't really get the appeal of. The music feels tinny, distant, and repetitive; the lyrics are better, with dread & hallucinations, but there's also no particular line that I'm really invested in to make up for how sadly uninteresting I find the backing track. I'll admit that I may be too harsh on the song because I had high expectations from the band & it may go up towards the 40s or even low 50s on a relisten with my expectations in check, but the first impression is a bit of a miss.

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-

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HANABIE. - Pardon Me, I Have to Go Now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuFbQ-Mewfw

Estimated Score: I'll start with exactly 60.00, though I am concerned that it may go down two to four points on a relisten, Then again, it could go up. Or stay here. I don't really know right now.

Unrelated, but now I have The Moody Blues - Go Now stuck in my head again thanks to thank title. Moving on to the actual song:

First off, I love the first half of the chorus. The repeated screaming of apologies is actually something I find incredibly appealing right now. I also kinda dig the opening portion of the song, where there's a somewhat laidback toe-tapping traditional song going on underneath the metal instruments, I do find the contradicting styles there to be rather intriguing.

The rest of the song isn't quite as interesting, but.. well, let's just say I want to leave things on a positive note. With a section that I love, I feel like this should be at the 60 point Clump at the least; I can see an argument for not being into the rest of the song enough to lower it a bit, but I could also see another argument that having an 80 point section should justify moving the song up a bit further as well... so throwing it into the Clump feels like a reasonable starting move.

======================

Would someone still around this topic mind doing me a favor and posting a fairly long song (15 to 25 minutes preferred) I can take a look at when VGMC noms end?

We've recently moved to a more rural area and the internet here isn't great. There are a lot of hiccups and frequent downtimes, so continuing with this will be a bit harder--not impossible as I clearly have internet, but I need to get a feel for how difficult it is to work with longer tracks. It should be fine, but I'll feel better once I manage to get a writeup for a longer one from the new place. (I could revisit one of the already covered songs, but I'd feel more excited for something new)

Pain of Salvation - In the Passing Light of Day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLYeJcuPj68

Thank you very much! I shall make listening to that my top priority as soon as noms end.

Four songs, featuring the requested fairly long song & the three "Shimamanaga Ena" tracks from post #316. (I'll circle back to UF8's first batch of songs soon-ish, hopefully).
-

======================

Pain of Salvation - In the Passing Light of Day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLYeJcuPj68

Estimated Score: 66.56

Ah, I've missed this band more than I thought I did. I really should relisten to "Be" sometime, though I'm sure of spoken of my fondness for that album enough for now. This is a pretty nice song. The sorrow of slowly dying is the type of sadness that tends to play rather well with me as of late & I think there's a fairly pleasing build to the song. The way it starts off very quiet and resigned as a tragedy, then picking up once we hit the middle of the song and adding in some fairly harsh sounds, before breaking back down to quiet sorrow as he's practically sobbing on the next to last verse... and the end is really quite powerful, with the way the song builds back up with a vaguely hopeful sound to it as he reassures his wife that it's okay for him to die, followed by the song fading out as his breathing slowly ends.

While it's not quite a favorite, I think the song admirably accomplishes its goals and hits the right amount of sadness while offering a different look at an artist that I have considerable nostalgia for, so I quite enjoyed that. It's also another of those songs where it doesn't really *feel* like it went on for 15 minutes. Nice song all around, thank you.

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-I... have forgotten exactly which song of UF8's I left off on, so I'm going to skip ahead to the first song from the second batch because I feel slightly lazy-

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Shimanaga Ena - Kagirohi. (composer: Namba Ken):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbTyVwWiMj8

Estimated Score: 59.5556

Not a bad track. The upbeat energy of the backing music is pleasant; it's... happy without being overly energetic? The lyrics are also fairly nice; the themes of bonds & promises & hopes for reunions aren't the most original, but they're also generally comforting as familiar subject matter. And there are some nice lines about the moon (yay, moon!) & searching for the meaning of existence, so there are a few good lines sprinkled throughout the song. I think it's a bit below the 60 point mark, but still rather close and a generally nicely relaxing song.

======================

-mayhaps I'll just cover the three songs of hers that are listed in a row.-

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Shimanaga Ena - Capella. (composer: Namba Ken):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlgdf-mWrFk

Estimated Score: 55.39

A much more subdued song than the previous one. I'm not as drawn to it, as it feels like it's missing a hook without the "somewhat upbeat nature" that carried Kagirohi, but I'd say I kinda like it.

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-

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Shimanaga Ena - mellow. (composer: Namba Ken):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QP6yLRI9SQ

Estimated Score: 63.27

A lot of contributors to this song:

Rap:
Imaoka Maya

Chorus:
Kanaka Mana
Hinamizawa Kurumi
Hoshino Meguri
floss spica
Yotsutsuji Yukino
RIN-ne
Blank (Ame Kayaya & Ken Namba)

I really like the groove that opens the song. I think it loses a bit of what I was so attached to once the singing starts, but it's still has a fine feeling to it that befits the song's title. I don't care for the section after the first chorus, which I'm presuming is Imaoka Maya's portion section, I don't think that singer's voice really gels with the vibe of the rest of the song--but I'm likely being overly harsh and it's likely the type of section that would get a "I'm not as negative towards this part now that I'm prepared for it to happen" writeup.

And for as mean as that may have sounded, the score still puts it well above the 60 point Clump & it's easily the best of this set of three songs, so let's say I like the song (and still really like the intro) and move along.

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-

Okay, that went reasonably well. Some internet trouble, but nothing too severe and things seem the same as usual. I feel like the internet here has never been this cooperative, but I'm going to take this as a good sign. More songs tomorrow, hopefully.

Picking up with UF8's first batch of songs, resuming after the AZKi track:

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nayuta - Comet Light, at Starry Avenue (composer: Qutabire)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVALhPmSFO4

Estimated Score: 57.57

It's not a song I have a lot to say about on a first listen, but I kinda enjoy it. The lyrics have a lot of references to nighttime and moonlight, which is always a plus, and she has a rather pleasingly soft voice. It doesn't have any big hooks or lines that I fall in love with, but it's an enjoyable song.

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Plague_Xeno - Fly (composer: Daidai Myao):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTFIxVLoqOw

Estimated Score: 56.72

Time bleeds through the clear sky, and the scenery falls asleep

That is an interesting auto-translated line. The song itself is still in that "kinda like" tier level; I'm not the biggest fan of the singer's voice, but I find the song nice enough that I kinda enjoy listening to it and I really like the imagery from that line.

Also, this is the first song where my spotty internet froze in the middle of a track; not long, just a pause for about two minutes, but interrupted songs will happen occasionally. Still a very good sign that I got through the 15 minute long track without any hiccups.

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Emnyeca - Sandbox (composer: Daidai Myao):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwO_hqcI72A

Estimated Score: 63.44

It's definitely a very attention grabbing song. Opening with brief samples of the rest of the album-- I won't try to rank them based on such short clips, but track one seems to have some nice guitar playing & track two seems like a fun pop song, so I suspect they'd be at the top of the list (well, as the first two tracks, they are literally at the top of the list but that's not what I meant and we're getting disastrously off track)--before everything crashes and the actual song starts... it's certainly a unique intro. It's also weird enough that I'm not 100% sure that the other songs even exist, though as it would make absolutely no sense to open with an ad for a fictional album, I'll stick with the logical assumption that the album is real.

Moving on to the actual song, there's a slightly chaotic feel to it that I find rather appealing. It's not really chaotic or aggressive, but it's adjacent enough to those categories to appeal on both "chaotic" and "melodic" sensibilities at the same time? Or something like that. I like the song.

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Mikanagi Ruka Utsuru Hachinomi - FAKELORE (composer: Daidai Myao):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOq8q7rigi8

Estimated Score: 50.69

Ehh... I don't know. I'm not really a fan of anything here; even the static-y distortions feel like they're not quite right and my first reaction is that I did not like this. But... it is... somehow oddly interesting? To a point that i refuse to give it less than 50 points. It's a strange reaction. I should probably revisit this song in a week or two.

...I feel like another song had a writeup stating that I needed to revisit it in the near future, but I've forgotten which one. I should probably make actual notes about that sort of thing.

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Metamoe - Shijima Nite(At The Silence) (composer: Daidai Myao):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rk09Mi_p-M

Estimated Score: 55.00?

It's hard to say. The song opens incredibly strongly with the skipping audio and depressing vibe making it a really strong contender... then towards the middle there's an almost headache inducing "thump-thump-thump" quality to the music and the back half of the song, while it does drop the parts I actively disliked, never quite recaptures the magic of the early parts of the song. It's one of those "Part 70 Point song, Part 30 Point song, and Part Mid-50s Point song" songs where there's a massive +/- 50 point radius that I could drop the song and feel reasonably justified.

I think I'll drop it at exactly the "Kinda Like" level which is kinda in the middle of the radius. The opening feels like it's too strong for me to drop it below the 55 point zone (it'd probably be in the current top ten if it managed to keep the vibe up for the entire duration), but I do rather dislike the middle portion of the song so.... yeah, we'll say "Kinda Like" for now?

======================

Five more from UF8's selections:

======================

VocaDuo (male ensemble) - Glorious (composer: Dinger):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZAj3El_Clg

Estimated Score: 49.90

There are a lot of singers on this track, but unfortunately I don't think there are any real standout performances. There are so many singers that each person's sections are incredibly brief and I find it impossible to distinguish their voices during the chorus. I suppose Dinger was probably the best, followed by those immediately following him: I could imagine the deeper voiced singers having an interesting song and I'm moderately curious about the higher-pitched singer (the second performer after Dinger), but not so curious that I feel I need to try tracking down any of their other work.

Ultimately, it's a fine song and I guess it's a decent enough showcase for a variety of people, but perhaps a bit forgettable as no one gets a chance to really stand out.

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Hibiki Ao - Hoshiyo Santa wo Michibiite (composer: Yuya Machida)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqGz9a4JvOU

Estimated Score: 54.499 [Upgraded to 57.33]

It's really nice seeing her again, but I don't like Christmas music and I'm not sure this is really an exception to that rule. Like, this song is relying entirely on my pro-Hibiki Ao bias to get this many points... well, almost entirely. I do like the instrumental break, strangely enough, that is some oddly catchy.... horn/trumpet/whatever brass-y sounding instrument it is. And the song is rather cute...

...alright, I'll move it up a bit to the "Kinda Like" tier as it would surely reach that point on repeated listens, but I feel it'd be unlikely for a Christmas song to reach the 60 point tier.

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wotoha - Starry Gift (composer: ch1ro:D)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHhBl28oSds

Estimated Score: 60.00 [Upgraded to 66.92]

...fine, but I refuse to be happy about it.

*sighs* Alright, I guess I'll try to type something up. The song starts off terribly. The intentionally low-quality sound to the opening verse along with the monotonous instruments is one of the lowest points of the Post Ranking Ranking... but things really turn around once the song upgrades. More instruments, higher quality audio on the singing, It's really quite a drastic improvement and the lyrics are also surprisingly pretty nice to. And I suppose I do like it rather more than exactly 60 points. So... an oddly well done song choice.

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wotoha feat. Yaca - Mugen Houyou (composers: Capchii/Neko Hacker)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgFeJ6hzw1I

Estimated Score: 52.339

I want to like this song. The lyrics are satisfyingly bleak, but her high-pitched singing and the pulsing beat are an almost brutal combination. I... think I'll keep the score on the positive side because it's likely to be memorable and I do like some aspects of it, but it's certainly not her best work.

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wotoha - Jackpot Chance (composer: Neko Hacker)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTeOZ3fjWRE

Estimated Score: 54.22

An energetic song which is enjoyable enough.

...I know I should say more, but I can't really think of anything to add here at the moment? The music is better than the previous track--no pulsing beat and her voice isn't nearly as high-pitched--but there's also nothing for me to get attached to like the lyrics on the last song, making it a closer call between the two then it should be. I'm not sure how the Christmas song wound up being the standout of the three chosen songs, but that seems to be where we're at.

======================

Fluttershy_Pony posted...

There are a lot of singers on this track, but unfortunately I don't think there are any real standout performances. There are so many singers that each person's sections are incredibly brief and I find it impossible to distinguish their voices during the chorus. I suppose Dinger was probably the best, followed by those immediately following him: I could imagine the deeper voiced singers having an interesting song and I'm moderately curious about the higher-pitched singer (the second performer after Dinger), but not so curious that I feel I need to try tracking down any of their other work.

Ultimately, it's a fine song and I guess it's a decent enough showcase for a variety of people, but perhaps a bit forgettable as no one gets a chance to really stand out.

oh i guess it wasn't very clear from the video, the singer you were describing wasn't dinger, it was this guy https://www.youtube.com/@mokiMusic0000 (dinger was just the plush thing in his hand on the illustration). From my understanding VocaDuo was a collab event where vocalists and vocaloid song composers collabed, and the VocaDuo song was just a bigger collab project where a lot of the entrants for it came together basically for a song that dinger also happened to compose (along with someone called kenpi who i forgot to note on the post)

I did notice two names there and the X to signify the collaboration between them, but somehow I could have sworn Dinger's name was listed first... ah well, apologies for the mis-attribution on that one. I'll add a note to check out that first song on his channel at some point.

...actually it'd be less work to just click the link now to make sure I don't forget about it.

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======================

moki - love:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G-P1AdUiU4

Estimated Score: 75.36

I feel validated for calling him the likely best singer from that group. I like his voice, the instruments are generally nice (there are some notes that feel like "tapping on my headphones" type noise that are unpleasant, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt and presume that they might sound better on a better pair of headphones; also, they're a very minor part of the song and easy enough to forgive), and I rather like the lyrics here. The romantic lines are very tame (just hugging and waking up together, nothing explicit) & there's also an unhealthy amount of self-loathing:

The pitiful me shows my face
disgust
No matter how hard I try to hold you
For one thing, I can't get used to it.
everything that comes from you
I want to love
Eventually

Ah... sweet romance, self-loathing, hope to eventually learn to love, the lyrics are pushing a lot of buttons for me right now. It may not have been a detour you particularly wanted me to take, but it's one that I found well worth it.

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Kuriyama Yanmi - SWEET SWEET MARRON (composer: Natsume Ryuichi):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Inp78zaMOTc

Estimated Score: 70.00

Unexpectedly good. With the name and thumbnail picture, i was expecting a low-scoring food song. This is definitely not that, though I'm not quite sure what it is. it's one of those songs that are kinda all over the place musically... it's mostly a distant, dreamy & cute song. But then we have a really fast-paced section which (as far as I can recall) features the only animation as she's suddenly driving a jeep (or "a green car marked by a squirrel" as the auto-translated lyrics put it) which is followed by some retro gaming sounds. The outro is practically dubstep with this pulsing beat and endlessly repeating "La la la"s", but somehow it all works out? I think I really like this one.

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-

And my phone internet has decided to completely cut out here. It was nice enough to wait until that last song ended, but I've been failing to get Star<3Letter to play for about fifteen minutes here so I'm going to... *song starts*....well never mind. I was going to quit early and play a game, but I guess we'll continue!

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Amakawa Hano - starletter (composer: Mitsukiyo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU-FaqDkMmU

Estimated Score: 62.26

It's another track where I'm being rather strongly manipulated by the autotranslated lyrics:

A rabbit is lonely alone
[...]
Are carnivorous rabbits no good?
It's your fault, just look at me!
[...]
I want to be praised by that voice (Pat, Pat)
Cuddly
[..]
Purr like a cat
Sitting next to you

Mixed animal metaphors and cuddling... well, it works for me. The song itself isn't quite a favorite, but is good enough that i like it & I think the lyrics give it enough of an edge to push it above the 60 point mark.

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-

And the phone internet is down and not coming back this time, so I'll be taking a break here.

*back online*

....Fine, my original plan was to make it through Kotono's song since hers is right before a playlist link, so one more.

*song freezes ten seconds in*

....Okay, really taking a break here and coming back to this song tomorrow. Perhaps we'll have more luck with the internet connection then.

re: cut part of post, you're welcome to just skip through the playlist of yuru songs, i largely just picked the whole thing since all of them are fairly short, were all songs from within the prior year or so, and i couldn't decide on one that really stood out enough even though i like them

But I want to listen to them! Though I may shorten the writeups a bit to make it easier to get through the list:

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Kotono - Fukuzatsu Denshikairo (composer: 7mai)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUGSD-vsDRo

Estimated Score: 60.00

I'm amused that the official lyrics include a few emoticons:

If I imagine the feelings that cross
I feel like my head is going to explode (o;)

I feel like emojis have almost completely replaced text-based faces these days, except for us old people that refuse to adapt to the changing times. As for the song itself, it's also fairly nice. It's cute enough that I feel comfortable saying that I like it, but it doesn't do too much to stand out musically or lyrically from other cute vtuber songs. Which works since that's a genre I like.

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Yuru - Memory Piece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVyHzM9tVd0

Estimated Score: 49.77

One nice line in the song: "Fragments of memories are engraved in my heart"

Unfortunately, the song itself has a rather pronounced single-note beat that doesn't really work for me and while I like that one line, it's not quite enough to get past my bias against what it's doing musically. It's not bad and it probably says something that nice about her that the score isn't terrible, but that's about it.

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Yuru - Signal Love:
https://youtu.be/go1vyIgOlO8

Estimated Score: 57.94

Okay, the auto-translation took her line about sleeping in late and translated it as "Good friends with futon" and that is adorable.

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Yuru - Goodbye Promise:
https://youtu.be/dk-onl2nQAs

Estimated Score: 60.00

As usual, the more wistful & nostalgic song goes over better than the happier ones. "I burned the shadows of memories into my eyes" is a particularly tragic line. Yeah, I like this one; it's not the saddest or most tragic, but there's enough pain and sadness that it fits reasonably well into the category of songs I'm looking for.

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Yuru - Sometimes:
https://youtu.be/oJXbRQJfWSI

Estimated Score: 52.46

Well, this was certainly a drastic departure in style from all the previous songs. I'm not quite sure what to make of it since it's so far removed from what I had come to expect. I... don't think I particularly like it; something about the computerized instruments is... not great. But it's different enough that I want to keep it somewhere in the positive side of scoring because I could see myself coming back to this song occasionally... "hey, remember that weird song with the chubby cat in a chubby cat-shaped spaceship in the background???" feels like the type of thought that I will have at some point in the future.

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Yuru - It's Nyan! That's Great!:
https://youtu.be/PVCj3-5fn1M

Estimated Score: 68.59

I suppose alien cat ship is in several videos, though I didn't really notice it before. (Looking at the thumbnail I see it back at "Signal Love", as well as in some songs that have yet to be reached). Aaanywho, something about this track is reminding me of that PHYS song from the second ranking topic.

...or whatever that company's name was. You remember it, the one with that child vtuber & Virtual Cat singing about... some company for... contest reasons, I think. This song isn't really on that level, but it's fun and reminiscent of a song that I love, so I think it's close to the 70 point tier. I'm leading towards "slightly below it", but could imagine the score going up a bit in the future.

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Yuru - Ambiguous Adorable:
https://youtu.be/si9mkvAbUV8

Estimated Score: 36.11

Her first full length song and the first drastic miss from her playlist. This is just one of those songs that I bounce off completely and.... well I don't really want to dwell on it, particularly as I can just move on to the next song.

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Yuru - Slow Motion Raindrops:
https://youtu.be/dGG1V1kcdZs

Estimated Score: 60.0005

Sweet, childish romance song about sharing an umbrella with a crush. Has some rain sounds for the outro. I like rain and this type of sweetness, so I'd give it a very slight edge over the exactly 60 point songs.

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And I think I shall take a break here and finish the other songs from the playlist tomorrow. It's been a while since I tried going through so many songs in a row... I did listen to the next track (Secret Base Lab), which is a much faster song that's kinda making me dizzy. I want to give it another chance when I'm better able to focus on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI0hVw6UotU

Fluttershy_Pony posted...

This song isn't really on that level, but it's fun and reminiscent of a song that I love, so I think it's close to the 70 point tier. I'm leading towards "slightly below it", but could imagine the score going up a bit in the future.

funny that this ended up getting a reaction like that when it was one of the main ones i thought about putting standalone on the post for the same kind of reason. for me it made me think of a lite version basically of a certain cover song i also shared in the 2nd ranking topic (albeit in the post-ranking then) (it was this one btw https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1K64y1u71W?p=7)

speaking of the 2nd ranking actually
Fluttershy_Pony posted...

As for the song itself, it's also fairly nice. It's cute enough that I feel comfortable saying that I like it, but it doesn't do too much to stand out musically or lyrically from other cute vtuber songs. Which works since that's a genre I like.

nice, this ended up higher than i really should've expected it to. I made sure to include it since i'd picked nemukawa yumena's You & Me song previously (which 7mai also did)... forgetting it was almost the lowest rated song from my set then...

To be fair to "You & Me", I did really like the remixed version you posted at the following topic! Though as a remix that probably doesn't have the same composer, so I suppose that's not terribly relevant. Moving along to the rest of the Yuru playlist & the recently posted Ideon theme:

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Yuru - Secret Base Lab:
https://youtu.be/jLtGuMfOg1s

Estimated Score: 59.00

Even taking an extra day to process this song, I'm still not sure how I feel about it. It might be the fastest song of the post ranking--it feels like it's rather sped-up & while there are obviously much faster songs than this, I still have a hard time keeping up with it or really processing it at all. I thought I was just burned out yesterday, but it's not really clicking today either.

Oddly enough, setting the speed to 1.25x doesn't seem to impact the song at all. It's like it's already been so sped-up that increasing it again doesn't really do anything. I think I'd probably place this just below the 60 point mark... it is rather curious and I don't exactly put this much effort & repeated listens into just any song at the Post Ranking, but I don't quite get or enjoy it enough that I'd put it at the next tier.

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Yuru - Snow Dance:
https://youtu.be/u3pMZtkugX8

Estimated Score: 60.00

Cute magic wand. Song is also enjoyable; fun, bouncy energy to the music & dancing in the snow counts as the "cute romance' that I'm okay with.

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Yuru - Talent Competition:
https://youtu.be/QqO2jI9cuf4

Estimated Score: 52.74

I want to like this song more than I do. The very quiet intro is pleasing, but once the keyboard jumps in it pulls me out of things a bit. There's also a persistent drum beat throughout the song... it's not a terrible beat or even all that pronounced, but it's not what I was expecting from how the song opened. And while most of the songs on this playlist are short, this one feels especially short--the abrupt ending leaves a bit of a sour taste. That being said, I did enjoy the intro & there are a few lyrics here that I find appealing:

"In my dreams, reconsidering nonsense"

"The final battle of slumber is brand new"

"I'm tired of the endless loop"

The first line is a kinda funny translation, but also fairly compelling... getting lost in nonsensical dreams is relatable. The second is overly dramatic and garbled in a comedic way. The last one is blunt sadness and relatable. So... I mean, it's not as though I don't like anything in the song. It just never quite comes together in a form that I fully appreciate.

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Yuru - Unrequited Love:
https://youtu.be/ivpVbnwLCsw

Estimated Score: 58.79

The auto-translation here is rather garbled, but I suspect this song has a lot of lyrical dissonance because it feels rather upbeat for something with that song title. About the only lyric that makes sense is "Starts with love and ends with hate" which... yeah, that's certainly blunt enough that I'll take it. I do wish the song kept the sad feeling throughout--it starts off sad, but rather quickly becomes energetic and poppy. Musically, anyway.

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Yuru - Yuruyuniverse:
https://youtu.be/L2Hkrw51ATk

Estimated Score: 57.49

This song also feels like it's been sped up a bit too much. I suppose it's darkly ironic that the song doesn't have room to breathe when the final lyric is auto-translated as "Oh, I can't breathe", but I don't think that's quite the intent. The lyrics also seem to be halfway between cute & tragic:

No more oxygen in the escape pod, peek-a-boo
Let's catch her with artificial respiration and breathe
[..]
What is this place?
It's been three years since I drifted
[...]
come find me
Oh i can't breathe

...That's uhh... not exactly the happiest way the playlist could have ended. </.<

But there's also comedy bits with her dropping her only picture on a passing asteroid, leaving footprints all over the stars, and declaring herself the laziest person in the universe. So it's not really a tragic song. It's also played so fast that there's no time to react to anything & intentionally glitches out towards the end. So... I dunno, I kinda like it, but it's an awful lot to take in.

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Koichi Sugiyama - Fukkatsu no Ideon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI0hVw6UotU

Estimated Score: 64.00

Sadly, the Super Robot Wars games that Ideon appears in have not been translated and I haven't played the untranslated ones it appears in. (Alpha Gaiden & MX are the only two I played in Japanese). Which is unfortunate, because it sounds like it was really insane:

Reflecting its status in animation, the Ideon is considered one of the most powerful mecha ever featured within the "SRW" games. Ideon has a gauge, known as the "Ide Gauge", which increases as Ideon is attacked. As the Ide Gauge rises, Ideon's general capabilities increase dramatically (including Ideon's "ENERGY" becoming infinite) and the unit unlocks three weapons: Zen-houi (All Directional) Missile, Ideon Sword, and Ideon Gun (the latter two are available in both a "normal" version and a MAP version). The Ideon Gun is particularly powerful; along with an attack power of 9999, enough to destroy most lesser enemies in one hit, the MAP version has a massive blast radius which often almost covers the battlefield. It is one of the most dangerous attacks in the Super Robot Wars series. However, when the Ide gauge reaches the maximum level, the Ideon becomes uncontrollable and goes berserk, destroying the universe by self-destructing, which means the end of the game.

Triggering a non-standard Game Over by destroying all of existence is certainly a thing. I don't know much about the anime itself, but I can infer a fair amount from what I know about it's SRW version and the fact that the anime was created by Tomino. Considering the author's nickname was "Kill 'Em All" and Ideon can literally kill 'em all, I suspect this is probably the anime is the most literal example of how he got that name.

Song is... certainly evocative. With lines about how you have no options & the God's power will rip apart the world, it really conveys a sense of dread while masquerading as generic happy super robot theme. It definitely makes me interested in the anime & even more interested in the untranslated SRW games.

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Taking a couple more days off. Back soon-ish.

Okay, it's been a while, but I'm back now. The 7th was not a good day and then I was busy with other things for a while, but we resume with a few songs from the "songs I saved the name of" part of The List.

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The Music Man (Original Broadway Cast) - Seventy Six Trombones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYxNbEos2O4&pp=ygUVc2V2ZW50eSBzaXggdHJvbWJvbmVz

Estimated Score: Somewhere between 46.00 & 59.99999 points. Let's try 55.5055 for no particular reason other than it being somewhat in the middle & my liking how the score looks. Which I suppose are reasons. [Upgraded to 59.00] [Upgraded to 62.00]

"How could any pool table ever hope to compete with a gold trombone?"

I'm going to pass up the obvious bait from this intro, though I will acknowledge it.

So, I do like the intro here. He has all the theatrical flair to his rousing speech that one could want from a Broadway performer. While I know very little about the show, he plays the over-the-top conman to a tee with such grandiose flair that his speech alone is the best selling point I could imagine for the show. Also, having an anti-pool table song is certainly a novel way of keeping the running gag going.

I'm not really a fan of the actual song though. This genre of music is... well, not exactly one of my favorites, and we shift from "theatrical conman" to... something largely unrelated musically. As usual with songs that feels like two different tracks stapled together, I'm having a bit of a hard time deciding how much the high & low points factor into the final score. I'll predict that it would land somewhere in the "Kinda Like" zone--possibly right up to the edge of the 60 point barrier--but it'd have to catch me in a very specific type of mood where I suddenly like the second half of the song in order to actually break the threshold. I'll start off with a conservative score that's still in the "Kinda Like" area, as I think evaluating it against other 55 point songs would help establish exactly where I'd want the song to end up.

[Later: The first half is good enough that I'm going to add a bit extra to the score.]

[Later: Eh fine, if I've listened to it four times today alone, let's just go up to 62 points.]

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The Birthday Massacre - Happy Birthday:
https://open.spotify.com/track/2DVjSGkuk8pYXnxMf2iRFx?si=aafdec84b92643e6

Estimated Score: 58.00

I still prefer the songs where she adds some growl-y lyrics with her voice over tracks like this one with only clean vocals, but I do kinda like this one. The whispering is a nice touch and it's satisfyingly villainous. I wouldn't really call "murdering an entire family and filming it" fun villainy, but it's suitably over-the-top enough that it isn't un-fun or realistic or tragic.

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Gorillaz ft. Fatoumata Diawara - Desole:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjB6-VR_KQU

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

Estimated Score: 60.00

I wasn't sure if I should rate the album version of the track or the five and a half minute long extended version, so I listened to both. I personally prefer the shorter version; I do get the complaint that it ends a bit abruptly, but I'm not really into just dragging the song out longer just for the sake of dragging it out. Either way, I do like this track; the lyrics can get a bit repetitive, but the blending of multiple languages is neat & Fatoumata's vocals are striking enough that they both nicely compliment the song and standout.

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Gorillaz, slowthai, SOFT PLAY - Momentary Bliss:
https://open.spotify.com/track/5h5FY6vmtDpgXF91BUexO0?si=25a256d4dd194228

Estimated Score: 28.90

No real reason i switched to Spotify at this point. Sadly, I'm really not into this one... I don't think I care for the guest singers on this and I find myself rather done with the entire thing by the 1:30 mark. It's not actively bad, but.. yeah, I actively dislike this one, though it's tolerable enough that I could probably move it up to the 30s.

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Gorillaz, George Benson: - Humility:
https://open.spotify.com/track/3NeiYiBn3rQBgurfVk92Zm?si=1229abfde0dd42c5

Estimated Score: 74.099

A smooth and consistent jam from start to finish. I know I should make some attempt to analyze it, but... this is one of those songs where I don't care about the lyrics or whatever the story is. I really like it and I'm happy, so let's just focus on the good vibes.

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Fluttershy_Pony posted...

Pain of Salvation - In the Passing Light of Day:

Very late response (despite me reading it the same day it was posted) but it's worth noting that that album, and that song in particular, are based heavily on the lead singer coming very close to death from flesh eating bacteria, as doctors kept trying different antibiotics with no results. There's a lot of real emotion going into that song. I'm not sure if that means the character in the song didn't die, though.

TheArkOfTurus posted...

Very late response (despite me reading it the same day it was posted) but it's worth noting that that album, and that song in particular, are based heavily on the lead singer coming very close to death from flesh eating bacteria, as doctors kept trying different antibiotics with no results. There's a lot of real emotion going into that song. I'm not sure if that means the character in the song didn't die, though.

I had read a bit about that. With the way the song feels like it's building up to accepting death and then ends on breathing that gradually slows, I have a hard time picturing the singer's character surviving. It feels like that would go against the song's themes--though I'll admit it's probably more ambiguous than I'm implying.

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One song for today as my phone battery is about to die and I kinda just listened to this one song several times in a row instead of moving on:

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AISHA, Naoki Hashimoto - Necessary Discrepancy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_BwHtr-87U

Estimated Score: 100

I do believe this is the first song with any Esperanto lyrics to be nominated, so that's an interesting first.

So, this is another of the epic progressive metal songs and one of the better ones. As usual, I'm fondest of the lighter portions of the song--particularly everything for the first three and a half minutes, and the more emotional climax that comprises the last minute of the song. Between them is a more intense metal section that is good enough--or to put it more directly, I love 2/3rds of the song and like the other part well enough, in spite of its heavy use of drums, that this song pretty easily slides into provisional first place.

There's some fun duality between the two singers and the various phases of the song, I'm getting way too into that last minute of the song--like "I want to give this part more than 100 points" into, and I see no reason to pretend the song would ever score less than 100 points. It is possible for other songs to place higher in a ranking without ties, so I'm not going to jump directly to declaring this the winning song of the post ranking... but I think it's been a few years since I wanted to award something more than 100 points, so things are looking pretty good for this track right about now.

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163 songs into the post ranking, our current top 5:

AISHA, Naoki Hashimoto - Necessary Discrepancy [100]
Koyoi - Eternity in our last scene [86.93]
Make Them Suffer - Doomswitch [82.00]
Electric Callboy - Spaceman [80.00]
AZKi - afterglow [78.00]

And one more song today because I'm going to go ahead and get this week's "Rank the Tracks" out of the way early. Will resume working on UF8's songs tomorrow, most likely.

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Naoki Hashimoto - Mirror of the World:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsyJzQIqo84

Estimated Score: 85.00

I really like this song as well. It is probably the most metal of the nominated Guilty Gear Strive songs & the Buddhist chanting doesn't exactly appeal to me, but there are some fun lyrics and it tells a complete story of someone being consumed by vengeance & ultimately finding a comrade, abandoning their quest for revenge, and attempting to make sure said comrade doesn't make the same mistakes.

Actually, I think I kinda love this song and I'm going to go ahead and set this in the mid-80s. The first minute and a half is not something I enjoy, but everything from the first chorus on is straight fire, so... yeah, I think this song would likely place somewhere in the 80s at a full ranking, so I'm going to go ahead and give it 85 points.

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Two songs from the "covers" section of UF8's post back on Page 5 and three more songs from the "YouTube links I saved without titles so that I don't actually know what they are" pile.

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Shanoa - RTRT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDt9RO-cjhI

Estimated Score: 93.255

This song isn't quite as far out there as some of The Decemberists songs, but this supernatural tragic comedy was definitely unexpected. I think I love this song; the piano is repetitive, but strangely captivating & her vocals go well with the story. I wasn't expecting to actually feel sad about a zombie having their head blown off by a laser gun, but here we are.

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Kumogahata Yaya - Onshitsu Mahou/Greenhouse Magic (original: sea-no):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u49Dk0daMyE

Estimated Score: 57.86

Not bad, I kinda like this one. I'm not finding anything much in the lyrics (at least one of the verses mentions the night, so that's nice but it's not like the night is a particular focus of the song or anything) and the intro is a bit slow, but she performs the song well enough and I don't mind listening to it.

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And now I want something different, so let's detour to some other stuff for a bit.

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Eastman Wind Ensemble -1st Suite for Military Band in E-Flat Major:
https://youtu.be/lk7c0m7SfNE

Estimated Score: 64.93

Technically I'm just supposed to listen to some of the instruments in one specific part of the song, but a song I'm not supposed to be listening to is an irresistible temptation, so I'm playing the whole thing anyway. Sadly, the aspect of myself most interested in this type of music isn't exactly here at the moment, but I shall do my best to work with the song:

It's pretty good! I'm least interested in the first part of the song which definitely feels like a more generic type of marching music (which could be my imagination, it just feels... old, even by classical standards?), but the second part is neat. it's very quiet, giving it a very ceremonial vibe while still being happy. It's a very "world leader awarding you for your victory" feeling, which is a new emotion to explore. The third movement is more overtly energetic and happy, for celebrating after the formal part of the ceremony is over. It covers quite a bit of ground for being less than three minutes long (not to mention burning part of that runtime on an opening I do not care for).

I'd say probably mid-60s for this song, with an outside chance of the score going wild if I listen to it in a specific frame of mind.

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Watame, Mori Calliope - Reaper vs Sheep -Kenko ver-:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_X6UNPq2rY

Estimated Score: 60.00

I feel like I need to go to Mori's channel and listen to that version for the sake of comparison... *checks* ah, good, that is in the pile. ....And listed next in the suggested videos. Cool.

So... "health rap" isn't exactly my type of thing, but the chorus is fun & the guitar solo is good. so I like most of the song in spite of the lyrics encouraging a healthier lifestyle; Watame is definitely the more entertaining part of the song, as her pleading not to be eaten is funny while Calliope doesn't really get any good lines this time around. I'd start the song in the Clump... I think the chorus is strong enough to keep it in the "Like" tier, but

[NOTE: Apparently I forgot to finish that sentence and the writeup just trails off there.]

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Watame, Mori Calliope - Reaper vs Sheep -Ouen ver.-:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOuNKm4ApZY

Estimated Score: 59.78

Yeah, probably should have listened to this one first since it takes place before the other song & was listed first, but I clicked around randomly and this is how it wound up. (Honestly, the songs are mostly standalone enough that it doesn't make much difference). So, the gimmick here is that the two songs are the same musically, but have completely different lyrics; Kenko is an upbeat health rap encouraging Mori & the viewers to eat and sleep instead of dying, while Ouen is a rap battle where Mori is manipulated into endlessly complimenting Watame. It's kinda funny, but also a bit... sad. As Mori gets more and more self-deprecating, Watame comes off bizarrely cold-hearted with a line along the lines of "So, then we're agreed that I win?" and there's never any real payoff. Like, I was waiting for Mori to get angry or at least call her out on the hypocrisy, but the song just kinda ends without Mori getting to do anything.

I mean, it is kinda funny, just... I dunno, I think I prefer the health rap even though this rap battle parody should be more my style.

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Only three songs today as there's some work being done outside which is making it difficult to listen to a fourth song... sorry, but it's just some unfortunate timing on my end this time.

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Hekina Ail - Ai wa Maru de Seidenki/Love is just like the static shock (original:-ute/Hoshibe Sho/Shoichiro Hirata)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUq-5LW8bUY

Estimated Score: 56.8009

A reasonably cute song that I might enjoy more on a different day? It's not something i have any complaints about, it's just somethnig that I kinda like.

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Yuudutsu Tear - phony (original: Tsumiki):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NjppBuOYb4

Estimated Score: 59.22

The rain of despair pelts my umbrella and
Dampens my bangs and the hidden side of my heart
Oh, its all so troublesome
[...]
I cant understand even the simplest of things; what even am I?

There are definitely some good lyrics here. "Rain of despair" is pleasingly direct, though using an umbrella dulls the metaphor a bit, I think. I think this is another of those songs right on the edge of the 60 point barrier; the singer does put a lot of emotion into the song, giving it this frantic energy that is only one or two steps removed from a mental breakdown, so I like what the song is going for... I just never quite click with it as much as all the 60 point songs.

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Yamamii - Aisaika No Choushoku/Your Breakfast - Jazz Waltz Arrange (original: Sheena Ringo):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l92H-P-Qtb0

Estimated Score: 56.34

I was a bit worried by the collection of words in that title: Food & Jazz haven't exactly been the highest scoring subjects, to put it lightly. This song is actually fairly neat though! I do like the brief intro, there's some pretty melodies there. The rest of the song is in that "kinda like" zone... probably the weakest of the three songs, but I like it well enough that I wouldn't be opposed to listening to it again later. I wish there was more of a focus on the string instrument from the intro though.

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The last three songs from Page #5 of the topic & the last song that I saved as a YouTube link without including a name or any indication as to what or why it's on the list.

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Tasokare Fu - Yoake to Hotaru (original: n-buna):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvSlWBCBUfE

Estimated Score: 60.00

I've come to hate so many things
And I feel as if I were a mere dirty spot

Definitely some of the better lines of the Post Ranking thus far. Also, a lot of references to the moon and night, so the song is definitely a strong contender in terms of lyrical content. The song itself is also pretty good, though it does feel a bit long... I start off really into the song with the sorrowful piano and the pain in her voice, but I feel like I've gotten as much of an emotional gut punch as I can get from the song by the two minute mark... I think I'd be happier with a shorter, more concise song. Not that I dislike any part of it, there's just a point of diminishing returns on the sadness. I think the Clump of 60 point songs is a fairly good place for the song; it shouldn't ever drop below that point, but I'm not sure I'd take it above any other Clumped song.

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Marumochi Tsukimi - Gossip (original: OSTER project):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5NiVqY0PPY

Estimated Score: 47.14

A sultry, jazzy nightclub type song. It's fine; one of those where I'm not particularly into any aspect of the song nor really against it either. It's incredibly fine.

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Kiritani Oomugi (alternate persona of Kiritani Komugi) - Akenai Yoru no Lily (original: Kasamura Tota):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXda3lUN1Nw

Estimated Score: 73.17

Because this night will never break
Im trapping you in this cage
Because your voice is the only thing that has light
in place of the moon, Im having you sing

Well, this song certainly got dark quickly. </.<

This track pleases me. It's simple, memorable, and there are enough lyrics about being broken that it slides nicely into some hypothetical playlists. I'm going to place this one in the "Really Like" tier.

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UltraMagnetic MC's - Travelling At The Speed of Thought:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_wfhfErbSE

Estimated Score: 55.22

i don't think I've ever complimented Kool Keith for how different every song featuring him is, he certainly had a greater variety than I knew or expected. This is... not something I'm super into, unfortunately, but I do like the idea here. It's got a good beat, some interesting samples (or so I'm told; there's a sample of Motorhead's version of Louie Louie somewhere?), the lyrics are clean making this one of the easier hip-hop songs to get into... but right now, I just kinda like it? It seems like something I should like like, but.... I dunno, I'm missing something and it's not clear what. Could possibly go up on a relisten and probably should be listened to a few more times to try to identify why this isn't quite clicking, but I'm not getting anywhere with it tonight.

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EDIT: "The Abduction of Margaret & The Queen's Rebuke/The Crossing" score set to "56.064" so that it actually has a value and fits somewhere on the sheet. I listened to it again and I kinda like how ridiculous the story gets at that point, but they're still not exactly my favorite songs from the album so "kinda like" tier feels about right.

"The Rake's Song" was set to exactly 50 points a while ago and I think I'm sticking with that. It's a memorable, fourth wall breaking villain song so I can't say that I dislike it; I also don't like it either, so exactly 50 points feels good enough. I could move it slightly down for being something I'd never choose to listen to, I could move it slightly up for standing out more than the vast majority of songs, but right now I'll just split the difference and leave it stuck in the middle.

I have a note here to listen to a few more Touche Amore songs and without any specific songs to look for, I'm just going to hit the currently most popular tracks by the band on Spotify:

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Touche Amore - Flowers and You:
https://open.spotify.com/track/2GnLhhzlKak1Q12b8jw25W?si=1305b71c1be741a9

Estimated Score: 60.00 [Upgraded to 60.01]

A sad song dealing with the singer losing his mother to cancer and all the associated regrets he has. I like it.

[Later: Moving this up very marginally because I like it a bit better than "New Halloween" which I'll also give 60 points to in just a minute.]

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Touche Amore, Manchester Orchestra - Limelight:
https://open.spotify.com/track/1Te9JWtr4DX8NioS7BPHVM?si=b2f3784c11fb4680

Estimated Score: 40.99

Not a song I'm into, I'm afraid. It uses a lot of repetition in the lyrics:

I'm tired and I'm sore (Sore! Sore! Sore! Sore!)
I'm not so young anymore (More! More! More! More!)
Worn down, but I imagine (Sore! Sore! Sore! Sore!)

And that's just not for me. There's still a fair amount of pain in the song and some lyrics I like, but my bias against the lyrical style makes it a bit rough for me to listen to.

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Touche Amore - ~:
https://open.spotify.com/track/5jVJxCRKn3ofBQpwL0tdo0?si=1af6910433d944be

Estimated Score: 53.66

Too short. It's nice enough, but it ends before I have time to really process or react to anything.

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Touche Amore - New Halloween:
https://open.spotify.com/track/02YbvgsXapCh9MLTrU11Ts?si=461b73be5b0a42ea

Estimated Score: 60.00

I skip over songs, because they're too hard to hear
Like track two on Benji or "What Sarah Said"

I know it's just a coincidence, but it feels weird hearing a reference to a song from the main ranking at this point. I'll also have to detour to the other referenced track (Sun Kil Moon - I Can't Live Without My Mother's Love) after this song, just to finish getting the context here. As for "New Halloween" itself, I like it. It's still dealing with the sadness of dealing with his mother's death and is the direct follow-up to "Flowers and You", so I think it'd be difficult for someone to like one & not like the other.

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Sun Kil Moon - I Can't Live Without My Mother's Love:
https://open.spotify.com/track/2NCNDUQj5PGgDHXZqbyOxq?si=038d7383d8784d41

Estimated Score: 58.71

This isn't quite the sound or style of music I was expecting from the name... after the Korean-inspired band name, "Ohio folk music" may have been the last thing I would have guessed. Anyway, I like the singer's voice and find the traditional, folk style music to be a welcome change of pace from everything else in the post ranking... but the lyrics aren't exactly for me (let's just say my relationships with all types of family members are complicated & leave it there) and that keeps me from really connecting with the song. So I like it, but not as much as say a 60 point song.

I did try two other songs on the album, but neither of them seemed worth discussing. I'm reasonably confident this singer has a song that I'd really like, but I don't care enough to try to find it right now--still, something I kinda like & I see the appeal.

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I feel like I should listen to some more Touche Amore, but I'll save that for another day.

This weekend is not going well for phone internet usage... couldn't get anything going yesterday and it seems to have conked out after two songs today. So, I'll just be thankful that I managed to get two songs in and that I'm capable of posting this & take an early break. Picking up with some more songs from post #316.

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Amemiya Chika - Momo no Hana. (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7X26biVhoc

Estimated Score: 57.49

A nice, short song. Not really much to say about it, but I wouldn't mind hearing another song featuring her. Which is nice because another one is coming up soon... let me skip ahead a bit and get to that one right now.

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Amemiya Chika - Yume no Atochi. (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhaJsSH90tg

Estimated Score: 62.00

I like this song, though I feel like the song really needs lyrics & that it's being held back by my inability to get much of anything. With all the spoken word sections, there are a lot of points with minimal music... and I do like spoken word sections, but without any guess as to what's being said, all I can really go off of is the general vibe of the song. And it seems like my type of vibe and generally sad: What little I can get involves rain, overflowing emotions, and wanting to be sweet though your heart is dismayed. Seems like a lot of good subject matter in here! Probably.

So... I'll say that I like it and acknowledge that I might love it with more context.

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Fluttershy_Pony posted...

I'll say that I like it and acknowledge that I might love it with more context.

it's about a point where somebody breaks up with them btw. honestly probably one of the most overtly "probably your thing" kind of songs in terms of lyrics, though the way it's done through a sort of rap may be hit or miss

lyrics: (untranslated because i'm lazy)

?






?

Wow, thank you! Did you go through the trouble of transcribing all that yourself? I swear, I looked and couldn't find anything in the description or comments & Googling the song name wasn't getting me anywhere either. I'll start by revisiting the track with the added context, then a few more songs from this set:

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Amemiya Chika - Yume no Atochi. (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhaJsSH90tg

Estimated Score: 70.00

"for you"
that's an excuse
for whom?
After all, it's pathetic
"I wish I hadn't met you if this happened."
what

Much more coherent than trying to translate the auto-transcribed closed captioning, which offered the following:

"Plum"
That's an excuse
Who's Plum?
If it's a...

Which wasn't really funny enough to draw attention to, though the fact that we have a user named Plum did make me smile. Strangely though, the auto-transcribed translation featured a line I liked which isn't anywhere in the actual lyrics:

Lie.
I want to be sweet and my
[note: there is a long pause here before the closed captions resume]
Heart is in a state of dismay

I think there's actually a lot of power in that completely made-up verse. From the desire to be a sweet person even though you know you're broken, to the awkard silence mid-sentence because it's too hard to admit, that is a great verse. The actual lyrics are also nice, but they're barely even similar:

on the occasion of parting
I want to think that those words are lies
burnt fields my heart
It doesn't matter if it's raining

A requiem echoes in my heart
about to explode

Now, don't get me wrong, I do like these lyrics at all. A scorched heart about to explode as you can't hide from the truth is pretty great subject matter to, I'm just surprised that the auto-lyrics managed to completely change things while still being a good story in their own right. "Who's Plum?" was pretty obviously wrong, but this part was so good and understandable that I didn't suspect it was that wrong.

Aaanywho, we've got darkness and rain (probably metaphorical darkness & rain, but I'll take it), heart break, and an endess longing to be held once again. So... yeah, sure, let's go ahead and bump this up a tier.

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Akatsuki Clara - Hibiki tsunagu uta. (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG8TahOz2cw

Estimated Score: 60.10

I'm not holding it against the song, but there's a lot of dead air at the end. The song stops at 3:40, but then there's total silence until the standard AIM outro plays, leaving the video to continue until 4:20; I suppose forty seconds of nothingness/outro isn't really that bad, it's just a strange design choice.

It seems like a happy song, though judging by one of the comments there's apparently some lyrical dissonance:

The sparkling sound that reminded me of summer was very comfortable.
The lyrics that make you think of the sadness, loneliness, and transience of the lines,
The singing voice that accompanied it was so beautiful.

The song doesn't feel particularly sad or lonely, but I'll take their word for it. Song is pretty nice, I like it/

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Sakuraha Rutoha - Yume no Ashioto (composer: Namba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94_rMA_XDOQ

Estimated Score: 71.00

Not quite sure. I really like the backing music, but I don't think I like her vocal performance on it... I'm also not one to really "get" sound mixing, but I feel like the settings lead to her voice overpowering the instruments a bit more strongly than I'd have liked. And the lyrics, which are conveniently easily available here, are... alright:

thank you for always supporting me
I want to spin a warm future full of smiles together with you

Kinda genericly sweet, but I like sweet so... not exactly gripping enough that I want to give extra points for them, but sweet enough that "yeah, sure, I like them" feels like an appropriate response. I think I'd score it something like...

Instruments: 82.00
Lyrics: 55.00
Singing: 53.90

Which would average out to "63.633333333333". And I'm not sure if that feels too high or too low because, it's like, "well, if the song focuses heavily on her singing & you're giving that less than 55 points...." but it's also like "man, I love that opening before the singing starts & even during the main parts of the song, there are definitely some high points with this energy that I kinda love"; so... I think I'll take a bit of a gamble & go high with the starting score here, throw it up to the 70s. Definitely room for it to drop back down a tier & a slight chance that my love for the backing music to carry it even further up, but I think I feel good with starting it at Really Like and then seeing where things go.

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Kazenagi Koa - Yume no Kaidan (composer: Nanba Ken)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN2abkjqAbM

Estimated Score: 60.00 [Upgraded to 70.00]

Well, the lyrics are a fairly big miss. Too happy, optimstic, and intentionally inspirational: "Make your dreams come true to see the light", "Turn dreams and goals into miracles", blah blah blah; let's just say this doesn't compare favorably to the best Zombie Land inspirational songs & there's nothing here that gets past my initial bias against it.

And yet... I don't hate this. Actually, I don't see to be opposed to it at all, honestly--so long as I ignore the lyrics, I actually do like this. I feel like tentatively placing it into the Clump; while it's certainly not my first choice, there's a certain tenderness to the song that is rather pleasing. ...And I think I want to hear something else by her, so let's deter to a fairly arbitrarily selected cover by her:

[Later: This is definitely something I enjoy in spite of the lyrics being antithetical to my existence, but after trying a pair of other songs, I think I really like this one? Could be the type of sleeper song that gets lots of extra points if listened to repeatedly, but I'll settle for only moving it up one tier at the moment.]

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-Two more songs to go and I actually don't have room in this post to fit them!-

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Kazenagi Koa - Sping is Announced:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOPDK5kGaV0

Estimated Score: 56.15

I have chosen poorly. Her voice is too high pitched on this track and the lyrics are... potentially promising, but hard to decipher as they're not something the auto-translation can really work with:

In that picture that drew us
To be sucked in
Enjoy your final trip
Because today is the end of everything
Late at night in Tokyo, I was dreaming of six and a half tatami mats
Ah, fluorescent lamps that don't light up
To the cyber castle that will disappear tomorrow
Start the opening game

...I have quite literally no idea what any of this song is. I can only presume there are enough metaphors that a direct translation is impossible, but... well, I'll say that I kinda like this. It's not as good as the actually suggested song, but I don't regret listening to it. Let's try one more:

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Kazenagi Koa - calc.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIc0IIGqMyE

Estimated Score: [this space was left blank, but was meant to be 60.00]

If I could get rid of both my past and my future
Would I too be able to fly up freely?
If I could erase one emotion
Will I feel more at ease if I erase "love"?

This is definitely the best set of lyrics of the three songs. It's all the usual broken heart and sadness, but with a certain flair that I find appealing. Getting rid of the past & the future and killing emotions? Definitely something that I can work with. But when I ask myself if I truly prefer this over the first song, I find that I don't?

EDIT: ...I meant to come back to this, but then I just relistened to "Yume no Kaidan" and forgot to do so. Oh well, this wasn't really part of the list anyway.

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Fluttershy_Pony posted...

I have chosen poorly. Her voice is too high pitched on this track and the lyrics are... potentially promising, but hard to decipher as they're not something the auto-translation can really work with

that's a pretty popular song so there are actual translations out there fwiw

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/haru-wo-tsugeru-heralding-spring.html

can't say i'd expect that to help here though lol

ken namba is good at what he does really, makes pretty good idol-like songs for vtubers that they'll likely want to use for potential "one-man live" type concerts or even just big milestone karaoke streams, so understandably ones with brighter lyrics are the norm. It's the versatility of his compositions that carries them for the most part. really his whole shtick really is providing vocal training and experience for indie vtubers, and it's pretty clear it pays off pretty well

Well, there definitely are some very appealing lyrics in that translation:

There's no salvation here
Hurry up and come back
[...]
A perfect performance and a perfect life
Nobody knows how my childhood was

But it's still pretty easily the weakest vocal performance of her three songs I listened to, so I'm not sure exactly how much it helps.... I'd probably raise the score to something like "56.9001" giving it a bit of a boost, but arguably not as much as one would expect from the lyrics.

And Ken is definitely very good at what he does and that's certainly a far more popular style of lyrics than what I tend to be drawn to, so I'm not really judging on an objective level.

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Five more songs from this section of the list before I take a little break. I need to take care of this week's Rank the Tracks tomorrow because I may be very busy on Wednesday; will be back either Thursday or Friday, most likely.

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Ikikae Rururu - Change!! (composer: Namba Ken):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX0Z8B9c6KA

Estimated Score: 87.00

Hmm... well, I don't care for the intro with its record skipping like effect that keeps playing the same little bit over and over. The choruses are also a bit too happy, though I do like them. But I really love the verses... to a point that I'm seriously considering giving a full 90 points anyway. But, I think I'll start the score at 87; enough to be in provisional third place, but just a bit below that tier.

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Sesera Shikino - Yakusoku no Sora. (composer: Namba Ken):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOT8puBkpN4

Estimated Score: 55.46

The lyrics are sweet. Lots of holding hands, hugging, and traveling together. Very sweet and I think they work well. Unfortunately, i'm not really a fan of hers... her voice feels kinda weak and distant. It's not exactly bad, and it's possible that I'm undervaluing her because she has the misfortune of following the current third place song, but I feel like "kinda like" is as much as I want to say about it right now. Though, I would look forward to listening to it in context of other songs at that tier, as there definitely have been a lot of songs that I've underscored due to the greatness of the track that immediately preceded them & I'd want to make sure that's not the case here before definitively sticking it at this tier.

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Phil (amp_movie) - colors (composer: Namba Ken):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AHathB5FPU

Estimated Score: 53.26

It's fine.

I want to cast a spell and dye everything
In my own color
Pastel pink dream

I kinda like that part of the lyrics, but... well, it's one of those "fine enough" songs.

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Pleiades - Magical Party Night. (composer: Namba Ken):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIt09tLnM9s

Estimated Score: 77.28

Always weird when I try to Google a song and get directed back to this topic. Also, I prefer AIM's old jingle over this new one. I'm not factoring that into the score, I just really liked the old one and I'm kinda sad I didn't get to hear it this time. Moving on to the actual song:

I actually like this song quite a bit. Dancing and partying aren't exactly my things, but I like the smoothness of the groove here. It's very mellow in a way that's very relaxing... I don't like the break in the song where everyone is rapidly talking over the instrumental, it's way too busy for how chill the rest of the song is. But it's short enough and the voices quiet enough that it doesn't hold things back too much. Well done song here.

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Shimanaga Ena - Futari. (composer: Namba Ken):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEtv_KCbfcU

Estimated Score: 64.03

Pleasingly sad.

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