thoughts and rants, circa 2008

boylikesmusic on blogger

boylikesmusic on IW

2 years ago, my sister came across a Japanese music metablog. She eventually got covered by them and now she’s a vital part of its operation. 2 years ago, I wanted to get covered by that same metablog so I started a music blog. At that time, I was doing all of my blogging on “thoughts and rants” (It’s still around, I won’t link it you can find it fairly easily…) which was a mishmash of everything. I moved to blogger after using LiveJournal and being unhappy with a) its lack of customizations and b) knowing that I was done with a chapter of my life which was well documented in it. (The account’s been deleted for a while… though johpan on livejournal is me…) I lost interest in blogger and switched to vox but switched back after learning that comments could only be left by vox members (at the time, I don’t know if that’s changed…). I digress.

The first iteration of boylikesmusic started December 9th, 2007. It was on blogger. There were reviews, stepcharts, and remixes but was total chaos; it didn’t really have a voice. Somehow, it got covered by that metablog and in a matter of months, boylikesmusic relocated to International Wota soil. After taking advantage of wordpress’ many organizational features and trying out many different themes to learn their ins and outs, boylikesmusic turned into a fairly organized blog with a voice in technopop reviews.

The last post I made on it was on June 5th, 2009. It was for MEG’s BEAUTIFUL album. The album received praise but there was something missing in the review itself. After reading this article, and with having those kinds of thoughts in the back of my head whenever someone asks me “why do you like Japanese music so much…?”, I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe serious reviews aren’t in my skill set. I don’t think that “it sounds good” is a good enough answer to why I like Japanese music as much as I do, except, that’s why I listen to it. I won’t stop listening to it but I think I’ll stop with the serious reviews. However, I won’t stop giving my lighthearted opinions on the music I listen to. Opinions cannot be refuted.

Another event that caused me to shift my attitude was Anime Expo 2009. Something strange happened to me there. I could go on a wild tangent about what the whole trip meant to me (that being the root cause as to why I couldn’t bring my self back to writing on boylikesmusic) but it all boils down to this: meeting Morning Musume reminded me that if I ever had the chance to sit down with one of them, I’d be useless without a translator. This realization shook the foundations of my interest in Japanese music. As much of a fan I am, the language and culture is a huge barrier as to fully understanding what is going on with the music. Look at Perfume concerts: people say that the main reason why people go is for the MC segments because the singing isn’t always live. If I were to go to a Perfume concert, the MC’s would be fun to watch but realistically useless because of my limited knowledge of the language and culture. One could say to learn the language and culture. It’s not that easy. Also, I’ve been living in Canada for my whole life. I still don’t really know what it means to be Canadian.

Then again, It could also be that I’m not trained in music at all, other than notation. Realistically, I just know what I like and how I like it.

Maybe my interest in Japanese music wasn’t meant to be put under a microscope. Maybe I’m over thinking how some people perceive my reviews. What I do know is how I wanted people to perceive my reviews and I know that I wasn’t getting to the level I wanted to with my analysis. Maybe I need to devise a new grading scale. At the very least, I need a new way to evaluate the music I listen to if I DID want to write reviews again.

For now, I’m going to be focusing on things I do understand: stepcharts and remixes. So far, I’ve put all my worthwile charts and remixes in the dedicated pages I have for them. As I update the site with more content, the welcome page will change. For now, please bear with me while I go through this transitional stage. johpanOnline will not be a music blog though it will have its share of musical content. It will for now, and forever, be my personal blog.