Interlude:
Trading posts with phrenk!! Here is hers!! (I am also visiting phrenk! More on this in a later post [possibly]!) For now!!:
A list of favorite solos, ranked, five per member,
as of this exact moment with no accounting for future emotions,
chosen BY FEELING (Jun style),
by kinoface
* THE FINE PRINT (as far as my own post goes): my initial lists included concert performances (e.g. solos not appearing on albums, songs that are not solos on albums but of which there are solo performances, etc.), but otherwise my final decision-making process did not take into account individual performances of songs (e.g. Beautiful World Shake it! vs. AraFes 2 Shake it!).
WITHOUT FURTHER ADO:
OHNO (with an impossible-to-not-include honorable mention for Take Me Faraway and his epic "itsumademoooOOOOO")
5) Hung up on
4) Hit the floor
3) Two
2) Imaging Crazy
1) Akatsuki
This was a little difficult because Ohno solos tend to be among my favorites off a given album, so obviously I have a lot of love for them. It did take some intense deliberation, and things are still a little murky around 3 and 4, but the top two were absolutely clear from the start: I love Imaging Crazy so much that I will regularly listen to it on repeat for embarrassingly long stretches of time, and I love Akatsuki so much -- SOMEHOW, IMPOSSIBLY, EVEN MORE THAN IMAGING CRAZY? -- that the only way I could ever accurately communicate my intense feelings for it would be to fling myself into the ocean from a plane that is simultaneously sky-writing the words "HOLY SHIT THIS SONG IS SO FUCKING GOOD." I suppose it's plausible that this has to do with how new Akatsuki is, and maybe in the future, when its magnificence has had more time to sink in, I will rank this list differently. But in the meantime: INTO THE OCEAN!!! This near-chronological order kind of puts the pressure on, but don't worry, Leader, I'm sure I'll love anything you give me as long as it's coming from you~~
SHO
5) Hip Pop Boogie
4) Rolling days
3) T.A.B.O.O
2) Tomadoi Nagara (from 5x10)
1) Hey Yeah!
As a whole, I tend not to be quite as deeply invested in Sho's solos as I am in the others' (NOT THAT IT'S A COMPETITION), but the songs I do love, I love A LOT. This means that my initial paring-down of this list was pretty easy, but after that it got really, really hard. These are the kind of songs I will skip if I'm reeeaally in the mood for something else (for instance sometimes I want something more mellow than Hip Pop Boogie, or more sparkly than Rolling days) and UNDER NO OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES. They have such good, strong beats, and Sho has such a pretty voice, and he's just so endearingly SHO that I want to squish his cheeks and cry tears of happiness forever. Hip Pop Boogie gets stuck in my head on an almost weekly basis, Rolling days is GORGEOUS, T.A.B.O.O is super hot, I could literally listen to his version of Tomadoi Nagara for hours on end, and I want "vivid, unique, feeling good" cross-stitched onto my entire life. I LOVE YOU, SAKURAI SHO.
AIBA
5) Janakute
4) Pikanchi (from 5x10)
3) Mr. Funk
2) Magical Song
1) Disco Star
I love how cute and bouncy Aiba's solos usually are, and his recent ones tend to rank pretty high on my per-album favorites; Disco Star might (MIGHT) even be my favorite off The Digitalian, which is, overall, a REALLY REALLY GOOD album, so that says a lot. Still, Magical Song almost beat it on this list for sentimental reasons (it was the first Arashi song I heard -- not counting that time ten years ago when elfie showed me Kitto Daijoubu because my heart wasn't ready yet, and at that period in her life she showed Kitto Daijoubu to literally everyone who entered her apartment -- and it was my favorite Arashi song for a long time afterwards). But in the end I can't say no to Disco Star-sama, which is so outrageous and sparkly that sometimes I have to listen to it on repeat just to really soak in the whole thing.
NINO
5) Gimmick Game
4) Niji
3) Sore wa Yappari Kimi Deshita
2) Merry Christmas
1) 20825 Nichi Me no Kyoku
HOLY SHIT, THIS WAS DIFFICULT. Pulling songs off my initial list was like pulling teeth, and it's the one list where it KILLS me not to have certain songs. In the end it came down to which ones punch me in the emotions more mercilessly (which for me has slightly more to do with music than with lyrics, though lyrics are a factor: see #1) and which ones are less frequently skippable, which I guess is kind of an odd combination of criteria because usually when I'm skipping a Nino song it's because I don't feel like being so mercilessly punched in my emotions. That's how I ended up with Gimmick Game instead of any number of others: more "Nino you sexy little shit" than "NINO WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME???" but I almost never skip it. Conversely, there's the dynamic duo of Niji and Sore wa Yappari; I skip them a lot because they make me want to lie down and cry (individually and oh my god as a pair), but they're just so fucking good. That's the thing with Nino songs: THEY'RE SO FUCKING GOOD, IN A REALLY SNEAKY, SUCKER-PUNCHY WAY. If you asked me whose solos I like most, Nino would probably only be somewhere around the middle of the list, but then I actually listen to one and I'm blindsided by his little big voice. NINO. YOU SHIT. QUIT PLAYING GAMES WITH MY HEART.
JUN
5) Naked
4) Yabai Yabai Yabai
3) STAY GOLD
2) Shake it!
1) Come Back to Me
Surprisingly, picking five songs for Jun was actually easier than it was for any other member. I LOVE (almost) ALL JUN SOLOS INTENSELY (with notable but infrequent exceptions), and there are several songs not on this list that I listen to CONSTANTLY, but these ones immediately came to mind as like, desert-island songs. The-world-could-end-and-I'd-be-okay-if-I-just-had-these-songs songs. A-jar-of-tears-labeled-JUN songs. It was very easy to pick these five as the top five is what I'm saying. But then the struggle began. How can I quantify what Yabai means to me? How can I attach a number to the way I feel when I listen to Naked? How can I possibly compare The Experience of Shake it! to The Experience of Come Back to Me? BUT, IN THE END, I DID IT. SOMEHOW, I FOUND A WAY. After some torturous deliberation, it became clear that Naked belongs in the last spot ONLY BECAUSE it is not as bouncy and sparkly as the others and thus I find myself skipping it a little more often. As for Yabai and STAY GOLD, it came down to the fact that STAY GOLD sounds a little bit more like the kind of stuff I listen to when I'm not listening to Arashi, so that got bumped higher. And then there are the last two. When it comes down it, I really can't compare Shake it! and Come Back to Me. They are apples and oranges. They are chocolate and vanilla. They are sexy go-go racecar drivers and sexy rapping spacemen. Tonight I picked Come Back to Me, but yesterday I might have answered differently. All I can say is that it's a good thing I'll never have to choose for real.
THIS WAS VERY HARD BUT VERY ENJOYABLE (INSERT DIRTY JOKE HERE). I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR ANY THOUGHTS YOU MIGHT HAVE ON THIS MATTER, INCLUDING YOUR OWN RANKINGS IN THIS OR ANY OTHER CATEGORY!!
Crossposted here on Dreamwidth. You can comment there anonymously or using OpenID. ♥
A list of favorite solos, ranked, five per member,
as of this exact moment with no accounting for future emotions,
chosen BY FEELING (Jun style),
by kinoface
* THE FINE PRINT (as far as my own post goes): my initial lists included concert performances (e.g. solos not appearing on albums, songs that are not solos on albums but of which there are solo performances, etc.), but otherwise my final decision-making process did not take into account individual performances of songs (e.g. Beautiful World Shake it! vs. AraFes 2 Shake it!).
WITHOUT FURTHER ADO:
OHNO (with an impossible-to-not-include honorable mention for Take Me Faraway and his epic "itsumademoooOOOOO")
5) Hung up on
4) Hit the floor
3) Two
2) Imaging Crazy
1) Akatsuki
This was a little difficult because Ohno solos tend to be among my favorites off a given album, so obviously I have a lot of love for them. It did take some intense deliberation, and things are still a little murky around 3 and 4, but the top two were absolutely clear from the start: I love Imaging Crazy so much that I will regularly listen to it on repeat for embarrassingly long stretches of time, and I love Akatsuki so much -- SOMEHOW, IMPOSSIBLY, EVEN MORE THAN IMAGING CRAZY? -- that the only way I could ever accurately communicate my intense feelings for it would be to fling myself into the ocean from a plane that is simultaneously sky-writing the words "HOLY SHIT THIS SONG IS SO FUCKING GOOD." I suppose it's plausible that this has to do with how new Akatsuki is, and maybe in the future, when its magnificence has had more time to sink in, I will rank this list differently. But in the meantime: INTO THE OCEAN!!! This near-chronological order kind of puts the pressure on, but don't worry, Leader, I'm sure I'll love anything you give me as long as it's coming from you~~
SHO
5) Hip Pop Boogie
4) Rolling days
3) T.A.B.O.O
2) Tomadoi Nagara (from 5x10)
1) Hey Yeah!
As a whole, I tend not to be quite as deeply invested in Sho's solos as I am in the others' (NOT THAT IT'S A COMPETITION), but the songs I do love, I love A LOT. This means that my initial paring-down of this list was pretty easy, but after that it got really, really hard. These are the kind of songs I will skip if I'm reeeaally in the mood for something else (for instance sometimes I want something more mellow than Hip Pop Boogie, or more sparkly than Rolling days) and UNDER NO OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES. They have such good, strong beats, and Sho has such a pretty voice, and he's just so endearingly SHO that I want to squish his cheeks and cry tears of happiness forever. Hip Pop Boogie gets stuck in my head on an almost weekly basis, Rolling days is GORGEOUS, T.A.B.O.O is super hot, I could literally listen to his version of Tomadoi Nagara for hours on end, and I want "vivid, unique, feeling good" cross-stitched onto my entire life. I LOVE YOU, SAKURAI SHO.
AIBA
5) Janakute
4) Pikanchi (from 5x10)
3) Mr. Funk
2) Magical Song
1) Disco Star
I love how cute and bouncy Aiba's solos usually are, and his recent ones tend to rank pretty high on my per-album favorites; Disco Star might (MIGHT) even be my favorite off The Digitalian, which is, overall, a REALLY REALLY GOOD album, so that says a lot. Still, Magical Song almost beat it on this list for sentimental reasons (it was the first Arashi song I heard -- not counting that time ten years ago when elfie showed me Kitto Daijoubu because my heart wasn't ready yet, and at that period in her life she showed Kitto Daijoubu to literally everyone who entered her apartment -- and it was my favorite Arashi song for a long time afterwards). But in the end I can't say no to Disco Star-sama, which is so outrageous and sparkly that sometimes I have to listen to it on repeat just to really soak in the whole thing.
NINO
5) Gimmick Game
4) Niji
3) Sore wa Yappari Kimi Deshita
2) Merry Christmas
1) 20825 Nichi Me no Kyoku
HOLY SHIT, THIS WAS DIFFICULT. Pulling songs off my initial list was like pulling teeth, and it's the one list where it KILLS me not to have certain songs. In the end it came down to which ones punch me in the emotions more mercilessly (which for me has slightly more to do with music than with lyrics, though lyrics are a factor: see #1) and which ones are less frequently skippable, which I guess is kind of an odd combination of criteria because usually when I'm skipping a Nino song it's because I don't feel like being so mercilessly punched in my emotions. That's how I ended up with Gimmick Game instead of any number of others: more "Nino you sexy little shit" than "NINO WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME???" but I almost never skip it. Conversely, there's the dynamic duo of Niji and Sore wa Yappari; I skip them a lot because they make me want to lie down and cry (individually and oh my god as a pair), but they're just so fucking good. That's the thing with Nino songs: THEY'RE SO FUCKING GOOD, IN A REALLY SNEAKY, SUCKER-PUNCHY WAY. If you asked me whose solos I like most, Nino would probably only be somewhere around the middle of the list, but then I actually listen to one and I'm blindsided by his little big voice. NINO. YOU SHIT. QUIT PLAYING GAMES WITH MY HEART.
JUN
5) Naked
4) Yabai Yabai Yabai
3) STAY GOLD
2) Shake it!
1) Come Back to Me
Surprisingly, picking five songs for Jun was actually easier than it was for any other member. I LOVE (almost) ALL JUN SOLOS INTENSELY (with notable but infrequent exceptions), and there are several songs not on this list that I listen to CONSTANTLY, but these ones immediately came to mind as like, desert-island songs. The-world-could-end-and-I'd-be-okay-if-I-just-had-these-songs songs. A-jar-of-tears-labeled-JUN songs. It was very easy to pick these five as the top five is what I'm saying. But then the struggle began. How can I quantify what Yabai means to me? How can I attach a number to the way I feel when I listen to Naked? How can I possibly compare The Experience of Shake it! to The Experience of Come Back to Me? BUT, IN THE END, I DID IT. SOMEHOW, I FOUND A WAY. After some torturous deliberation, it became clear that Naked belongs in the last spot ONLY BECAUSE it is not as bouncy and sparkly as the others and thus I find myself skipping it a little more often. As for Yabai and STAY GOLD, it came down to the fact that STAY GOLD sounds a little bit more like the kind of stuff I listen to when I'm not listening to Arashi, so that got bumped higher. And then there are the last two. When it comes down it, I really can't compare Shake it! and Come Back to Me. They are apples and oranges. They are chocolate and vanilla. They are sexy go-go racecar drivers and sexy rapping spacemen. Tonight I picked Come Back to Me, but yesterday I might have answered differently. All I can say is that it's a good thing I'll never have to choose for real.
THIS WAS VERY HARD BUT VERY ENJOYABLE (INSERT DIRTY JOKE HERE). I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR ANY THOUGHTS YOU MIGHT HAVE ON THIS MATTER, INCLUDING YOUR OWN RANKINGS IN THIS OR ANY OTHER CATEGORY!!
Crossposted here on Dreamwidth. You can comment there anonymously or using OpenID. ♥