East Meets West & Both Win

I know I’m discussing older songs here, but it hasn’t been till recently that I’ve really sat down and listened to the original version of “Potential Breakup Song” by Aly & AJ in addition to the Ami Suzuki cover/collaboration of the same song. When it comes to mainstream American pop, I’m picky and do not enjoy a lot of what plays on the radio. When not listening to my cracktastic Asian pop (because I do not limit my taste to just Japan), I like British indie rock (Franz Ferdinand, The Libertines, The Baby Shambles), heavy metal (Shadows Fall, In Flames, Kill Switch Engage), and good ol’ alternative. Heck, even some pop/punk like Paramore and All-American Rejects. I do have guilty pleasures in the American music scene. They include Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson, and if you want to go old school, I’m an 80’s music fiend. But in general, much of what is offered to me on American radio gives me little interest, because it all starts to sound the same. This has a point, really. So when I see a name like Aly & AJ, my first thought is foremost yet another tween appealing group that I will ignore because I for some reason can’t seem to tolerate those very well. I have guilty pleasures by far, I mean, for heaven’s sake, my taste in Japanese pop music is obvious enough of that, but who was I to care about these two? Not to mention a friend of mine who is an avid fanatic of all things tween trying to shove it down my throat, I want nothing to do with it. When “Potential Breakup Song” came out, I had no idea, because I listen to American stations like DC101 which wouldn’t be caught dead playing something like that.

Then Ami Suzuki came out with her single where she “joined” (which basically means she does all the vocals and the other people are sorta there in their own way) Aly & AJ for the song. I shrugged my shoulders, since I was a fan of Ami Suzuki, downloaded it from iTunes Japan and never listened to it. I have over 100 gigs worth of music from all of Asia, so when I set it to go on “shuffle” I probably won’t hear the same song for…days. Possibly weeks. About two weeks ago, after finally putting Shiny Toy Guns’ “We Are Pilots” LP off repeat for a week or two straight, I set iTunes to shuffle and low and behold, the single came on, and I found myself baffled yet pleasantly surprised.

H!P Rankings, Rantings, & Musings

Rankings

First, we have the obligatory ranking that Hello!Blog has set up. He’s a genius and if I could figure out how to do that, dag, I don’t know what I’d do, but it still probably wouldn’t be as great as to what he’s done. :O So here we go. We’ll stick with Morning Musume because I’m sure my write-up for the bottom of Berryz and C-ute’s lists would upset a great deal of people.