Forum - View topicNEWS: L'Arc hits US in June
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Sword of Whedon
Posts: 683 |
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It's more that the visual kei fandom doesn't like people who don't fit into their mold of male makeup, costuming, and androgony being associated with the term. As was said above, Pop is short for popular, which is why in US record stores you see the "Pop/Rock" section. As I said before, in Japanese record stores, L'arc is under Japanese pop, no matter how much people want it to be different. |
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Hotaru
Posts: 481 Location: NY |
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i know when people mentioned "j-rock" my mind used to go right to like malice mizer, visual kei stuff etc.... i don't care, i don't see why this is still being debated
a question or two. one, was clicked best singles released in major retail stores like best buy etc, and will smile be? and would they be in the rock section or...? |
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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I'm mainly a visual kei/J-rock fan, and I love L'arc, but I still consider L'Arc J-pop. I get in arguments over it all the time, but compare their songs to, say Dir en Grey or X-Japan, and you'll see the obvious difference between the two sounds. When compared to them, L'arc definatly sounds like pop. Lots of pop artist do have several songs that break into the rock genre all the time, but that doesn't change what their initial sound is. The artist in L'arc may have different genres they perfer, but as a group they're pop.
I don't feel the need to categorize J-rock by the visual looks, I just categorize it by the music. However, I've only encountered a small number of other J-rock fans IRL, and outside of them, maybe the majority of J-rock fans really do require the band to be visual kei. The ones I have met though categorize their music in the same way as me, so L'arc goes underpop for them, not far from hitomi, Hikki-chan, Ayumi, and others. O/T question I've just been wondering about: I've heard Hikki is producing some tracks on her english cd with a J-rock band. I don't know if these will take over the majority of her cd, but, well, if her whole cd turns into a rock cd, would that make her go under the J-rock category, still in J-pop, or would it just be a seperate American thing of who knows what? Stupid question, but it's just come to my mind recently. |
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Sword of Whedon
Posts: 683 |
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Yes, but Clicked Best was only licensed for a set run, so once they were gone (I believe it was under 5000 copies) they were gone for good. Some stores stocked it in the "international" section, other stores stocked it in with their anime soundtracks looking for crossover. That's where you'll likely to find Smile.
She's still pop, it'll probably just be 2-3 tracks. Namie Amuro has adopted a more urban sound as of late, but that doesn't make her an "R&B" artist. |
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driftingwind
Posts: 7 |
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L'arc has many songs that belongs to the soft-rock or pop-rock genre. However, I cannot agree that they are a pop group. (when we define pop by musical genre) While they have a poppier sound than many J-rock bands, the essence of their music is still rock. You don't have to be heavy metal to be rock. Since I have not been to a Japanese music store myself, I am not sure if every music store categorize in the same way. However, I do not think the categorization of L'arc as J-pop has anything to do with the genre of the music. If you check out the HMV Japan website. You will find that they have put all Japanese artists who have gone major into the "Japanese pop" category. Yes, even Dir en Grey is grouped into the "Japanese pop" category. Dir en Grey in Japanese pop category: http://www.hmv.co.jp/az/index.asp?category=1&genre=100&style=0&list=alphabet&key=D The only artists who goes to the "Rock and Pop" category are non-Japanese rock and pop artists in the HMV website. "Japanese pop" as used in the HMV website is used as an all-inclusive term that means popular Japanese music.
As others have said, Japanese rock is much larger than visual kei. Buck-tick, B'z, these are non-visual-kei Japanese rock groups which have a long history. They have a much larger fan-base in Japan than many visual-kei bands. However, a lot of non-Japanese fans only focus on the visual-kei bands and seems to think they are the be-all and end-all of J-rock. |
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Ladymercury
 Posts: 12 |
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You can't compare Laruku to Ayu, so I don't know where that came from.
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mufurc
 Posts: 612 |
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Yay for offtopic.
With an "r", of course... And if someone doesn't pronounce it right, well... you can always tell them they're wrong.
Yeah, but then what about words that are originally not Japanese, but have became native Japanese words over time? For example it'd be pretty strange to pronounce "biru" ("building") "buil" just because it used to be part of a word that was a transliteration of the word "building". And since "Laruku" is practically a Japanese word by now... Ah well, it's really a question of preference. Laruku, L'Arc, whatever. ^^
I think it's because many people meet visual kei bands first, and the first thing that catches their attention about them is how they look... after all, visual kei bands look more exotic and "different" than non-visual ones. But it's still annoying when some fans only care about the visuals... ("Thee Michelle Gun Elephant? Are they visual?" "No, but they're great." "But they're not visual." "But they're good, give them a listen." "But no pretty boys!") As for Laruku... they don't really have a style to stick to. They make almost every kind of music, pop, rock, hard rock, etc... even some jazz and techno. So they're "pop", but mostly in the sense that they make popular music, as opposed to classical music. Laruku is not a band that can be easily categorized. To me, they're JRock, but then, if we're talking about "Japanese popular music", then of course they're JPop. |
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ANN_Bamboo
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3904 Location: CO |
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The irony is that you're wrong. Because in Japanese, the "r" is pronounced as a rolling "l," like in French (I can't even begin to accurately describe the proper sound). So if you pronounce it with an "r" like "La-Roo-Koo," you are horribly off. So you're wrong, and Whedon's right (though you have to picture the "hlu" as a rolling sound). There's a difference in pronounciation for "Laruku" and "L'arc~en~Ciel." When you're using the "Laruku" term, the syllables are even placed. Since "l'arc en ciel" is a French term, when you pronounce the band name, "L'Arc" gets shortened to a "LAH-hlk." |
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mufurc
Posts: 612 |
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Um... (linguistic babble ahead) 1) I pronounce it with an (alveolar trill) "r" 'cos I don't pronounce it in Japanese. I pronounce it according to the Hungarian phonetic system which, though not exactly like Japanese, is close enough that I can shrug off the difference. When a native English speaker pronounces it, I guess s/he, too, does it in the English system... which'd mean pronouncing the "r" as a retroflex... nothing like Japanese "r" (see below). 2) I really don't know where people get the idea that Japanese pronounce "r" only ONE way. They do not. Just listen to anime or find some Japanese people and make them talk to you. They pronounce it as alveolar flap/tap "r", alveolar "l", something close-to-but-not-quite "d", and in some other ways - the pronunciation seems to depend on the speaker's dialect, the place of the sound in the word, the weather and many other things. And as a matter of fact, almost all Japanese people with whom I talked about Laruku pronounced it as "Laruku" with an alveolar tap/flap "r". (The only one I can recall who used "l" had no idea what Laruku was, and assumed it was a female name.)
For us, yes. For the Japanese, no. ^^
That's what I meant when I said some people don't use "L'Arc" 'cos they know it's not in English, and they can't get the French "r" sound right. |
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Minami
 Posts: 3 Location: Somewhere out there... |
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This is the problem we run into when Japanese bands choose names in other languages! ^^;; Japanese is a very interesting language, as is French, and English. The problem, some would say, is when you try to say something that isn't in a certain language in that language. It sounds differently. For example: the sound of L'arc en Ciel in French is quite different from the Japanese pronunciation, which is similarly a diverse sound than the English.
My friends who say it, say the entire name, and say it as so L'arc en Ciel, With a hard 'c' at the end of L'arc and 'in' for 'en' and 'see-ell' for 'ciel'. Personally I used to say it that way, but by seeing the katakana version on a website I pronounce it "Laruku en shielu" whether that is completely correct or not, I have no distinct preference whether I am right or not. I started saying 'Laruku' since my emails from fans all over the world say it that way. Anyway, does it matter how the fans say the name? 
About the genre issue, Laruku has the most diverse sound than any other band I have heard, and I have heard quite a few in my time. Some of their songs are completely pop, some are more of a soft rock, and there are some that are of a harder rock. But would we like Laruku any other way? In another music video we talked about Gackt and Laruku and which category they fell in. How about let's just say they are music artists and leave it be at that. Does the genre actually matter? Though I prefer Jrock over Jpop category-wise, I listen and love both. I guess that is all I gotta say for the moment. 
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ANN_Bamboo
ANN Contributor
Posts: 3904 Location: CO |
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Yup, that's what I meant. Like I said, I couldn't being to describe the rolling r sound, but you've done a good job of doing so. If you'll notice, I had specified that the "hlu" was a rolling sound (and had pronounced the "l" in my head as a rolling r/d/l/thing) (kind of like the "t" in "water" when you say it fast). You must've misinterpreted what I had wrote as me saying that they used "l"s in place of "r"s, which is certainly far from what I was trying vainly to say. I was disagreeing with mufurc because I had thought that when she said she pronounced it with an "r," she was using an English "r" (like in kangaroo). I had assumed that's what Whedon meant when he differentiated between the "hlu" and the "roo."
Hmm... well, in every L'Arc~en~Ciel CD release commercial I've ever seen, they've pronounced the "L'Arc" very similar to French. Then again, it could've just been the commercials I saw. Last edited by ANN_Bamboo on Thu May 06, 2004 1:02 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Godaistudios
Posts: 2075 Location: Albuquerque, NM (the land of entrapment) |
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I wouldn't say it's just you... I've heard it the same way you have on Japanese commercials. Mind you, I've only been lucky enough to get the funky Japanese commercials because of some VHS fansubs with commercials left intact back in the day, but I think it still qualifies...
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mufurc
Posts: 612 |
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Yeah... that was the case. :) I tried to imagine what a rolling "hlu" could sound like, but the closest I got was an "l".
Well... as I remember, most of the time they pronounce it in the Japanese way... Though it could be just the commercials I saw. (Japanese seem to be a bit inconsistent in pronouncing "r" in foreign words, anyway... In the German names in Legend of Galactic Heroes, they're sometimes pronounced in the German way, like "Rainharuto" for Reinhard, and sometimes in the English way, like "Osukaa" for Oskar.) |
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Sword of Whedon
Posts: 683 |
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the "h" part is a short breathy exhale while rolls in with the rolling "l" tongue action. If you have Glay's song "However", at around the 1:50 mark there's a line at the end of a phrase "Itoshisa no imi wo shiru", listen to how it's pronounced there, it's fairly isolated. Quote: Hmm... well, in every L'Arc~en~Ciel CD release commercial I've ever seen, they've pronounced the "L'Arc" very similar to French. Then again, it could've just been the commercials I saw. [/quote] Correct they do, in fact doing a bit of research the "official" Japanese shorthand, like "PlayStay" for PlayStation is (non-proper romanji for clarity) "LaSheel", emulating the proper french "L'arc-un-sheel"
Well, that has more to do with how the Japanese cadence goes. In English we go "up" at the end of a sentence, while they go down. So more emphasis is placed on the starting syllables. |
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tetsuyo
Posts: 1 |
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newbie here
I am kind of surprised that they didn't annonce their release in US on their website. I am excited to see their release in America again. But I hope it will turn out better than Best CLicked 13 and have better promotion. Street team is definitely not enough to promote a foreign band in America. Also about the smile DVD, I doubt it will be released in the US version. It IS the limited bonus for Japan version. Asian version only released VCD of it instead. The pronounciation of L'Arc~en~Ciel, check out one of their CM (around real time period). The french girl in it said the name correctly. Also check out their radio show, Flying L'Arc attack. Again~ Yea for Laruku's US release X_X |
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