Sugar -「なんでもない歌」

Reviews
1

The first album started to be available on streaming services

Youtube music (playlist with all songs)

~2 SE songs… Basically is mini-album! only 3 new songs and the album isnt impressive. Its only nice songs!

The CD cost 3300 yens… Lime u are mercenary.

3 Likes
2

Lime in charge of there music he said in the past “Kizu will never release an album”

3

Joke’s on him cuz i always arrange singles’ B-sides into makeshift albums in my iTunes and my Kizu album is fantastic

5 Likes
4

Ill throw the discog on from start to finish. Joke truly is on them: Jigoku with those Kataki songs wouldve been a perfect EP.

5

I’m partial to this style but I have to say this album is exceptionally light in content in not just the fact there’s like three new songs we haven’t heard, if you discount the interludes, but that they’re all also racing down the alley in the same predictable pace without Kizu’s musicianship or the dramatic flare. Ice and the two others hit the same spot for the fans of this particular niche, but it’s coming across not even as an EP but rather a padded out single in two editions. I’ll keep checking them out with curbed enthusiasm and expectations.

6

I purposefully didnt scrobble this album. I do not enjoy it, as its VERY mid. Not entirely shocked, though.

7

this album’s great, i don’t understand y’all! Like okay it’s no 9goats or MORE or uhhhh SUGAR

but simple tropey vkei is always gonna be a nice listen for me, it’s not gotta be high art for me to say it’s enjoyable to listen to!

I hate being negative so i won’t name names but i can think of like twenty bands that’ve attempted this sound and they’re all some degree of annoying to me, sorry.

But the obvious Kizu “influences” plus the vocalist’s voice do a whole lot to smooth everything over; it’s a pleasant listen that’s still pop punk.

I wouldn’t have minded 12 longer tracks either, but it feels complete. I’d way rather a small album than twenty singles in a row and the occasional EP!

I’ve not listened to these guys before this release, but they’ve got my attention and i expect i could end up what they put out later much more so

Especially if they go the Pentagon route, starting off entirely unremarkable but well-executed and spiraling with each release more experimental and deconstructionist than the last.

6 Likes
8

i’m sure it’s been said already but first glance at the title i thought this was the other sugar band and i thought this was a comeback post oh my god

4 Likes
9

Thats how i felt initially, too. Ive been following them, because theyre produced by the vocalist of Kizu. I love Kizu. I dont love this.

10

I don’t understand the hate or overall dislike of Sugar. Good quality project that targets a particular niche of fans.

If Lime is the one writing music, that’s actually the correct decision. He definitely has ideas that are simply not good enough for Kizu. Why not make money with the side band? That’s the right approach, I would have done the same.

6 Likes
11

Lol, if you are writing music you dont want to use for your own project because its not good enough, what makes you think itd be great if another band played it?? Haha. + Does anyone know for sure it is Lime composing for them? People have mentioned the “kizu influence” but i dont hear it at all, just sounds like bog standard average vk. Literally nothing excites me about this band at all at this point.

2 Likes
12

Dude…

  1. Kizu is a brand. There’s a standard to their own songwriting — we might not like their output, but that’s what Lime might consider good enough. So releasing such songs for Kizu below his standards is detrimental to the brand and his own mental well-being.
  2. I will reference Ronnie Radke — according to his own words, several years ago he stopped seeing the point in releasing albums and putting himself to the standards of albums where you have to have at least 9 songs. He himself said that half of the songs on an album are mediocre. So for several years he released one-two songs per year, but they blew everybody’s mind and amassed hundreds of millions of streams
  3. What is subpar to you, might be amazing for everybody else. This is how developers and product managers become consultants on the side, for example.

Do you see what I am getting at? Why release subpar songs on your brand (which is your band), when you could diversify your revenue streams. It’s relatively easy money. It might be fun as well.

If you don’t hear Kizu vibes in Sugars songs, too bad for you, I guess. As you can see, the majority is us can. It’s a toned down mix of early Lezard and Kizu.

1 Like
13

Anyways, I am out of this particular discussion. If you don’t get what I am saying, continuing to answer to you is a waste of time.

14

Jokes on you.
The entire album is composed by Kentaro (guitarist of this group) and the lyrics written by Nea (vocalist)

2 Likes
15

Personally i like writing for about 3 different music projects at once; it’s not a thing of better/worse, it’s just this sorta music belongs here and this there. Maybe this singer would be right for this song, but the other band would be better for this one.

Also esp in vkei i think 作曲 ends up meaning “who’s credited as songwriter” rather than “who wrote the song”.
(Bc fr imagine looking at Mejibray and thinking MiA wrote all the songs he’s listed as composer on, just my imho.)

I’m not saying it certainly is this way, but i could easily imagine whoever writes songs for Kizu handing some song-bones to Kentaro & whoever else in this band to fix up. I imagine most of the time w/ high output bands that don’t have a unique compositional style that they’re handed bones but all the members tailor all the parts to fit how they like to play and sound.

For example, i was in a guitars band where a guy (our vocalist, in this case) handed us twelve chord progressions - basically the guitar going dadadadadadodododododededededadadadada for three minutes - and then all the style of arpeggios, rhythm, clean parts, mutes, chugs, etc etc, me and the guitarist did those how we did it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that is more common in vkei than the idea of one guy, whether he’s part of the band or in an office building ghostwriting, writing the whole score down to the note and the whole band playing as written like human MIDIs.

16

But then it would not make much sense to credit one member and might run into trouble if that member leaves and wants financial compensation. Especially when it is common to just credit the whole band for writing the music.
I remember there was such a case discussed here but forgot which band.

17

in these cases i imagine it could come down to “that’s what was arranged by who made it happen”

personally when i read “composer” tags i think of it instead like “director” tags (and that’s how i approach it w/ my bands as a result)

So not like “who penned every single note” bc if we asked that question, the answer would always be “everyone, to some degree” on every song and that would be boring.

So in the case of bands like naitomea (where i assume they’re writing their material) i see a Ruka track & assume Ruka brought a composition to the band (but look at how different a naitomea track vs an LSN track is; i’m sure everyone was involved in writing beyond playing what they’re told to pay)

Or in the case of Meji i took a Tzk credit to mean Tzk wrote it, whereas a MiA credit i imagine was what they said about the tracks that were started by an outside writer for them. (no hate, i love both types!)

So back to sugar maybe i’m just about writing fan fiction w/ my guesses here, but i could imagine something like whoever does Kizu’s music, whether they’re in Kizu or not, hands the start of a song to the band, and the band fills it in.
Maybe this guy the guitarist takes charge and that’s why he’s credited; maybe he’s more popular or has more pull somehow, who knows.

Maybe he ghostwrites for Kizu and this is all his style from the start lol, i guess i can’t disprove that either

18

I mean of course there is a lot of ghostwriting in the scene but I doubt that whoever then would be the ghostwriter would be Lime lol.
I am still willing to let wishful thinking take over though.

19

Fair points!
Maybe I am just a bit defensive because I’d rather give a band the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise when it comes to ghostwriting.

There might be similarieties in their style but maybe Kentaro is just trying to imitate Kizu. And in the end people sometimes are convinced of hearing stuff and it turns to out to be wrong.

Little off topic excurse: There were an infamouse case in vinyl lover circles. People were convinced vinyls produced with digital signal sounded inferior to vinyls produced with analog signals. They stated they could hear the difference very clearly. Turns out the most praised company, claiming they produced with analog signal, lied and people were just lying to themselves :sweat_smile: )

So if one is convinced kizu (or their ghostwriter) has their fingers in Sugar’s music, they might hear more similarieties than are objektively there.
I don’t claim, I can hear anything. Neither similarieties nor can I claim to be good enough at listening to music to say they are not written by the same person. I can only say that I like Kizu much better but could be just the difference between Lime’s and Nao’ singing.

This is more of an overall observation. Your points sounded more convincing and coming from an informed place than other comments here.

1 Like
20

But yours are just as right as mine tho cuz we’re both guessing!

If anything i just have one campaign/soapbox to everyone on here which is: accept ghostwriting is a big part of vkei and don’t stress about it

I just like to talk about ghostwriting cuz it’s like a mystery to speculate on, and it makes me feel like i can try to understand music i like better. If i didn’t love it, i wouldn’t care to dig and speculate lol

But at the end of the day no one says “[famous actor] is a shit actor cuz he didn’t direct the movie himself” or “oh this movie’s fake or dishonest cuz the scriptwriter isn’t acting in it, he’s just some guy working in a studio”

I suspect ghostwriting’s huge in vkei, i have zero problems with that and only wish it were more normal to credit the writer & as fans we could trust each member’s still doing plenty specialized writing on their instrument

(btw this is even more personal guessing than the rest of the guessing but i don’t at all suspect Lime is composing for two bands either - based on no reasoning other than “dude seems hella busy already”)

1 Like