Yoko Kanno (The Anime Soundtrack Maestro)
 

Was reminded of her in another thread, but she's pretty fantastic. She composes music for anime soundtracks (maybe other stuff, but I don't really know) and she covers a surprisingly diverse spectrum of music, making it easy to listen to for people who might not otherwise be able to appreciate things like jazz, the blues, classical, etc.

A lot of her music sounds like a simplified stereotype of whatever genre she's doing, sort of like she's tapping into ingrained public consciousness of what they expect the music to sound like. She doesn't seem to really explore boundaries so much as boil the music down to its ignorantly assumed essence, but she reaches for a wide range genres that you would never expect someone scoring music for a TV show to go anywhere near.

Her most famous work is undoubtedly from Cowboy Bebop.

A bit of some kind of jazz with great energy.




Some blues with tasty harmonica.




Probably my fav series soundtrack she did was for Escaflowne, where she composed classical that even the most musically illiterate person can dig, with a concentration on making it work for epic fantasy.

Classical with some epic faux-Gregorian chanting.




Kind of like medieval music made by an orchestra.




And strangely enough, some electronica that almost sounds like industrial by way of dubstep.

You miss typed Yoko Kanno's name.

However other than that you are right. I have not found a Yoko Kanno composed song I didn't like. I ended up buying all of the Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex OST's because they are all freaking good.

Your analysis may be the most accurate way to describe it. She dosnt try anything new yet can distil music genre into pure goodness.

The music she composes can be used to great effect such as Run Rabbit Junk in GITS SAC. When some quick action popped off in the anime and then the great guitar riffs and then the airy high victorious strums happened I was right there going "YEAH!" so many good tunes with her involvement.

Man, Cowboy Bebop was super cool. I'll have to check out more of her stuff.

Yoko Kanno's work is gold, check out Macross Plus OST entire soundtrack is amazing with Voices being the top song and most iconic.

Alot of electronic symphonic sounds in the stuff composed for the "Virtual Idol" character (in 1995 they were predicting such things as the holographic virtual pop star) and it has some great beats and vocals. Very sort of experimental feeling in over all.

One of the top anime soundtracks of all times, if not a top all time soundtrack.

Hard to go wrong with any of Yoko Kanno's work, but she's never done anything that tops her work with the Wolf's Rain soundtrack. It's got some of the jazziness of Bebop's soundtrack, but a much wider variety of styles represented (a bit of hard rock, bossa nova, folk, etc.). Highly recommended stuff.

lulz

fixed.

As usual, I'm just going to assume I was drunk. Or high.

Yoko Kanno knew how to get some good stuff out of male voices.





Lithium Flower is so great



Yet I still think Kanno's Magnum Opus Macross plus.

I'm surprised none of ya'll posted any of her work from Wolf's Rain, which is glorious. Have to agree with Anteater on this one, it's her masterpiece.

This is probably one of my favorite anime songs of all time; I love how it changes in tone and the ending rounds it off so amazingly, I wish it continued on for just a little bit longer!



Arguably some of the finest songs from the anime didn't even make it onto the OSTs, which is a super big shame. Luckily some of the people of youtube have managed to isolate/cover the songs enough to make them listenable.





Muuuuch more where that come from, highly recommended anime and soundtrack :)

I like the music she made for Terror in Resonance. She is definitely amazing!





My favorite from Cowboy Bebop, though, is Goodnight Julia

:bowdown: Yep, you've just named the two works that came first in my Anime experience. Now, I am hopelessly addicted! :love:

I've sat through CB twice, Escaflowne, three times. I want to visit CB again one more time. BTW, Escaflowne was best after the third time.

IF you're looking for a Yoko Kanno inspired Anime, go watch Sakamichi No Appollon (Kids On The Slope) The OST is on YouTube. It's a Yoko Kanno love letter to the world of Jazz :)

The first half of Escaflowne is amazing, but after that it just goofy when the focus shifted from war and politics to sub-par soap opera bull**** (and I'm someone who loves soap opera bull****). I like to pretend the show ended after they came back from the Mystic Valley.

I'm curious, did you watch the Escaflowne the series or did you view the movie?

The series end ticked me off the first time. It felt maudlin (yes, too soapy). The second time, I choked hard and cried from a sense of loss. The third time I realized who the wizard really was. The story really plays well in Japanese, not so well in English.

I've been very fond of Hitomi's voice actress ever since... I never watched the movie... didn't feel the need.
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I always watch in Japanese voice & English subtitles. English dubs almost always put me off. The exception are the Studio Ghibli films brought to the US by Disney. They get it right. They use top grade American actors in order not to destroy the nuances of the production. :)

There's a big difference in Faye Valentine's characterization in Bebop when one considers "Japanese vs English" representations. Japanese Faye was cold, American Faye was hot. The American voice actress projected herself into it in an unfaithful way.

If you change the characterization, you change the story. Most American anime voice-overs bite a big one. So call me a purist or call me a snob. :bringit:

I could be wrong, no? But that's how I see it! :laughing:

Nonetheless, I really do love Yoko Kanno's work!

Both. I was a pretty hardcore Esca fan back in the day and I own the series and the movie, but the second half still pales in comparison to the first. Even the guymelef battles, which had previously been visceral and beautifully choreographed, became lazy and boring.

Depends. As a rule of thumb, I watch subs, since American voice actors are terrible. But if I'm watching a comedy then I'll probably watch dub, so long as the voice actors are reasonably good. Reading a joke translated from another language just isn't funny, at least not when you're talking about anime localizations.

My big exception is Hellsing. Why would I want to hear Brits and Germans speak Japanese? Especially when the cast in general is actually pretty damn good as far as Americans go. And while the guy playing Alucard might sound goofy, he sometimes manages to do what he's actually trying to do and it works far better than the generic deep-voiced Japanese actor.

:pssst: Clearly, there are some Japanese jokes that don't translate into English, so I can see where that'd work out OK. :)

I've got Hellsing in my queue, I hope it is good! Just finished Parasyte The Maxim, I liked it very much. I've started into Tokyo Ghoul, I'm one episode in. D.Gray Man was a blast, the music helps!

Ghost In The Shell SAC 1 & SAC 2 were great, music by Yoko Kanno, of course! The 4 follow-up movies are in my queue. :)

Do yourself a favor and skip the first Hellsing series and go straight to Hellsing Ultimate. The former is... decent, but the latter is one of the best things to come out of Japan since the kamikazes. But if you absolutely have to watch them both, then watch the first series first, cause Ultimate will ruin your ability to enjoy it.

Hellsing Ultimate is what I queued :) Instinct, you might say... or maybe just blind luck :laughing:

Darker Than Black - Yin's Piano was also made by Yoko right?