After perusing the smorgasbord of Ys III music from the massive Felghana box set (many thanks again, Crash!), I was reminded by how excellent the vocal pieces were.  Rie Sugimoto's Magical Heart, Akino Arai's Avenue of Sorrow and A Thousand Years of Loving..... and heavens above, Hidemi Miura's ass-kicking On Wings of Love, still the very best version of Believe In My Heart that I've ever heard.

Which made me head on back over to the previous four Falcom Vocal Collections.  Listening through them again basically reaffirms what I've always believed up till now: these ARE the crowning jewels of my Falcom music collection.  From Hiroko Moriguchi's Josephine and Sorcerian, Shoko Minami's Termination and Shadow of Vanburlan, Kishimoto's Go Fight and Get In The Wild, to Midori Kawana's Love Shining Inside, this is pure nirvana for the 80s/90s VGM-turned-J-pop fan.  My only regret is the unfortunate exclusion of a choice few Minami "Feena" album tracks, such as The Seduction of Fairy Blue and Please Believe.

Minami's Smile Again and Sugimoto's Key To My Smile are at constant odds with one another for my favorite version of See You Again, as are Yuko Imai's Moonlight Mystery and Minami's Waiting For The Night for Legend of Heroes' Field.  Minami's Endless History, however, trounces Sugimoto's The Rain Hurts.... Why? for best The Morning Grow.  Conversely, while I originally dug Minami's Eyes Shining With The Light of Dreams far more than Sugimoto's Older Brother's Girlfriend for Ys III's Trading Village Redmont, I've since reversed that decision, and have to give Sugimoto the nod for her funkier, more enjoyable take.

The trio of Lilia tracks featured on the first Vocal Collection, though perhaps seen as overkill in repetition by the majority, does have sentimental value to me: they were among the very first Falcom songs I've ever heard, cementing my place in its musical world.  As for my top three favorite Falcom vocals?  It's a rotating shift between Minami's Secret Paradise, Miura's Wink In My Soul, and Kawana's Love Shining Inside.

How about it, Falcom fans?  Any of you care to profess your own love for classic Falcom vocals?  Or am I deemed to play to an empty audience with naught but a cricket's chirp, and the faint blaring next door of something far more readily accepted like Perfect Collection Ys IV?

I really don't think about the first three Falcom Vocal Collections as their own albums.  They come from a time when a Perfect Collection album would have three vocals on it, and a Special Box would have its own vocal disc.  For that reason, I tend to associate the songs with the albums they originally came from.  This is also caused by the fact that I don't actually own the first two Falcom Vocal Collections (though I do have all of the CDs necessary to recreate them).

Falcom Vocal Collection IV is a whole 'nother beast, since those songs came from a time when Falcom would put one vocal song on an album (and often a drama album at that).  It would be a nightmare to track down all of those Popful Mail Paradise CDs for one song apiece, so I am very grateful that they were all pieced together in one collection like that.  That said, I think it is the weakest of the four vocal collections.

Here's what I would say are the best moments of Falcom's vocal past:

Falcom Special Box '91 - Love the vocal disc.  Absolutely love it.
Feena - Shoko Minami had the best voice, IMO, of all of the vocalists Falcom used on their albums.
Falcom Special Box '89 - Only three songs, but they are all winners.
Perfect Collection Ys - Alone Battle + Endless History = teh win.
Falcom Special Box '90 - Well, 3/5 of it.  Three of the songs are fantastic.  The other two are the same song, which happens to be my least favorite track from Sorcerian.
Magical Heart (from Krelia) - Probably Rie Sugimoto's most entertaining vocal.
Endless Love Song (from Perfect Collection Sorcerian Vol. 3) - Very soothing, and it's taken from one of my favorite Falcom tracks.
A Still Time (from Perfect Collection Ys II) - A capella, done pretty well.
Ending Suite (from All Sounds of Sorcerian) - OK, so this isn't completely a vocal track, but it does have some a capella in it as well, which totally makes the song.

Really?  I *love* the Sorcerian Ending theme - but I do concur that Beyond a Far-Off Time and All Because of You pale in comparison to Minami's vastly superior rendition in "Please Believe."

Endless History is the best Falcom vocal ever. Period. No discussion or debate on this.

My personal runner-up is Born on Battle Lines (Sorcerian), I believe it's on Falcom VC2, and comes from one of the Sorcerian Perfect albums.

Ramza

Well this is a stretch, because typically with non-english vocals, I skip to the next track fiercely...This is a really great track, thanks in large part to Ryo Yonemitsu's arrangement.  Great great track - and, I'll admit, a nice vocal delivery.

Nice topic.  I have a special love for the Falcom Vocal Collections myself.  While everything Crash said was correct, I still tend to group the songs together as a whole on the vocal albums more so than I associate them with the original albums (for the most part).  My very favorites are some of the first ones you mentioned Angela, mainly from Sorcerian and Ys III.  Particularly from Sorcerian: Josephine, No Fortune Teller, Born on Battle Lines, Welcome Home, and Fossil Road.  And for Ys III, basically the ones on Perfect Collection: Thousand Years of Loving, Avenue of Sorrow, and On Wings of Love.  There were some good Legend of Heroes vocals on there too.  Oddly enough, I'm not a huge fan of most of the Ys I and II vocals.  Even Endless History has gotten a bit "played out" for me over the years.

- Justin Pfeiffer

You'll notice that Josephine has the same music than a City Hunter song..
If you're interested Icantell you which track, which minutes..

THIS THIS THIS.  Nothing else compares.  One of my favorite tracks of any sort from Falcom, actually.  I believe I first became aware of it because one of the Ys animes uses it as an ending theme?

I like the song "Sorcerian" from Sorcerian.

http://www.rpgfan.com/soundtracks/falcomsb89/index.html

All three vocals from Falcom Special Box '89 were Sorcerian vocals. And I think I like "Sorcerian" more than "Josephine." I think these are all on VC1.

Forgot to mention this in my first post.

Glad someone else is with me on ENDLESS HISTORY being the GREATEST FALCOM VOCAL EVAAAAR!!!!

Ramza

.

If you mean the Bloody River song, I like it very much as well, even if Endless History rocks.

Hear hear!  I might've wanted to say a few words on Falcom J.D.K. Band 3: Falcom Vocal Special, but perhaps that will be saved for another day and another topic. :)

"Sorcerian" is really based more on "The Seal" rather than "Bloody River."  Both tracks share the same base composition, but the vocal rendition adapts most to The Seal's melodic deviations.

You're right. Did you notice the Josephine and City Hunter's song (I think Suna no Castle no Casanova, I'll check when I'm back home) exact same sound at something like 2mn (Musical Transition)..?

I'm not at all familiar with City Hunter, but I just Youtubed the song, and you're right -- there are definitely some similarities to be heard.  Actually, the instrumental part in the middle reminds me a bit of Sorcerian's Cave II/Shadow of Vanburlan and perhaps a touch of Medusa's Forest.

I mistook, it was actually in Falcom Box '89's Sorcerian: Listen at 1:06 until 1:21, and then listen City Hunter Suna no castle no Casanova at 1:26 until 1:57..

Same thing for Shurato second opening (Shining Soul) listen 00:21 till 00:30, and then listen Track 11 "Serios no Shuupatsu" on Perfect Collection The Legend of Heroes II - Disc 2,from beginning till 00:24..

I can upload it somewhere if you can't find on youtube..