Angela Jul 31, 2009 (edited Sep 19, 2009)
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?