Weekly Vocaloid Ranking #94

Ahh… it is good to be back, after all.

Well, as I promised, here I am reviewing the Weekly Vocaloid Ranking (which will henceforth be abbreviated to WVR) for the English Vocaloid community at large. The link above leads directly to the NND upload of said ranking and is for registered NND members only, so you Vocaloid fans out there who have yet to acquire said registration may want to do so now… Okay, now that that’s been said… Read on for more about WVR and comments for this week’s ranking.

Since I’m also kinda feelin’ nostalgic all of a sudden, so let me give you guys a bit of a retrospect into the WVR. During the last year, there were only five songs you needed to keep in touch with (aside from Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru) to at least know the inner workings of the rankings: those were MELT, KoiSen (Love is War), Black Rock Shooter, World is Mine – which were ALL produced by one guy, ryo – and Hikyou Sentai Urotanda.
Those were the songs that pretty much dominated and outlasted all the others songs in 2008. But why is that, you may wonder… Was it because of their lyrics? Their amazingly-drawn PVs? Their producers’ use of the Vocaloids’ voices (ryo’s unique blend of Miku’s voice was far from perfect, but that’s just my own opinion…?) Maybe, but what really got them to last that long was the MILLIONS of fans they touched. It was because people listened to their songs, and because of how much they could relate to a given song (MELT and KoiSen talk of first/lost love, BRS talks about never losing hope, and Urotanda talks about courage… hah! Yeah right…) that they got up and told other people to listen, too, and see what an awesome thing this Vocaloid “technology” has done.

Nowadays, most of ryo’s songs are out of the charts, and Urotanda is nowhere to be found either. Seems a little sad at first (yeah, they’re sorts of “classics” now to the Vocaloid community), until you notice that other songs have taken over in their stead and are more awesome than before! Now we have Rin’s MELTDOWN – a song with amazing vocalization and deep lyrics which are open to interpretation from anybody, and Luka’s Double Lariat – a seemingly cute and funny song, yet has a deeper meaning on friendship that touched a lot of people. So even if the old songs are gone, their legacy continues on.

Hmm… I think I’ve babbled on for too long about the history of WVR, so let’s get back into the present to continue on with #94 of the WVR! Comments on specific songs and the overview are listed below.

Notes on specific songs/rank numbers:

• #30 – What do you get when you have “magnet, the yuri song” and turn it completely upside down? Hollywood called, they want their “Brokeback moment” back.
• #29 – One of the few remaining ryo songs on the WVR…
• #26 – God bless whoever created chiptunes! It’s the solution to EVERYTHING, including getting GUMI back on the charts!
• #25 – What a heart-breaking drop from 4th place for a GUMI song… and I kinda like that one, too.
• #24 – AAAAAAAAAARRRRRGH~!!! It’s that guy again!!! WHY GOD, WHYYYY~!?! And he’s going at it with Len now!?
  
• #23 & #22 – Wait, did I say “one of the few remaining ryo songs” earlier…? Sorry, my bad, what I meant to say is, “WHERE IS KOISEN, CONFOUND IT!?”
• #20 – o_O; WAT.
• #18 – Ah, Shoushitsu. Why are you so hard in Project DIVA?
• #17 – If you guys haven’t noticed it already, the tune of this song is actually from the Hammer Power-Up you get in the original Donkey Kong game from the arcades/Famicom/NES.
• #16 – Keep on spinning, Luka!
• #14 – Hmm… this sounds nice… Might delve deeper into it later…
• #13 – Keep on diving into that Nuclear Reactor, Rin!
• #12 – Keep on being together, Luka and Miku! (notice a pattern here?)
• #11 – Do I really need to say anything about this song…?
• #10 – It was on the ranking prior to this one (on the Top-3 spot, even!) and I still don’t get what it’s all about! But the nakedness scares me… so very, very much…
• #9 – Good song… it’s just too bad that the “Engrish” segments (done by Luka, ironically) are a bit unbearable (for the discerning English-speaking fan, anyways).
• #7 – Keep on loving your forbidden boyfriend, Miku! ^_^
• #3 – Ah… Just Be Friends… funny how this song came about after Luka’s not-so successful One More Kiss… I dunno, but I feel some kinda connection between the two songs. Anyways, this song just might as well be Luka’s next “Double Lariat,” so keep on breaking up with your boyfriend, Luka! ^__^
• #2 – Hmm… not really my type of GUMI song, even though it has chiptunes, and did manage to bring her back within the Top-3…
• #1 – Ah, the creepy song in the same vein as Human Sacrifice Alice and the other Vocaloid horror songs… Top-1 for two straight weeks? Dayum…

In overview (and I apologize for the lateness… I was having some “technical issues” with NND…), I’m quite saddened that GUMI’s popularity is starting to wane just after four weeks. GUMI really needs a strong song to push her into the mainstream, though her fans seems to keep jumping from one song to another, which barely keeps her songs afloat in the rankings. I just take refuge in the fact that the new WVR mainstays are coming from Luka (magnet, Double Lariat, and Just Be Friends).

Welp, that’s it for this week’s WVR. For further discussion, you may visit the ongoing forum thread here. Thank you for joining us!