Getting Back Into Music

I’ve been getting back into CDs because I want to own my media again, which is probably the most blunt sentence I’ve ever said. My frustration with Multiversus and Spotify, among other live services that have anti consumer practices that lead consumers to own nothing, really accelerated this. (Of course, I tend to hate Multiversus for numerous other reasons, but that’s beside the point). Though there's a lot I've learned in my journey back into using optical media for music.

This video by Marcika was what made me take the plunge, honestly.

Sadly, I’m trying to save up for a new audio setup and blowing 80 bucks on a modded iPod, while not impossible, is also not on the menu at the moment. So in an effort to find what I could use as a makeshift MP3 player, I found my Vita.

My Vita’s gotten me through a lot, I’ve had it since high school to be honest. You’d think a device that could run Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 would be a success, but unfortunately, nobody can best Nintendo. The Vita is the direct successor of the PSP that everyone forgets exists, and once I’m doing having my blood boil from seeing people on social media say “they should make a new PSP”, I’m able to admire a lot about this little paperweight. It’s a better media player for sure, and in its heyday being able to watch stuff like Netflix, Hulu, and Crunchyroll on a small OLED screen was a marvel. The Vita’s music player is (primarily) only able to handle MP3s, but apparently it’s got a Wolfson DAC that’s similar to some of the best iPods enthusiasts use, that makes music sound really good out of it (to put it simply).

So why don’t people use the Vita as a music player? It’s a headache. And hacking it doesn’t improve things.

Firstly, because of Sony being well aware of how much better the PSP was when it was hacked, they took measures to make sure the Vita wouldn’t be cracked wide open. Instead of just having the ability to hook it up to a flash drive, you need to install an application on your PC to transfer media in a way that Sony approves, and that application is finicky and unreliable.

Secondly, you can only make playlists on a PS3. This was an issue with the PSP as well, but at least due to the USB access you could just make folders for different albums or genres. And thirdly, the formats. 320 KBPS MP3s are the max, but when using a modded Vita you can access a modded music player that has more formats (most notably FLAC). That player glitches quite often and isn’t as polished as the official player, so you have to pick your poison.

The Vita is mostly abandoned as a music player, even with ways to get around some of it’s issues. But when it works it DOES work really well. I had hooked it up via 3.5mm to my mom’s audio system and it just soundede really good. I’ve been trying to get back into “de-Spotify-ing” my listening habits, which sucks because I used to be able to get into music through these services in the past. Now things have stagnated, I’m not getting recommendations that I like, and having to pay for lyrics is insane.

I don’t know if I’d ever get a PSP just for audio but it’s not an impossibility unless I really want to get an iPod. I miss being able to scrobble to my Last.FM page a LOT. It’s a lot easier to use as an mp3 player from videos I’ve seen, but I don’t know if I should blow cash on a PSP just yet.

I’ve gone so far as to have a DIscogs page and a spreadsheet tracking down what I have and what I want. It’s unsurprising I’ve used the spreadsheet techniques I’ve acquired at my job for something in my personal life, because for anyone uninitiated you WILL need to learn Excel at one point in your life, but it’s very useful as a local backup (because yes Discogs can go down). I’m torn between buying physical copies of music I already have or taking chances on music I’ve never listened to before, and my latest purchase was kind of a mix of both.

20 years ago, this show was basically my crack. 20 years later, it’s rough and might not have aged the best in a couple aspects. I still have a massive soft spot for it, though. I never would’ve been able to get a copy for myself back in the day because it was aggressively “girly” and there’s no way a black 8 year old boy in New York would’ve been able to get that without someone raising eyebrows. Thank god I have adult money now!

In hindsight it’s still really ambitious to give a J-ROCK group like Puffy AmiYumi such a big push in the US. It’s weird because timing wise we were still in the “riceball” era of anime localization, but as things got a bigger push and more people got access to the internet, I imagine marketing off of the novelty of something genuinely Japanese was a big draw. Around the same time as this existing, I remember Kappa Mikey airing as well (which I also love for similar reasons), which had a theme song done by The Beat Crusaders of all people.

I watched an episode of HiHi Puffy AmiYumi the day I got this, and the pilot afterwards, and it’s rough mostly because of the animation but I know there was absolutely an effort to still make it stick out. I’ll always appreciate flash animation getting more of a push, not every show is Motorcity and we couldn’t have gotten to a show like that without shows like this. To quickly go over things I like:

• The music is well integrated into the show, like there’s frequent usage of Puffy AmiYumi’s real music being used in the background
• The fictionalized versions of Ami and Yumi using Japanese was definitely downplayed but it’s still a component I respect, though in comparison the pilot did use actual Japanese VAs (who I assume are uncredited) and they had full on japanese phrases they’d say accompanied with subtitles
• The inspirations between anime and flat UPA are still apparent even after the designs had to be dialed back in comparison to the pilot, they’re still appealing and have bold colors and are easily identifiable

The selection of music they put on the album is great all around and the quality is great as well (I’m one of those pretentious people who swears by ripping to FLAC).  Planet Tokyo, That’s the Way It Is, and V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N are my personal favorites, and for posterity of course this has the Teen Titans theme on here. To get a copy that was sealed was incredibly lucky (thanks eBay)!

I’d love to get more music honestly, and while I know I’m a huge weeb I’m willing to put down money on music I can’t easily get my hands on through googling. I found this J-hip hop group called EAST END x YURI during the initial pandemic and the song I found them through, “Maicca”, is hard to find and keeps getting taken down from YouTube. Some but not ALL of their music is on streaming platforms, so I’m off to Discogs. And while I do want to get back into my first love, smooth jazz, I’ll likely just blow some cash on the Class of 3000 soundtrack just because I can.

If I pick up a newer album (Madeon's Good Faith), I have to accept that apparently it only released physically in Japan and I'll have to pay import fees.  I also really want to get Joey Valence and Brae's music on CD but they don't provide it... but I'll take FLAC at least. Despite having the means to play it I'm not that far gone that I'll blow a lot on vinyl. (without means to rip them, at least). With physical media going the way of the dinosaurs in many retail shops, CDs and DVDs are becoming more niche and it's a pain to see. I'll gladly try to get my hand on a bunch of things just so I can own it and not have to worry about a Wi-Fi connection to listen to my playlists.

If I whip out a Vita while we're on a road trip and ask you to pass the AUX cord though, I'm only apologizing for that once.