Todays rip: 01/03/2024
Thank You, Everybody!
Season 4 Episode 1
Featured on: FINAL BOUT ~ SiIvaGunner: King for Another Day Tournament Original Soundtrack VOL. 3
Ripped by Expensive Dispenser
Requested by Alex Worm! (Request Form)
God, man. King for Another Day was magical, in so many ways. And I know, I know, that's something I've repeated over and over on here, to where you could almost argue my coverage of KFAD on here is a bit oversaturated - Sunday Morning, September, Here Comes A Thought, Lifelike Waterway...the event was simply overflowing with incredible performances from SiIvaGunner's entire team. Obviously the most exciting part of it all was the finale, and I discussed perhaps the loudest part of that in NIGHTMARESCAPE 〜Unrestrained HyperCam 2〜 (Final Boss Phase 2). Yet, when the dust had settled on that final battle, there was still things to be done. A battle between the tournament's two finalists, yes, but more importantly: A thank you to be given.
It's difficult to grasp just how gargantuan the event was unless you were there to see it all unfold piece by piece, and it's all made yet more jawdropping when you remember that SiIvaGunner still operates entirely as a non-profit, hobbyist endeavor. Back in 2016, the channel had started out as nothing but a pool of pure self-expression, an extended running joke left driven by impulse and commitment to the bit; yet four years in, it had morphed into an entity with continuity, with lore, with running jokes and ongoing storylines...and a devoted group of fans eagerly loving it all. The original King for a Day Tournament back in Season 3 was a rather sharp left turn for the channel's trajectory up to that point, and was only conceived as a way to give the channel something to do during an agonizing copyright strike - yet it wound up being a surprise highlight of the entire year for many of those devoted fans. To have the status quo of the channel's proceedings shaken by a random one-off event, and thus in a way change just what those same fans would expect from the channel in its years going forward...I imagine there must have been a lot of pressure on the SiIvaGunner team in developing the second tournament as a result. In a way, it's sort of felt to me like one of the first ever projects on the SiIvaGunner channel developed specifically to satiate our expectations, rather than subvert them.
What I'm getting at with all this is, that the King for Another Day Tournament was a one-of-a-kind project, one that kept one-upping itself with every step along the way, to the point where several commenters were noting just how insanely high-effort of a project this had turned into - if, for no other reason, than to surpass our expectations. With each MOJO post, each huge-in-scale arrangement, each twist in the tournament's proceedings, it felt more and more like we truly didn't deserve what we were getting. One part that I'm still in awe over was what I covered back in Fall Breaks: as the tournament's two finalists in Mariya Takeuchi and DJ Professor K were about to face off, we were treated to FOUR incredible collaborative arrangements between the two. We were, throughout the entire event, *spoiled* in so many ways, and the excitement through it all was absolutely palpable.
Yet, mere hours before the Grand Finals results were announced, on Christmas Eve of 2019 - we received Thank You, Everybody!
I remember it all clear as day, as one of the first SiIvaGunner rips to make me emotional within just the first few seconds; no, I'd say before I even clicked play. Here was this team of hobbyists, arrangers, composers, musicians of all kinds of trades from all over the world, putting together a project of this scale with no reason but for the love for the medium...And after a project of this scale, they were thanking us. US! The viewers, the fans, who hadn't contributed a single cent, who had no right to demand, no right to expect anything from what the team was to deliver with this tournament. At first glance, it felt completely backwards - until I clicked the video itself and was reminded of what SiIvaGunner truly is. A community.
The team were thanking us for everything else we had done to push them along this crazy ride. For our commitment to following this silly idea for a YouTube channel, for being so vocal about our excitement in so many fields, for speculating and engaging and spreading the word of the tournament throughout the year, and for - in the process of all of that - helping turn SiIvaGunner into a full-on community, scattered as it may at times feel. Yet check the comments on the YouTube upload yourself, and you'll see a community that was - for once - wholly united. Three hundred and nintety-two comments, all of which express the same sentiment, a unified thank-you sent right back for the team for the event they had put together for us.
These feelings are what immediately come to mind when I think of Thank You, Everybody!, but it of course helps that the rip itself is absolutely fantastic at amplifying those feelings. It's not a triumphant, bombastic credits theme - the final results were still to come, after all! - but rather plays to the strengths of Mariya Takeuchi's patented City Pop style for a lo-fi melody cruise. Primarily building on Tyler, the Creator's GONE, GONE / THANK YOU, it implements sprinkles and stylistic flairs of Hideki Naganuma music such as that featured in Jet Set Radio, little hips and hops and record scratches to always remind you which two characters the rip is build upon, yet with a tone that makes it sound as if the battle has just wrapped up.
Its an amazing listen in so many ways, be it with the sappy context given in mind, or just as a fantastic piece of music that shows just why these two were the ones to make it to the tournament's final round to begin with. In both Takeuchi's city pop and Naganuma's sample-funk, we the audience found a kind of sound that was otherwise missing from the channel, we formed a connection with these characters, with the people behind them and their rips. And regardless of who the winner would be revealed to be just hours late, Thank You, Everybody! would remain a beautiful end to the tournament's proceedings, and in its title alone a perfect reflection of our sentiments toward the SiIvaGunner team itself. Thank you. Everybody.
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