cowboy bebop the real folk blues

Once upon a time, in New York City in 1941... at this club open to all comers to play, night after night, at a club named "Minston's Play House" in Harlem, they play jazz sessions competing with each other. Young jazz men with a new sense are gathering. At last they created a new genre itself. They are sick and tired of the conventional fixed style jazz. They're eager to play jazz more freely as they wish then... in 2071 in the universe... The bounty hunters, who are gathering in the spaceship "BEBOP", will play freely without fear of risky things. They must create new dreams and films by breaking traditional styles. The work, which becomes a new genre itself, will be called... COWBOY BEBOP


Haha don't grimace! (I know Jady's gonna, probably) Here comes the wonderful wonderful music from Cowboy Bebop, an all time classic! This's a LONG post so be warned! I know I'm spoiling the review even before I start, by simply shouting 'this's great great great great music' a thousand times and more. You'll HAVE to agree with me! (audience: what a horrible tyranny...)

First of all, who's the 'cowboy' and what is 'bebop'? (inmitating Jady's previous post 'what is Bossa and who is Ono?') The director of the anime series, Shinichiro Watanabe, is well known for his unconventional idosyncratic style typified by a bold concoction of cross-culture out-of-time-frame kick ass genres. 'Cowboy Bebop' is set in the cosmo world of 2071, where a group of 'cowboys', or your old-fashioned bounty hunters travel in space claiming bounties for a living. As for bebop, it's a newly defined music genre which starts to gain popularity in the closely knit cosmic community, and the leading band 'Seatbelts' dominates the music chart. There you have an odd mix of out of fashion cowboys misplaced in the far future where a new genre of jazz rules the universe.

Take a step back and poke your nose behind scenes. All these fanciful 'artifacts' are masterminds of one talented genius - Yoko Kanno, one of the most influential and in my opinion the single most versatile composer in the Japanese entertainment biz (correction: mostly anime, and some movie scores). She and her band 'Seatbelts' (the band's real name as well as a fictional name in Cowboy Bebop the anime), wrote and performed all of the soundtracks. One side note, 'The Seatbelts' was a 'temporary band' assembled for cowboy bebop and they were not active outside the realm. It was mentioned in the fictional setting that during live performances by the band, one has to wear seatbelts for security reasons and that's where the name comes from :p The style is mostly jazz, with nice little intermissions of samba, classical and techno.




Album Overview
1. OST 1
2. OST 2 - No Disc
3. OST 3 - BLUE
4. Maxi CD - Vitaminless
5. Movie Mini Album - Ask DNA
6. Movie OST - Future Blues
7. The Remixes - Music for Freelance
8. Tank! THE BEST!
9. CD Box Set - Limited Edition

For detailed information, vist
>> Emily's CB Page
>> The Real Folk Blues

It's impossible to talk about every single track there is so I've picked two albums for your reference: Tank! THE BEST! and Limited Edition CD Box Set (5CD) which basically covers everything...

Disclaimer: The album shared here is for evaluation only. Please purchase their original CD to show your support :P



COWBOY BEBOP Tank! THE BEST! --> YSI link (~128mb)
Victor Entertainment
Release Date: December 22, 2004

Track 01: Tank! (TV stretch)
Track 02: What Planet is This?
Track 03: Cosmic Dare (Pretty With A Pistol)
Track 04: Diamonds *
Track 05: Don't Bother None (TV Edit)
Track 06: PIANO BLACK
Track 07: Mushroom Hunting
Track 08: No Reply
Track 09: Blue
Track 10: Einstein Groovin' *
Track 11: Pearls *
Track 12: Gotta Knock a Little Harder

* = new track recording, not used in the anime

This album is a collection of best cowboy bebop music released so far (whose choice lol? I think they're all pretty cool!) but you get a wide range of selections featured here, from the representative of style 'Tank!' which's an upbeat swirl of jamming jazz, to the naughty pop flavoured 'Cosmic Dare', or a newly recorded track 'Pearls' featuring Ilaria Graziano whose voice is deeply moving and gentle. 'Blue', 'No Reply' and 'Gotta Knock a Little Harder' (the ending song of Cowboy Bebop movie) are performed by Mai Yamane, one of Yoko Kanno's frequently associated vocalists. 'Blue' is the track used in the last episode of CB anime: The badly wounded Spike wobbled down the staircase, he lifted his hand to the sky and with the last mocking smile on his face, said 'Bang!', and fell. A short intermission of silence, then the music started to float above, higher and higher. It was a poignant scene which I found personally very memorable and touching. Even if you know nothing about the plot or where the music's used, the track alone is enough to draw you in. 'Gotta knock a little harder' is penned by the talented lyricist Tim Jensen, who wrote many lyrics for Yoko Kanno's projects. I highly recommend this track if you love a bit of spice and good hard rock. Mai Yamane's voice could be very misleading but I assure you, it's 'SHE'. 'Mushroom Hunting' and 'What planet is this?' are truly jolly songs and they sure lighten up the mood of the whole album. Overall this's a FANTASTIC album.




COWBOY BEBOP CD BOX SET LIMITED EDITION ---> YSI link (~241mb)
Victor Entertainment,
Released: June 21, 2002

If only I could have THIS!!! Ultimate collection! (I vow to get it when I have enough money. Make a mental note. Not sure if it'll be out of production by then sobz)

There're 5 CDs enclosed that come with a beautiful booklet. For complete track listings, you can refer to Emily's Cowboy Bebop Music page. Disc 1-3 contain original recordings interspersed by selected dialogue clips from the anime (really fun to listen to if you're familar with the anime). Dsic 4 is a collection of live performance audios while Dsic 5 is a mini CD that's otherwise titled '8cm' (3 super cute tracks).

Here're the vocalists frequentenly featured in CB music (some already mentioned in 'TANK BEST' review). I've also recommended 1 or 2 tracks entitled to each artist. Link leads to artist's profile/lyrics. In the bracket is the disc number where you can locate that track.

Carla Vallet : Adieu (CD3-20)
Mai Yamane: The Real Folk Blues (CD4-08),
Steve Conte: Words that we couldn't say (CD2-19), Call me call me (CD4-06)
Gabriella Robin: Green Bird (CD1-31), Cats on Mars (CD2-2)
Raj Ramayya: Ask DNA (CD4-10)

Equally brilliant are the instrumental tracks and I highly recommend Yoko Kanno's live piano solo (CD4-9), which's a jazz hodgepodge of CB melodies nicely arranged with strong improvisional flavours. Ah, scrolling back... I'm such a lunatic. Somehow I feel I still haven't spoken enough. Well, CB music might not be your cup of tea if you're not into Jazz. Honestly speaking, I wasn't into Jazz at first and I found CB music really odd but you'll be surprised how 'adaptive' you can be lol.

Finally some fun stuff
-> which Cowboy Bebop song are you?

Mine - Cat on mars



and Jady's - Blue


My roommate's - Adieu