A Gentle Plea to Search your heart for Odin
This is a plea. Not for money, not for clothes, or even vegetables. No. This is a plea.. for a song.
So, there’s this little known competition going on called the Anime Music Tournament, where songs are pitted against each other in a deathmatch so vicious that even battle-hardened veterans turn away and shed salty tears down roughened cheeks.
And in this tournament, is this song.
[audio:155 – Odin Photon Space Sailer Starlight – The Search for Odin.mp3]This song is “Searching for Odin”, from the anime movie Odin: Photon Sailer Starlight. It was crafted by The Loudness, a Japanese metal band from the 80s, the first Japanese metal band to sign to a major US label and has to-date released 25 studio albums.
Now, I’ve never heard of this song in my life. Never even heard of the anime it’s come from. From research, the sci-fi film Odin: Photon Sailer Starlight was an utter failure, slammed by critics and viewers alike. One of those many 80s anime films that was thrown into the pile for the forgotten.
But man, this song. Those opening synths, that crashing over-produced echo-ey drum beat, those vocals! When I listened to it during voting time, what I heard was 5 minutes 21 seconds of pure 80s rock goodness. It brought back the days of YES, ELO, Led Zeppelin, perhaps Journey and hell, even John Sykes of Cautionary Warning fame.
http://youtu.be/3BQyfUOnY1I
It screamed of grand intentions and epic design, it was as futuristic as 80s rock could go, and sure, the lyrics were hilarious, but when the lead vocalist started singing the “I cannot leave without you…” refrain at the climax of the song, and the guitar wailed in with that out-of-the-shadows type shred, that did it for me.
I had it on loop. I loved it. I still love it, 24 hours later.
But it’s not doing well. It’s losing against “Howling”, from Darker than Black fame. The creator of “Howling” is the very popular Abingdon Boys School, who have done openings for many an anime series. And don’t get me wrong, “Howling” to me isn’t a bad song, no. I quite enjoy it, as I enjoyed Darker than Black. But the love and passion in Searching for Odin grips me. And I want it to survive past round 2 at least. Then, the sky’s the limit. There’s a few more days for voting, so thanks for reading this and if you agree that this song is the better song in this case, then please, vote for it.
According to Wikipedia, the good guys destroy the evil space fortress, and the movie ends simply with them pressing on in their spacecraft, unhindered, to begin the search for the legendary planet Odin. I imagine them traveling in their battered ship, their bodies bruised and bleeding, their comrades hurt or dead… and they remember their home planet, their reasons for this desperate quest, the hardships they had to go through and the people who sacrificed their lives so they could come this far.
Then, they look to the stars.
Cue music.
For reference: the echo-ey overproduced 80’s drum sound is obtained through a technique known as gated reverb:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gated_reverb
Most famously heard in Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight”
THAT’S WHAT IT REMINDED ME SO MUCH OF!!!! Thanks for that Wodes! Very informative 🙂
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I feel the same way as you, although I didn’t love the nostalgia that much. That Odin song is rather great.
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Reminds me of that huge time when I still listened to a lot of music from the 80s! Seriously, this is Japanese? I didn’t know they had bands playing that style of music back then. Must investigate! 🙂
You gusy should really look up the scene when the crew boards the ship for the first time in the movie, they also use metal for it, it’s hilarious.
The story is indeed not that good, but the movie had a few intersting designs.
I have played Cataclysm I & II, but I don’t remember this song here, only that Barbers’ Adagio was used as title music.
That’s at the end of Homeworld 1. Cataclysm’s an expansion and doesn’t have that bit methinks. The Adagio bit was brilliant at the initial attack bits. So haunting.
I bought that video. For about a dollar. It looked like Starblazers, but it was really bad on plot. However, the first few minutes showing the laser-guided solar sail system was awesome, and I ended up telling one of the real NASA guys who worked on that stuff about it.