vocal synth (+ the adjacent) upload blog for @lacecap/@maybells :-]
namely for songs i feel that are underrated + all time favorites of mine! feel free to send suggestions or share/submit songs you like :D
my tastes trend more towards chiptune/bitpop and whatever the electro drug tag is supposed to mean on vocadb. my favorite subgenre of vocalsynth is pseudo xx/subeana, so you'll likely see some of that (& the adjacent) here!
my whole youtube playlist, including numerous songs not listed, can be found here!
as per tradition, here are some of my personal fav songs from 2023 :-) standouts are definitely kyoufuu all back girl by yukopi & hito mania by sasuke haraguchi, not sure if i've seen any other vocaloid songs reach these levels of virality as instantaneously since goodbye sengen!
listing has my favorites towards the top (but the ranking isnt that strict), bolded are my super favorites, & some extra ramblings will be appended at the very end. smiles
2023 standouts :-)
first, my no. 1 top song:
none other than the viral & wonderfully bizarre hito mania by sasuke haraguchi :-) !! its not often that a song as popular as this takes my number one slot! haraguchi has this talent for making sounds that should not ever be used in a song just... work. its so ridiculously catchy that i havent tired of it at all, even with the truly Massive influx of covers/remixes/mads/memes made since. its charm is precisely in just how eccentric, bizzare, and most importantly new it is. its something really fresh to the scene & im looking forward to more of haraguchi's vocalsynth stuff in the future!!
and with that stated, on with the listing!
the awesomeness begins
here are some of my favorite songs out of the more mainstream, or rather more-likely-to-be-recognized, bunch:
(x) | akotoba by sasuke haraguchi ft. miku
i have a dedicated bullet point describing my love for this song at the very bottom of this post LOL
(x) | babel by iyowa ft. teto
(x) | unpoison by sodeno arawa ft. miku
probably the most potent earworm on this list to me
(x) | actress by iyowa ft. hanakuma chifuyu
(x) | anta ni akkanbe by hifumi ft. miku
(x) | shinjinrui by marasy, jin, and kemu ft. rin
(x) | for dear life by niru kajitsu ft. flower
(x) | neruna spooky by picdo ft. adachi rei
(x) | fantasia by sasakure.uk & uk rampage ft. miku
(x) | girl a remix by nekobolo ft. rin
(x) | od by akagami de wa nai ft. kaai yuki & miku
why are you only a minute long stop doing that to your songs you are killing them...
(x) | √ (roots) by minato ft. xingchen
(x) | bouquet garni by niru kajitsu ft. flower
(x) | the exit 8 by eo ft. rin
(x) | a mysterious call by r-906 ft. rose & popy
(x) | tiny me by masarada ft. teto
(x) | voidroid by r-906 ft. haru, miku, & una
(x) | warning time by youman ft. gumi <- tuninggg
(x) | x.e.n.o by sasakure.uk ft. miku & kaito
(x) | hoiyoho by yukuewat ft. kochie, anna nyui, and mine laru
(x) | (not) a devil by deco & pino-p ft. miku
(x) | do not solve me by frog96 ft. rime
(x) | a drowned body wants to be lovey-dovey by lonepi ft. miku
(x) | passing gazes, overlapping words by frog96 ft. teto
(x) | chilly by yomitan akane ft. teto
(x) | idiotic communication by isonosuke ft. chis-a
this song is like hito mania's beautiful estranged cousin or perhaps sibling to me
(x) | rarehen wa by wanopo ft. rin & len
(x) | self proclaimed angel by kat ft. tsurumaki maki
(x) | ime-chan wants to become a guitar hero by ime44 ft. yuki
(x) | denki youho by inabakumori ft. miku
(x) | honto no by sasuke haraguchi ft. teto
kind of a genius response song to hito mania's immense popularity imo
(x) | frog phenomenon by adeliae ft. kaai yuki
(x) | hito mania remix by camelots ft. teto
you know the remix is good when they sample crazy frog
hidden gem/underrated section
now thisss. is where the really good stuff is hiding.
note: this may include songs that are decently popular but whose producers are less so; or the inverse i.e. producers who are popular but with overlooked songs (meaning this is very subjective!)
(x) | A⇌あ⇌A by subesakuhin ft. mine laru
an english original subeana styled song! geuninely so obsessed with these lyrics
(x) | chef's kimagure rock by inuha ft. miku
(x) | hanashi kawaru kedo by inuha ft. miku
inuha has such a charming way of playing with tempo in their songs; this one in particular has very surprisingly sweet lyrics
(x) | lethe by aliey:s ft. miku
(x) | tapir by saeki tatsuki ft. miku
ohhhh. ohhhh. i will cry. i will
(x) | sunk cost by aliey:s ft. flower
(x) | keep your headaches by ryo iogi ft. teto
(x) | potentially avant-garde girl by yumameane ft. teto
(x) | nothingness by liru jinzhi ft. kaai yuki & shian
(x) | my speakers broke by asanuko ft otomachi una, len, & miku
song of the summer
(x) | lies and the future by uwabe ft. adachi rei
(x) | 奴隷 by atokata ft. nene nene
(x) | dance hall end by aruseika ft. miku
all-in-one talent alert (musician, artist, animator) aruseika also has a making-of video detailing how they both composed & animated the song!!
(x) | goodnight cold sleeper by ro2noki ft. adachi rei
(x) | デバフ脳 by last 4 cigarettes ft. tsukuyomi-chan
(x) | pained. by minamo minato ft. yamine renri
(x) | hymn to the decadent life by ro2noki ft. teto
(x) | tentacle by midluster ft. kaai yuki
(x) | edo disco by yumameane ft. teto
(x) | 焦燥 by kinoue64 ft. miku
(x) | tenshi dattandayo by ft. ǢǪ ft. miku & xingchen
(x) | rot away by lvnarlii ft. teto
(x) | ▀ by 全ては裏で動く。ft. defoko
(x) | counting sheep by saeki tatsuki ft. miku
watch this for the mv! its a loop of an animation that lasts only a few seconds, but its both beautiful & incredibly impressive being that its hand drawn
(x) | 頼リタイアガール by midluster ft. kanade kanon
(x) | repeated poems by 全て私達の所為にするな。
(x) | final end roll by kinoue64 ft. miku
(x) | eyesight love by xaneiro ft. flower
(x) | migiwa rinshou by nakase miru ft. rime
(x) | ⋆ by ueil ft. miku
(x) | 墓場 by den9 ft. teto
(x) | -_- by egao ft. defoko
i did not know their name is egao thats funny as hell
(x) | 潜 by 全て画質の所為です。ft. defoko
(x) | いはないお約束 by xaneiro ft. flower
warning for intense glitching/flashing throughout this mv!
rambling section
beautiful year for adachi rei & teto enjoyers in my opinion... tetos synthv release really caused such a huge uptick in teto originals & rei is still riding off of that heat abnormal high lol its been wonderful to witness
i promise you i'm surprised only one project voltage song made the list too! i guess i really only enjoyed inabakumori's song. jin's song is in here in spirit too (trans miku + eevee... perfection) but ultimately i'm not the hugest fan of the song itself (it is sooo cute though)
so many songs under two minutes long So so so sad this isn't healthy for them. you have to stop. this is a phenomenon happening across music in general and not specific to vocaloid whatsoever but i think its funniest to blame this on surii
quite a few xx/subeana styled songs made the list this year just bc i got really into exploring the genre!! and my youtube recommendations helped out a lot lol. keeping in true spirit with the genre though a number of them have since been unlisted
i included kyoufuu all back in the introductory paragraph but excluded it from my actual listing and this was not a mistake. i have sadly grown somewhat sick of it. such is the way with immense popularity... it really is a cute song but oh my god is yukopi getting so much damn mileage out of it
iyowa really knocked it out of the ballpark earlier this year with babel & actress those are both soooo so so good. actress in of itself is just a really well executed narrative whereas babel is such a clever song celebrating teto's synthv release (it being a duet between her synthv & utau banks, her drills quite literally as an inverted tower of babel, babel because her synthv bank allows her to sing in multiple languages... a slight copycat of a cynosure madonna!!!)
but mannn synthv releasing Both teto & gumi banks this year, not to mention the kafu announcement??? insane. its like a vocalsynth monopoly up in here
RAMBLING SECTION SOLELY FOR AKOTOBA: what a lovely lovely lovely song. part of its charm for me is the fact that, being a haraguchi song, you go into it expecting it to veer wildly off course or incorporate some sort of bizzare musical twist; but the twist is that there is no twist! its instead just this really pure & beautiful build up to a vibrant & joyful chorus, no tricks. its so celebratory sounding!! & i find it charming how its still obviously a haraguchi song, complete with his signature strangeness (the scream sfx), but tempered into something sooo sweet. the proseka note haraguchi wrote for the song too really melts my heart; i know it was meant to be somewhat humorous but i find something so so so beautiful in the concept of a song made for the first time in a world where music has all but virtually disappeared... im glad that miku + teto + haraguchi are all still alive and well in the year 3023 lol. genius move to have the title be a play on ai kotoba too. genuinely cannot help but break into a wide smile whenever i listen to this song
now with all my praise for haraguchi out of the way, my actual favorite producer of this year has to be.... yukuewat! i found them beginning of january and have been in love ever since. my favorite songs of theirs weren't released in 2023, so they make scant appearances on this list, but they were one of the producers i listened to the most this past year! their tuning is perfection to me, i feel like they occupy this really intrinsic-to-vocalsynth niche where their tuning is both robotic AND emotional; having all the harsh consonants and precisce diction you can only get from a vocalsynth but arrested with emotions that feel organic, despite sounding distinctly nonhuman. that is what vocalsynth is all about to me!!! not to mention their style is both addictively catchy & unique, i don't think i can name another musician off the top of my head who makes music like they do. theyre a huge huge favorite of mine, and with their gradually rising popularity, i hope more ppl come to recognize them soon!!!
and with all that said too, apparently according to youtube music my top artist for 2023 was not yukuewat but asanuko!!! i guess i listened to the speaker song more than i realized lol
if you read all of this i love you with my entire heart
