Utaite Spotlight: Ten

[fascinates]

As I said before in the producer's spotlight, we're trying to make the spotlights special since July is ofurotaimu's anniversary month. For each week of July, we'll have two utaite spotlights wherein the singers are closely related to each other, meaning they have consistently performed a collaboration with each other. For our first week, I write about one of my favorite collabs ;).

Ten / てん

mylist | blog | community

While I'd like to think that virtually everyone in the utattemita community knows about Ten, some newer members of the fandom might not have or have rarely heard of him, most probably since Ten was more active in the past compared to now. He's one of my first utaite and I still consider him one of the best I've heard.

Ten started uploading covers of songs way back to the end of 2007, and is one of the earliest utaite to become popular in the fandom. His first few uploads including a cover of Surface's Saa was well-received and soon, he moved into covering Vocaloid works.

His voice is very similar to the likes of Nodoame and Kouhei: slightly thin and sharp, loud with high intensity. However, Ten doesn't always sing like a rocker/screamer. Often, he also sings pop-ish songs with a slightly rough, lighthearted feel which made people dub him as someone with a "junior high school kid!voice". Because of his high-strung style of singing, though, he sings everything with energy that even ballads sound slightly upbeat and wild. Despite the distinct quality of his voice, however, he still manages to sing songs from every genre, making him a rather flexible (not to mention prolific) singer.

Aside from singing solo, he likes doing collaborations with a lot of people including Tourai, neko, Valshe and Vivienne (who is our other spotlight). His collab with Vivienne is so fondly called "Viviten" and they're sometimes referred to as RL!Rin and Len.

sample songs
A. Solos
• Schwartz (PaletteP original)
• Gokurakuchou - bird of paradise - (YuuyuP original)
• Rinne (Hachi original)
• Shotgun Lovers (NoboruP original)
• Poker Face (YuchaP original)

B. Collabs
• erase or zero (w/ Tourai, CrystalP original)
• Bokura no 16-bit Sensou (w/ Valshe; SasakureP original)
• Juvenile (w/ Vivienne, DixieFlatline original)
• ACUTE (w/ Vivienne and Montea; KurousaP original)

nikki says:
I've known of Ten when I was searching for Tourai songs one day and ended up seeing their cover of "erase and zero". Back then, he's the only one I know who sings as if he wants to tear his throat apart and really admired him. While I'm more fond of his collabs with Vivienne, I still think he's a powerful singer who can sing basically anything if he wants to.

Utaite Spotlight: Vivienne

[fascinates]

As I said before in the producer's spotlight, we're trying to make the spotlights special since July is ofurotaimu's anniversary month. For each week of July, we'll have two utaite spotlights wherein the singers are closely related to each other, meaning they have consistently performed a collaboration with each other. For our first week, I write about one of my favorite collabs ;).

Vivienne / びびあん

mylist | blog | community

Vivienne might not be as popular as some, but she is one of the most prolific female Nico singers. Since her debut in mid-2008, she has uploaded more than 40 covers of varying genre. For those who do not remember much of her, she sang the Rin part in Mr. Music and is also known recently for her amazing rendition of Juu Mensou.

Vivienne and Ten's voices are actually similar. She also has a thin, strong voice which can shout really well as well as reach high notes very impressively. Despite having a powerful voice, however, she started with singing tamer songs in a low voice. Eventually, she became more adventurous with genres and ended up preferring singing upbeat, high-intensity songs as compared to the usual pop and ballads. One admirable thing about Vivienne, too, is her ability to change range and voice quality easily in each song. She can sing one very low song one time and sing a really fast and high song the other time. Her versatility is often challenged in super fast and high songs but she manages to pull them off easily.

She also does a lot of collabs, mostly with her friend Wotamin. She also had earlier collabs with Clear, who she dubs "the prince", and eventually ended up dueting with Ten (Viviten!) and they had been doing collabs ever since. They are often referred to as the RL!Rin and Len, with Ten's boyish voice and Vivienne's high, sharp one.

sample songs
A. Solos
• Catfood (doriko original)
• Imitator (UtaP original)
• Catapult Nation (YuuyuP original)
• Monochrome Blue Sky (NoboruP original)
• Himitsu Keisatsu (BuriruP original)

B. Collabs
• Tsugai Kogarashi (w/ Clear; Shigotoshite original)
• Scarlet Moon (w/ Wotamin, GozenP original)
• Knife (w/ Kakichoco and Ten; Rerulili original)
• Seidenki (w/ Ten; Emon original)


nikki says
Vivienne is one of my top 3 favorite female utaite and I love how she always surprises me with every upload. She has a very creative way of covering songs and even without adlibs, her rhythm and tone changes impress me a lot. I love her best when she sings upbeat songs because I think it brings out the energy her voice is supposed to have. Somehow, I keep stereotyping her as Rin because of the amount of good Rin songs she has covered, but she has done a lot more than that and I hope she continues being active as she is :).