SPECIAL OTHERS. I can’t get enough of these guys…and with some cool new web finds, they’re worth talking about again.

SPECIAL OTHERS ON ITUNES?

Image Courtesy of SPECIAL OTHERS official site

Yes! It’s not much, but THEY ARE. SPECIAL OTHERS’ debut mini-album, BEN is available on iTunes. I usually like to search iTunes to see if there are any nice “suprises” on there in terms of Japanese musicians. While my attempts are often futile, every-now-and-then I come up with something. I searched for “SPECIAL OTHERS” on the massive music store not really expecting to find anything. But to my delight, iTunes offers one item by SPECIAL OTHERS for sale.

Obviously I bought BEN and I love it. It’s not completely different from the band’s recent full-legth album Good morning, but I could notice a few distinguishing characteristics. As a whole, BEN features less vocals and the 5-tracks are fairly long when compared to the more recent album. The songs are not as noticeably structured either. These differences between the old and the new can be most-likely attributed to a rise in popularity and going after a broader audience. As long as SPECIAL OTHERS stay true to their roots, which they do, it’s acceptable.

The most-likely reason why only BEN is available on iTunes is due to the record company. SPECIAL OTHERS recorded BEN while with NMNL Records. Since then they’ve mostly had all of their material released by Victor Entertainment. While being signed with Victor allows for national exposure and distribution across Japan, it sort of leaves users of the non-Japanese iTunes out of luck. I’ll take what I can get though.

SOME COOL STREAMABLES

Image Courtesy of SPECIAL OTHERS official site

Being signed to a major label is not a bad thing as far as internet exposure goes. If you check out SPECIAL OTHERS’ Victor Entertainment mini-site, it offers a plethora of cool streamable samples. Not only can you listen to typical 30-second samples of every song off of their album Good morning, but you can even watch samples of live performances by SPECIAL OTHERS. These are straight off of the Limited Edition CD+DVD version of Good morning.

The mini-site even features quotes and messages recommending SPECIAL OTHERS from such famous artists as Kaoru Inoue, Asian Kung-Fu Generation lead-singer Kensuke Kita, Shiro the Goodman, and Micro from Def Tech. Throw in a few links and other informational goodies and you’re set.

A FUN PROMO

YouTube users have uploaded a handful of SPECIAL OTHERS videos. Among the coolest that I found is a promo ad for SPECIAL OTHERS’ 2006 mini-album IDOL. It’s a quick clip so have a watch:

Linkage: Buy BEN on iTunes, official mini-site, official site