is the only studio album by Japanese

Vocaloid is a singing Speech synthesis, voice synthesizer software product. Its signal processing part was developed through a joint research project between Yamaha Corporation and the Music Technology Group at Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona. The s ...

producer and

musician A musician is someone who Composer, composes, Conducting, conducts, or Performing arts#Performers, performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general Terminology, term used to designate a person who fol ...

Wowaka Wowaka (stylized as wowaka, ; 4 November 19875 April 2019), also known as Genjitsutouhi-P (), was a Japanese musician. Considered to be a pioneer in the Vocaloid industry, wowaka was internationally acclaimed for his musical work over a career s ...

. It was released on May 18, 2011, through the

indie label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...

Balloom Balloom is an independent Japanese record label that was created in 2011. Until 2013, it focused on releasing music by musicians who were popular on video streaming service Niconico Douga, especially those who used Vocaloid software, and people wh ...

, which was founded by him alongside 6 other vocaloid producers. It is considered one of the most influential vocaloid albums ever made and a

cult classic A cult following is a group of Fan (person), fans who are highly dedicated to a person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some List of art media, medium. The latter is often cal ...

by fans. Commercially, the album peaked at 6th place on the

Oricon Combined Albums Chart The is a record chart released weekly by Oricon, a major provider of information on the Japanese music industry. First published on December 24, 2018, it ranks the top fifty albums through an album-equivalent unit, equivalent unit system based on ...

for 13 weeks straight.

Background

Wowaka, previously known as Genjitsutouhi-P, debuted as a vocaloid producer in 2009 with the song . He released three mini-albums before ''Unhappy Refrain'': ''the monochrome disc'', ''Seven Girls' Discord'', and ''World 0123456789''. In March 2011, he founded the indie record label Balloom alongside other prominent vocaloid producers, such as Toku P, Fullkawa Honpo and Hachi (Kenshi Yonezu). 2 months later, he released ''Unhappy Refrain'', being the label's first release.

Musical and lyrical style

Wowaka's songs are known and characterised by obscure lyrics depicting thoughts of young women in fast-paced melodies. Songs like and the title track, are commonly theorized to interpret

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or ac ...

, as well as

bullying Bullying is the use of force, coercion, Suffering, hurtful teasing, comments, or threats, in order to abuse, aggression, aggressively wikt:domination, dominate, or intimidate one or more others. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. On ...

, like in . His alias, , came from the phrase "Escaping from reality, how nice!" (In

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

: 現実逃避って、いいよね！), written in the video descriptions of several of his songs on

Nico Nico Douga , known before 2012 as , is a Japanese video sharing service based in Tokyo, Japan. "Niconico" or "nikoniko" is the Japanese ideophone for smiling. As of 2021, Niconico is the 34th most-visited website in Japan, according to Alexa Internet. ...

Cover art

The album's cover was designed by Gaph, with art direction by Fullkawa Honpo, a close friend of wowaka who was also a vocaloid producer.

Commercial reception and legacy

The album was commercially successful, peaking at number 6 on the Oricon Combined Albums chart for 13 weeks straight. It also peaked at number 22 on the Digital Album Sales chart. ''Unhappy Refrain'' would be the first and final vocaloid album by wowaka, due to his departure from the scene in 2011 to form the band Hitorie and death in 2019. Despite his departure, which he claimed was to protect his well-being after the album's release, wowaka credited

Hatsune Miku , officially code-named CV01, is a Vocaloid software voicebank developed by Crypton Future Media. Its official mascot is depicted as a sixteen-year-old girl with long, turquoise twintails. Miku's personification has been marketed as a virt ...

for getting him into making music. He stated: "I never gave it a second of thought 10 years ago as I posted songs, but no matter how you look at it, Hatsune Miku is the one who got me to start music. Miku is sort of like a mother figure to me." His work inspired many Vocaloid producers, as well as fans to make their own covers and derivative works based on his songs. Musician Kenshi Yonezu, previously a Vocaloid producer under the name Hachi, was a close friend of wowaka. He praised him for having a deep impact on the concept of "Vocaloid-esque" music among Vocaloid creators, and that since his own music was also influenced by wowaka, he held his greatest respect for him. Other musicians that feature wowaka as an inspiration include Inabakumori.

Track listing

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://web.archive.org/web/20121227145428/http://hitori-atelier.com/index2.html
Unhappy Refrain
on

Discogs Discogs ( ; short for " discographies") is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. Database contents are user-generated, and described in ''T ...

playlist A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player, either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs that can be played once or in a loop. ...

on Hitorie's

YouTube channel YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in San B ...

.
wowaka
on Nico Nico Video. Creative works using vocaloids 2011 debut albums Japanese-language albums Rock albums by Japanese artists