Album fanart and write-up! ~ Sheena Ringo's 'Shouso Strip'

-PLEASE DO NOT REUPLOAD, TRACE OR USE IN AI! DO Credit me!-

Last week, I finally finished this illustration that I have been working on since February and am excited to share here! It's based on the iconic album cover of Sheena Ringo's second album 'Shouso Strip'/'Winning Strip' (JP: 勝訴ストリップ).

I'm really proud of this one because it was my first time rendering a sketch instead of drawing lineart. I also got to experiment a lot with digital painting techniques and hatching and I am happy with the result! ☺

Art program used: Ibis Paint X
Time taken: ~40 hours

Sheena Ringo's first 3 albums are quintessential and I would recommend them all, however this album is particularly special to me and my personal favourite from her discography. If you haven't heard of Sheena Ringo then she is DEFINITELY worth checking out!- her early works like this one are mainly pop-rock with grunge overtones. Since then, she has transitioned into more of an art pop sound with strong jazz influences, however the jazz imprint has always been present in her works since the beginning of her career. The closest western equivalents to Sheena Ringo are probably Bjork, Fiona Apple and Alanis Morisette (Ringo's debut album, Muzai Moratorium, specifically shares a lot of sonic parallels with Alanis' masterpiece Jagged Little Pill) but Ringo is truly one of a kind!

Since her debut in 1998, Sheena Ringo has cemented herself as a legend in Japanese music. Her most notable contemporaries are Hikaru Utada and Ayumi Hamasaki, however Ringo stood out immediately with powerful vocals (she became known for her raspy singing style where she rolled her R's) and eccentric imagery that dominated her early releases. She consistently and confidently defied conventions of how women were expected to look and behave in Japan at the time and wrote lyrics about taboo topics such as female sexuality and mental illness, set to raw grunge instrumentals. A great example of this is the single 'Instinct' (JP: Honnou/本能) which features on Shouso Strip. In song's iconic (yet somewhat controversial) music video, she dresses as a nurse, shatters walls of glass and seduces female patients- saying that 'women have as much right to erotic fantasies as men'. And it's SO catchy !!!

It's my dream to own this album on CD one day... Shouso Strip debuted at #1 and has since sold nearly 2.5 million copies. In my opinion, it's a phenomenal sophomore album where Ringo only went above and beyond with her vocals, melodies and experimentation to create a record that, although I don't speak Japanese, is utterly invigorating and emotional to listen to! It was also the first of Ringo's albums to begin her artistic tradition of symmetrical track lists and palindromic track/album lengths. The album is exactly 55:55 long and the song titles mirror one-another in the tracklist, with the first and last songs being called 'I am a Liar / I am an addict' respectively- notice how this pattern repeats itself with symmetrical numbers of Japanese characters in each song title as the tracklist progresses.

Tracklist breakdown: (Songs in bold are singles that have music videos and are a good place to start!)

I am a Liar (虚言症 / Kyogen-shō)
Bathroom (浴室 / Yokushitsu)
Excuse Debussy (弁解ドビュッシ / 弁解ドビュッシー Benkai Dobyusshii)
Gips (ギブス)
A Driving Rain in Darkness (闇に降る雨 / Yami ni Furu Ame) → This one is my favourite!!! The strings in the opening and the guitar riff interlude are impeccable... The MV isn't officially on YouTube but you can watch an alternative upload here! (TW: su1c1de)
Identity (アイデンティティ)
Crime and Punishment (罪と罰 / Tsumi to Batsu) → I think this song got pretty popular on TikTok so you might know it from there! Either way, it's a real standout on the album.
Stoicism (ストイシズム)
A Broken Man and Moonlight (月に負け犬 / Tsuki Ni Makeinu)
Titbits (サカナ / Sakana)
Sickbed Public (病床パブリック / Byōshō Public)
Instinct (本能 / Honnō)
I am an Addict (依存症 / Izon-shō)

I could honestly talk about this album all day! This surely won't be the last time that I blog about Sheena Ringo because she's swiftly become one of my favourite artists since I discovered her last year. I love Shouso Strip so much !!!

I hope you liked my fanart and enjoyed this write-up; kudos and comments are appreciated! I also hope that I have convinced you to check out Sheena Ringo- you won't regret it!

... Still don't believe me? ↓Listen to Shouso Strip here!↓