Top 5 - these five are the best for sure. I have no idea of their order and swapped them all around several times. It feels bad putting anything at 4 or 5 because I think they all deserve at least top 3.
1. Break It, Break It! - Meiko tosses her boyfriend into Silent Hill. One of my favorites from early links, and holds up on review. Post-2:20 really kicks into overdrive. Slightly disappointed with the lyrics but that's not enough to keep this from a very high placement, everything about it is good and... precise, I guess is a good way to put it. Each note, tone, word and visual has a place and role.
2. Roshin Yukai - Huh. Huuu...h. Uncanny valley Rin maxes out the echo and distortion while singing about murder and suicide. This song is REALLY creepy, and that's a shameless one way ticket to the top of my charts. I love everything this song does, including the part where it just sto
3. Close and Open, Demons and the Dead - Ah yes. This song. This is so far outside the rest of the music that I have no idea what to say. It's the most earworm piece in the game by far, that's for sure. I have no idea whether or not I like it. It exists. It eclipses so many of the other songs.
4. This is the Happiness and Peace of Mind Committee - It is my duty to rank this highly. I think it's been discussed at some length in chat already, but... yeah I love concept songs like this and the execution is perfect for what it's going for.
5. Akatsuki Arrival - Surprisingly fun. I'm a sucker for this type of beat and was tapping my foot immediately. Has that oldschool anime OP feel, even the lyrics give me a vibe like a wayyyy toned down Ali Project thing. Nice vocals too, and actually sells the Miku/Luca rivalry that I understand is a thing in ~Vocaloid plot~. Just very solid all around, could listen to it for quite a while. Actually I looped it and waited to listen to the whole song a second time while writing this.
Good Enough That I Want To Hear Them More - Pinky Swear and Meteor are above the others here.
6. Meteor - I've heard this somewhere else before ARGH and I don't know where. Anyway it's good, I can get behind this sort of lullabye music - and then the flight section hits and the results are just transportive. Very listenable, very positive.
7. Pinky Swear - Great use of contrasts, highly evocative lyrics/video to go along with it, sells a story. Captures a similar mood to Dream-Eating Baku from PDF1. Very immersive. Love it. Not sure what else to say.
8. Blackjack - So here we have a rare inversion for me, an entry where I love the song and find it very mentally interesting, but don't like the video as much. Whatever they did to Luka's voice here really works to call attention to the tone, there's a lot of volume dynamics going on, I love listening to it. That video, though... Or should I just say that ass wiggle and be done with it? Because that's some wiggle. And unlike something like Hm? Ah Yes, I can't see why the Mild Suggestive Themes are particularly necessary for this song. Still scoring high for me but not as high as it might have with some Akagi-style antics to match the lyrics instead.
9. Erase or Zero - Star Ocean: The Len and Kaito Story, press Start to begin? Super sappy nostalgia fuel from this song, it's not a bad thing though. And the production is very strong. How to put it. It feels like a "real song" rather than a game entry? High rank for that, to me.
10. Thousand Year Solo (DIVA edit) - So I listened to Wintry Winds before this and thought "wow that was good use of Kaito and Meiko." I was wrong. THIS is good use of Kaito. This song is really good and amps up all of Kaito's particular strengths and synergies to sell the lyrics and instruments. It would not be good with anyone other than Kaito. I am highly impressed.
11. 2D Dream Fever - Oh hey, what's this at the bottom of the list? It's... Intense Voice, again, except everything here is executed well instead of meh. Cacophony! Robot themes! Musical transitions! A good video! No other pair of songs express this sort of contrast better. Yeah, it could be longer, but what's here is great.
12. Cantarella ~Grace Edition~ - Kaitopremacy continues, this isn't ... no, it is. It is very good. I keep going back and forth on it. It's so unlike the rest of the songs.
13. Romeo and Cinderella - Those are some lyrics, all right. Oh yeah, there's a good song and video too. Well, I like songs that ride a concept hard, go deep in metaphor, and touch all the right places in setting and tone.
Enjoyed Listening To Tier - A gentle slope downward.
14. Envy Cat Walk - Cacophony. Enjoyable cacophony. I like cacophony. I like cats. Like I wrote on some other ones, this has a vision and executes. The vision is one of cats, question mark?
15. Kagerou Daze - You skimped out on the truck 0/10. More seriously, this is a good intro to a story but the actual song is not... really all there. So it winds up just okay.
16. Knife - Song is reasonable, develops and does stuff. Video's pretty good too except that I can't stop staring at Miku's costume. What is that, a mummy eyepatch, star bikini top, and a thong? Is this really the canon costume? Anyway it.. hm. This is the hardest type of song to rank, I think, the values are all above average but no aspects really grabbed me in particular. Stamp a firm B- on it I guess?
17. Wintry Winds - Divided on how to rate this. Standalone, or compared to many other songs, it's not really "objectively" that good. But it does do a LOT with what it has. Kaito and Meiko are worse voices than the other vocaloids, that's just a fact of the technology's evolution, they're more primitive, more robotic and less flexible. But this? This is a way to go in on a Kaito and Meiko song and make them work. Putting them into a poetic meter japanese song with traditional instruments makes their choppy, slightly "off" voices work with the song rather than against it, and the result comes out... not great, but good. + points for Kaito swordsmanship, - points for Meiko having G-cup jiggle physics (seriously, PDF? even in THIS?)
18. The World is Mine - Wow uh that's some fetish bait there. Song has good piano. Lyrics are amusing I guess? Visuals are... pretty? I feel dirty talking about this but it's a reasonable midcarder and not harsh on the ears. Help me.
19. Doubleganger - Enjoyed listening to once. Good production. Not really my style.
20. Two-Sided Lovers - Started bad, ended up rather listenable. Nothing to write home about but I didn't mind it.
21. Clockwork Clown - Unremarkable music, but the lyrics and video punch above their weight. Enjoyed watching, no desire to listen to without video.
22. Miracle Paint - Miku tries swing! Kinda fails at it... but still does well enough that I'd prefer listening to this than most of the formula peppy pop cyberstage business. Shoopbabbadoppadoowop, yeah!
23. Luka Luka ★ Night Fever - People hyped this for last place in chat. I am almost disappointed that it's actually ok. No points for video, one of those ports from what I understand, but nothing wrong with the music here, and the vocals are well built.
24. Clover♣Club - This could have been a bad song. Maybe it is. By most rights it really should be. Whoever wrote those subs though, they had a lot of fun. The lyrics, costuming and beat hit the right notes for me to actually enjoy the absurdity of this.
Mediocre Tier - Not bad, but didn't really enjoy them either.
25. The Intense Voice of Hatsune Miku - So I said I like cacophony... but this feels mostly forced. And the self-referential vocaloid robot stuff doesn't score any points with me. It's just kind of there to massacre the rhythm game players.
26. SPiCa -39's Giving Day Edition- - There's nothing particularly special about this song, but Miku has a crazy outfit.
27. Paradichlorobenzene - So I actually knew this song beforehand, and this version... ruins or misses out on everything I liked about it. It's supposed to be Kagamine Horrorpop (TM) in the vein of Tokyo Teddy Bear, but this is just... I don't even know. Something something cage and random singing. Disappointment.
28. Kokoro - Ahh... this teased like it was going to go somewhere interesting, and then it didn't and just stayed in the same place with more kicker. There have been quite a few "robot wants to be human" songs between the PDFs, I feel like, and this is not one of the better ones. And then Rin dies at the end?
??
29. Two Breaths Walking - Kinda boring? There just... isn't a lot going on here. It's not bad, it has SOME development, just... meh.
30. Glory 3usi9 - Someone didn't understand how 1337 works? This is all right. One of the better produced generic peppy songs, although the production is kind of thin at times and that makes the Mikuvoice glare through. Not a lot to say about it.
31. Decorator - Decoration may be the best skill for aspiring queens, but bland cheerpop, as toro puts it, is not the best song for robot singers.
32. I'll Miku-Miku You♪ (For Reals) - The Luka version of this song was way better than the Miku version. Meh.
Dislike Tier - Would turn off again/10
33. Colorful x Melody - When I talk about the super peppy pop that I can't get into, this is what I mean. It's fine for what it is, probably? But ugh no not for me.
34. Packaged - Repetitive, bland, no strong points and it's not even 3 minutes long. Not actively offensive but the definition of forgettable. I actually forgot the melody while listening to it, which is... something.
35. Love-Hate - So uh, I guess we're all in on the 14 year old Kagamine incest route. Song's ok, I like the comic presentation of the video, but man, the voices are REALLY bad and bring this down. Totally choppy and monotone, and Len's has some really weird warble going on. Ultimately that makes this less than pleasing to listen to.
36. Melt - Meh. Hoped this was going to be something like Dye. Instead it was completely generic but with a harsh riff at the beginning and too-high miku. I guess the cyber stadium is the generic location of choice this time around, huh?
37. Double Lariat - Well, I dunno what's going on with the vocals on this sounding so detatched from the backing, but I don't like it. No real redeeming features in sight.
38. Hello, Worker - Poor vocals, poor song. I guess it captures the faux happiness of cubicle life or something.
39. Soundless Voice - Oh god. I wish it was soundless. That's some REALLY bad Len. And half the song is just Len alone, and the other half isn't nearly enough to salvage anything.
40. Sakura Rain - actually Nope'd out of this track at the 32 second mark. Tabbed through the rest of it. Did not get better. This is the anti-me music.
http://pastebin.com/VkEj0qHA editing in my thoughts on toro's top 50 just to have it saved somewhere for reference
