I'm saying this with a straight face, and I mean it with all my heart: I don't see what's so special about Emotional Skyscraper.
I think it's by far the most boring of the Touhou songs till know. I'm listening to it at this moment, and listened through it several times already, to try and make me like it afterall, but no results. It just doesn't spark. And it confuses me even more that people praise Emotional Skyscraper like the song of the Gods, while claiming Necrofantasia sucks. Seriously, I don't understand this. Too me, Necrofantasia is quite possily still the very best Touhou song, being epic, climatic and beautiful, and fit for the mightiest being of Gensokyo.
While most of the time a remix can make me like a song more, all remixes of Emotional Skyscraper still do nothing to me. It just doesn't have a decent climax! It's way too calm, even for Touhou song standards, and quite repetitive. It never reaches a moment of excitement, unlike almost every other song in the series! Every other final boss song in the series has a climax, a moment that describes an epic battle! You can HEAR and IMAGINE the characters fighting! This is not the case with Emotional Skyscraper... And that's why I don't like it, and like Septette, Onigashima, Lunatic Princess and especially Necrofantasia way more.
imho the song (Byakuren's theme) goes well with the character and boss fight; her patterns are memorable, like Kanako's. When I hear this bgm, I remember her patterns, how some of them reference Shinki's, how unusual was for a final boss to move around the screen during a nonspell, and how impressive (or imposing) she looks like, when the 4 lotuses appear beside her. Perhaps you're giving the song too much attention, when you're (possibly, if ZUN has foreseen this) supposed to be too focused on dodging and listening to the sound effects as well.
And imho, I can't understand why some/many people like Yuyuko's stage and boss bgm (and/or her patterns), at least when Youmu isn't on it as a midboss :p
Anyways, for the interview itself, it's interesting to hear that he makes the first stage as a test to see if the game system works as a game (and motivates him to work on further stages), and that he gave special attention to the 1st stage bgm, since he would listen to it often while testing the stage (this reminds me of how people sometimes start sketching something, and then work on that sketch if they like it enough, until it becomes a finished drawing -- however, this comparison may sound as if the drawer decides to continue drawing a body, after being happy with detailing the head, instead of being happy after sketching the body itself :p). Thank you very much, yoslime, for translating all the parts! Nice job!
