Yasutaka Nakata was starting to test my faith a bit. After a run of great Perfume singles and the lovely Capsule full-length Player, dude clearly started getting a little bored of pop-leaning production and embraced his dance side. He masterminded Capsule’s World Of Fantasy last year, a club-centric album that mostly embraced the abrasive sounds…
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEN6vsEzw5g”] This week has been all “Lana Del Rey this” and “Lana Del Rey that” and really great reviews about her new album that make you excited for the critics to write about albums they actually like. Frankly, I am sick of having to hear anything else about this album. Why don’t we turn our…
Last week, an article in in the London Evening Standard made the rounds in the Japanese music Twitter-world, one titled “Tokyo Is Trending: The Rise Of J-Pop.” The piece details the apparent “trend” of Japanese pop music and fashion gaining traction in London, pulling out the usual array of “Harajukus” and “Lolitas” that litter any…
I’ve mostly moved my discussions about Korean pop to my Tumblr, but the latest article I wrote for The Atlantic touches on both K-Pop and J-Pop. I wrote mostly about Wonder Girls and Girls’ Generations’ imminent American debuts, but I also touch on the likes of Pink Lady, Hikaru Utada and Puffy AmiYumi. If you…
Oh sweet, sweet justice. I came to Japan in the summer of 2009, and only a few months later Kentucky Fried Chicken rolled out the Double Down, a fast-food sandwich also accurately described as the moment Western culture peaked. KFC replaced the bread in a sandwich with two pieces of fried chicken, a genius/mortifying idea…