So…vaporwave. It is (was?) one of those Internet-spawned genres that sounds interesting written down…accelerationists! Trash music! Capitalism!…but gets confusing fast when you start trying to figure out what vaporwave actually sounds like. Even if you settle on a sonic definition of what it is…to me, I consider it music built out samples taken mostly from cheesy sources, like old Japanese commercials or corporate videos…oftentimes the actual songs just aren’t that good. Take an old disk ad, distort the vocals a bit and…song. There are good pieces of music constructed out of this idea, but also a lot of bad ones.
Tokyo’s Shortcake Collage Tape is similar to a lot of vaporwave, but he sets his music apart on his first full-length collection Spirited Summer by creating actual songs out of his samples. Save for the song “Meet Me In Your Dreams” – which takes a sample of a commercial that was inescapable if you used YouTube in Japan last summer and manipulates it (and is great in a different way if you hated that ad, like I did) – the music on this album isn’t content to rest on its samples. Instead, the voices, taken from commercials and also anime, are reconstructed into hazy new songs that recall the past without being a slave to them. Shortcake’s best track remains “Polaroid Full Of Kisses,” which is present here and continues to wow with its woozy memories, anchored by a cartoon sample in the song’s second half. As the title hints at, Spirited Summer is an album obsessed with memories of the warmest season, and cuts like “Summer School” and “Waiting In The Afterlife” create a blurry, sun-drenched sound that Shortcake writes “is ideal for midsummer chillouts” yet sound appropriate for chillouts already past. His warmest moments come on the early one-two punch of “Empire Beach” and “Painted Ocean” which generate images of the coast via breezy synth and horn samples. And, importantly, a beat that pushes everything forward. Spirited Summer generates nostalgia, but never forgets to also squeeze emotion out of his sounds…or to make it more than a showcase of a cool sample. It’s 2013’s first great Japanese album (which, yeah, is a technicality given we are a week into it). Get it here for free.
So much stuff came out while we were on vacation, we’ve decided to just do a quick catch-up post highlighting some of the best stuff that appeared. Away we go!
Jesse Ruins’ side-project Cold Name dropped two new cuts late last week, and they continue fleshing out Cold Name’s unsettling sound. “Intent To Kill” and “Buried Alive”…fun names!…are extremely minimal affair, the latter in particular, Cold Name putting the emphasis on the distorted vocal samples and metallic rattles lurking in the shadows of these songs. “Intent To Kill,” though, stands out as it does eventually develop into something you’d expect from CUZ ME PAIN, albeit one that make you want to turn the lights on.
Still waiting on a full-length album from Nagoya’s Pop-Office, but new demo track “Whales” does a good job filling the time. It’s an eight-and-a-half-minute burner, one that finds the band sounding more polished than before. “Whales” is especially beautiful when the lead singer breaks out the falsetto.
Last, Miii with “Singer.” If you think all dubstep songs sound like mosh pits fueled by Adderall, check this out because the Tokyo producer creates one of the prettiest brostep tracks I’ve heard, featuring an appearance from “I’m Every Woman.”
Welcome back! We are back from sorta vacation, and kick off 2013 with a new song from one of our favorite musical outfits going in Japan right now, Kyoto’s Hotel Mexico. They released a new single, called “A.I. In Dreams,” near the end of December, but the official recording can’t be found online at the moment. Instead, they have released a special live version of the new song – recorded “live at home,” and it turns out Hotel Mexico sometimes live inside Predator’s head. The track sounds like a relaxed tune from the group, with one big difference…instead of relying on falsetto singing as they have on previous tracks, Hotel Mexico now feature vocals that are either normal or just a touch deeper. It’s an interesting move. Watch below.
Hotel Mexico will release a new album, called Her Decorated Post Love and which features the above single, on February 6. It features seven songs…all of them new save for “A.I.”…and has jumped up on our “most anticipated albums” list.
Osaka’s Cloudy Busey started the year with the long, lonely walk home anthem “Up To You (If You Love Me)” and later released “Have U Ever,” which he said would be perfect for Justin Bieber. Between those two, the Ice Cream Shout frontman who also records under the name Bobcat dropped “Who Says They Love You,” which summed up his output in 2012 the best. “Who Says” took sonic cues from dance music, but used house elements to build a pop song complete with a catchy chorus. Like his other releases this year though, “Who Says” contained a less-than-thrilled emotional side, highlighted by the hook’s cry of “what I would give to have a dream without you.” If “Have U Ever” was a song built for Biebs, “Who Says” could only reach its full potential via Busey’s too-busted-down-to-care delivery, which is the sonic equivalent of a shoulder shrug but a deeply familiar one.
Occult You “Cassette Girl (Minami)”
Tokyo’s Taquwami had a better collection of songs – the dizzying Blurrywonder, which turned second-long, often chipmunk’d vocal samples into romantic ecstasy –but his best song of the year came early in 2012, under his Occult You moniker. Given the fluid direction Taquwami’s sound takes from song to song, laying out the differences between the Taquwami project and Occult You can be daunting – I tried, and failed, with friends at multiples times this year, settling on a weak “uhhhhhh Occult You is easier to dance to” defense. “Cassette Girl (Minami)” manages to highlight the unique aspects of Occult You better than anything I could spit out, being both funny (check the smooth-jazz-worthy guitar that creeps in) and sentimental (the vocals, the synths, even the smooth-jazz guitar), and hey also being really dancey. The real difference, though, is that this is less blurry, Occult You creating a well-produced dance track that’s just wonderful.
I moved to Tokyo in April, and I don’t think I’ve really stopped being in motion until this Christmas vacation spent back in America. My new life has been defined by meetings and Hyperdia-generated train schedules, as I always seem to have someplace I need to be or something I need to do (or I should do). Free time – nothingness – has become a rarity, something I simply don’t find myself being able to make time for. It’s not all to blame on geography – I tend to squander whatever free seconds I have online, trying to keep up with web-based discussions on whatever social-media network occupies my current tab – but the pace of life in the city is a far cry from the life I knew in the country, or even a sleepier metropolis like Osaka.
I listened to Cuushe’s “I Dreamt About Silence” the same way I heard most music in 2012 – on the morning train to work, squeezed between others fitting in a YouTube video or an article before life got busy. Those minutes on the way to my job were some of the only I had during the day, and I spent many of them listening to the best track from a trilogy of songs obsessed with empty space (“9125days Of Sleep Waves” and “Do You Know The Way To Sleep”). “Silence” wishes for – doesn’t find, mind you – silence, Cuushe layering synths and her own voice over one another to create a lush bubble of sound that seemed appropriate on the crowded subway. Her words were often hard to make out, but the way they flowed out implied a longing for quiet, a place to meditate. The end of “Silence” offers a flash of hope, but even that was noisy. It’s one of the year’s most gorgeous songs, even when ripped from any personal context – Cuushe’s work in 2012 sounds like the flip-side to the darker, unsettling sounds of 2011’s Neon Cloud, an outfit I have a suspicion Cuushe was behind – but for me personally, it was an anthem to an often exhausting year.
Root Thumm “Simple Life”
While we are on the topic of songs that touched on what I…and I’m sure a bunch of other people…craved in 2012, Root Thumm’s self-explanatory “Simple Life.” Sonically, it’s the most drastic departure the Nara three-piece have ever made, eschewing the DIY-Nakata sound they’ve ridden for the majority of their career in favor of a more minimalist sound approaching easy-breezy indie-pop (specifically, “Simple Life” recalls the synth-heavy experiments twee-leaning outfit 800 Cherries explored in the mid-90s). This shift, though, results in Root Thumm at their most sincere, all that space allowing the group’s pastoral lyrics to hang around in the air. The words switch between natural images – blue skies, storms – and more personal aspects of one’s life, like friends and memories. The way it all unfolds is so tranquil, so drastically different than the urban hustle-and-bustle the world is heading towards, as to be a dream. Really though, the chorus sums it all up – “I love the simple life.”
mus.hiba “Magical Fizzy Drink”
Even if you ignore the specific instrument mus.hiba used to construct “Magical Fizzy Drink,” it’s still one of the year’s best songs. It’s a woozy song with an amazing attention to detail – the piano lurking beneath all of the digital unease, the mutating beat, the 8-bit blurps that only appear at the very end of the song. The mono-syllable singing is simple but captivating, regardless of where it comes from. Sonically, nothing sounded as purposefully unbalanced as this – I’m writing this blurb from a boat, and I now truly understand the word “sea sick” and this is as sea sick as it gets. It’s a wonderful piece of post-CUZ-ME-PAIN production that would shine regardless.
Yet the voice at the heart of “Magical Fizzy Drink” comes courtesy of Vocaloid, specifically Sekka Yufu, and mus.hiba’s offered up one of the most experimental – and best – uses of the singing-synthesizer software yet. The past year saw a lot of people using that technology in exciting new ways – whether it be Isao Tomita’s Vocaloid symphony, a Vocaloid opera or kz’s pure-pop adventures – yet none were as daring as mus.hiba and none were better (further evidenced by a long-ignored Nico Nico Douga page full of equally great tunes from the young producer). Vocaloid remains one of the most fertile artistic arenas around in Japan, and mus.hiba was making big moves with it.
Mass Of The Fermenting Dregs “Tantantan”
Mass Of The Fermenting Dregs called it quits in 2012, leaving behind a strong albeit small legacy highlighted by 2010’s face-crushing album Zero Comma Iro Toridori No Sekai. They said goodbye with “Tantantan,” a brief track that managed to capture everything about the outfit that will be missed immensely moving forward. It’s a song both soft and forceful, moving along at mid-tempo until the band adds exclamation points to the verses with shouted passages. Yet they never turn too aggressive…well, until the cathartic last minute…instead finding a balance. It isn’t a grand finale as much as a reminder of what Mass Of The Fermenting Dregs brought to the Japanese music scene, and as a final statement it couldn’t be better.
Nanba Shiho “Shoujo, Futatabi”
Néojaponisme recently wrote a year-end feature that opened with the declaration that 2012 was the year that “nothing happened” in Japan, while later down our friend Ian Martin wrote that mainstream Japan’s musical feature appeared “dismal.” I don’t really disagree with either of these statements, yet I also think it’s time we change our thinking about Japanese culture a bit (and I do this a lot too, so I’m not just pointing fingers at others). Hunting for a grand narrative – whether it be for a month, year or beyond – is causing people to miss out on the real story going on in Japanese culture (and all culture, really), which is total fragmentation. The golden age of J-Pop in terms of sales has long passed – so why give the Oricon charts so much sway in the music we talk about? They are still important, I admit, but also so narrow, and focusing just on them is causing folks to miss out on all the interesting pockets of culture (especially J-Pop) going on right now.
Basically, I think a whole lot of interesting stuff happened in J-Pop this year, just outside of the Oricon frame. Nanba Shiho’s “Shoujo, Futatabi” slapped me out of my brief cynical period with J-Pop back at the end of January and remains one of the year’s best singles (although her later single “MUSIC” comes close to knocking this one off). It’s a very simple song, built from very few parts but making each one of those elements count. It blurbles to life and moves forward on a simplistic, high-steppin’ beat that would make Yasutaka Nakata proud. It features synths that could have come from a Maltine Records release. It’s ultimately a ballad that refuses to be typical, the folks behind this song avoiding the path of maximum boredom in favor of creating a subdued electro-pop song that hints at a future for J-Pop that requires no major facelifts but just a refusal to phone it in. Naturally, this didn’t make a dent on Oricon, but this doesn’t bug me because this filled me with hope for the future of Japanese music, and that means a lot.
Turntable Films Featuring Predawn “Animal’s Olives”
Honestly, I don’t know where Kyoto’s Turntable Films go from here. “Animal’s Olives,” the almost eight-minute-long highlight of this year’s Yellow Yesterday, towers so high above the rest of the group’s output to almost make it mute – and this isn’t a dismissal of what they’ve done before. Turntable Films have graced previous Make Believe Melodies’ lists with Brian-Wilson-inspired pop jams and minor key folk songs, and their debut full-length album this year was a very strong collection of uptempo pop and folk numbers. This is a very talented band…but “Animal’s Olives” sounds so good as to make me forget everything else they’ve ever done. It’s an unexpected song – it is one half Krautrock endurance test, one half psych-out in the vein of a Yo La Tengo album closer (that’s some high praise). Yet despite on paper sounding quite difficult, Turntable Films grace “Animal’s Olives” with a catchiness and relatability that makes it all the better (the opening line of this song is “I catch the regular train/like always,” about as mundane as it gets – before going all magical realism on the listener). The other great decision present here was having wispy folk singer Predawn join lead singer Yosuke Inoue on the vocals, the combination of their voices lending this an even dreamier atmosphere. I don’t know how they top this one, but if they try they are braver than most.
Perfume “Point”
The biggest trend in pop music in 2012 was the rise of EDM (mainly “brostep”) and the way it spilled in to all pop music. Skrillex became a household name, Bassnectar sold out huge shows and “Levels” became this generation’s “Sandstorm.” Soon, wub-wub bass was popping up in Taylor Swift songs and commercials for cookies, and EVERYBODY seemed to be getting in on the EDM game. Japan, although not as consumed by the drop, also began embracing – Koda Kumi’s Oricon-topping “Go To The Top” took cues from brostep, Ayumi Hamasaki included a dubstep remix on her latest mini album and a small but vocal Skrillex-loving underground sprung up.
Yasutaka Nakata probably deserves some credit for being ahead of this development, and not just because one guy totally took moves from Capsule for his EDM jam this year. His music under the Capsule moniker has approached the aggressive, dance-centric vibe of EDM today, and this year’s Stereo Worxxx probably could have fallen under the EDM umbrella if it ditched the poppier songs. His most talked about – and debated – song in 2012 came courtesy of pop trio Perfume, with “Spending All My Time,” a song that took inspiration from Calvin Harris (or, if you have only listened to American pop music for the last 12 months, “Starships”) in an effort to help make Perfume more internationally known. It’s a very good song that has unfairly been judged based on what it sounds like (and the coolness of what it sounds like) and not Perfume’s most daring moment of the year.
That honor goes to “Point,” which finds Nakata one step ahead of the majority of the world’s current EDM crop. The song incorporates a drum ‘n’ bass beat, something that pops up in a lot of contemporary electronic music, but rather than surround it with the aggressive and at times lunkheaded flourishes so many producers have turned to (WUBWUBWUBWUBBBBB), Nakata goes at it in a more delicate and bubbly fashion. “Point” features plentiful harp, the sort of synths that demand inclusion in an alcohpop commercial and lyrics that long for a moment to last rather than as a call to get fucked up. The chorus, which is where the drop would be in a lot of EDM songs, starts with a line about how “a light breeze blows.” “Point” opens up the sound of EDM a bit, making it a bit friendlier and catchier without ever really deviating from the Perfume sound. Nakata had a big year, and this was his highlight, a song that should hopefully become inspiration to many producers put off by the at-times idiot masculinity of arena-filling dance music today.
Sugar’s Campaign “Netokano”
For me, 2012 goes down as the year J-Pop…or at least J-Pop just outside of the mainstream (save for Perfume, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and uhhhh AKB48)…tried to forge new sonic paths forward, more artists and producers trying new things sonically. I’ll also remember it as the year a huge chunk of Japanese indie music turned towards the past, highlighted by the boom in indie-pop that worshiped at the altar of Sarah Records and the C86 tape. This list isn’t numbered, but if it were Sugar’s Campaign “Netokano” (strangely enough, the earliest song released in 2012 on this list) would take the top spot as it found a glorious spot in-between pop futurism and retro throwback, the song itself showing it’s possible to respect the past while blazing forward.
The futuristic elements of “Netokano” aren’t surprising given who comprises half of Sugar’s Campaign – beatmakers Seiho and Avec Avec have been major players in both the blooming Kansai electronic scene (anchored by the INNIT party and Seiho’s own Day Tripper Records imprint) and the always wonky Maltine Records realm. Both produced amazing solo records in 2012 – Seiho’s spacey Mercury is one of Japan’s best longplayers, while Avec Avec’s various single releases and remixes continue to establish his joyful, colorful approach to production. The two teaming up produces some predictably cool results on “Netokano” – the synths sound like the big rainbow electronics Avec Avec breaks out live while the drum programming brings to mind a slightly reeled in – but still catchy – take on Seiho’s solo singles. This sounds like the Kansai electronic dance scene gone pop, and it’s a great turn for them.
Yet this song hides way more appreciation for the past than its beat-scene-inspired production hints at. I talked to Seiho back in February, and he said “Netokano” was a stab at “true pop music” in the vein of older performers like Tatsuro Yamashita and Toshinobu Kubota. These are artists who were releasing pop music when Seiho and Avec Avec were growing up, who had released well-known albums that either artist could have found in their parents’ record collections (I found a bunch of Yamashita albums in my closet when I lived in Mie prefecure). The funky pop sound both carved out during their primes – check this – gets updated in 2012 by Sugar’s Campaign. “Netokano” is a song built out of love for pop, and not just the old stuff – the pre-chorus bit re-imagines the sentimental chorus from Hikaru Utada’s “First Love” as something tipsy and fun, changing words but still sounding familiar.
Most importantly, all of Sugar’s Campaign’s futurism and retro looks sound like dizzying fun, summed up by those delirious “la las.” Seiho says Sugar’s Campaign wants to get signed to a major label and I really hope that somehow happens, because “Netokano” is something I picture blowing up, hitting on the nostalgic sounds and electro-pop leanings dominating the Oricon charts today. But above all else, it’s just a really fantastic celebration of pop and everything it can be.
It might be hard to tell given the number of live DVDs and best-of releases that have packed store racks this year, but Tokyo Jihen called it quits back at the start of 2012. Assessing the group’s legacy ends up being a tricky task – lead singer Shiina Ringo’s solo albums remain more adventurous than anything in her proper band’s discography, her decision to form Tokyo Jihen looking more like a way to find a way to edge away from the experimental towards something more straightforward. Her proper band had a handful of great moments, but always seemed more content to be just a solid J-Rock band with the occasional jazzy flourish rather than trying to push their sound into any strange decisions.
Yet Tokyo Jihen closed out their existence with one of – if not the – best songs they’ve ever done in “Sa_i_ta.” Penned by guitarist Ukigumo, the track finds the band pushing themselves out of their comfort zone. This is a funky, multi-part song that makes every sound matter, from the backing vocals to the handclaps that sneak into the mix at times. It’s a pop song with its eyes locked on the future – and that’s before Ringo douses her voice in Vocoder for a late song break. This is the most daring Tokyo Jihen…and Ringo herself…have been in a long time, and about as good as a note they could go out on.
Canopies And Drapes “The Door Into Summer”
Tokyo’s Canopies And Drapes gets under your skin. Her music before “The Door Into Summer” were twinkling short stories that sounded happy sonically but hid shadows behind all of the brightness, secrets that became more clear with repeated listens. “The Door Into Summer” was jarring for a different reason when it came out – it’s the most bare-bones sonic creation from Canopies And Drapes yet. She constructed the song out of nothing more than guitar, channel-hopping synth and vocals buried deeper in the mix than on her previous tracks. Despite the sonic change, “The Door Into Summer” retains her ability to imbue her music with a sense of uneasiness. It’s a song about nostalgia – “how could I/forget/I still love you/I’ll never get over that summertime/that was almost one year ago” – in yet another year swamped with songs about looking back, but this one didn’t sound wistful. The past sounds painful to her, and over the course of the song she sounds like she’s trying to work out everything that has happened, ending with the begging “I thought you were happy too.” It has been more than half a year, and this one still hides a lot.
Post Modern Team “Never Let You Down”
The boom in indie-pop music in Japan this year featured a lot of names worthy of attention, including Ano(t)raks, Boyish, For Tracy Hyde, Wallflower, Homecomings, Twinkle Twinkles, Foodie, Jolie Jolie, Elfs In Bloom, The Paellas, Soft As Snow But Warm Inside and many many more. Trying to choose a single song to capture this mostly-online movement seems like a daunting task, so why not go with the one that embraced the tenants of indie-pop in a big ol’ bear hug? The world’s first taste of Osaka’s Post Modern Team was “Never Let You Down,” the year’s best indie-pop song. If one of the appeals of indie-pop music is simplicity…and the idea that anyone can pick up a guitar and a boombox and start recording…this is about as beautifully bare bones as it gets, just a beat and some easy-breezy guitar chords leading up to that chorus. It’s five syllables long and only those five repeated, but Post Modern Team realize complexity can be a needless burden when what you already have sounds gorgeous enough. It’s nothing more than one amazing hook, but that’s what the best indie-pop leans on, and why mess with it when it’s always there for you?
Rapunzel8083 “Miró Jazz”
Spanish artist Joan Miró’s work long focused on themes of childhood, so it’s appropriate that Osaka electronic duo Rapunzel8083’s tribute to the painter features samples of toddlers talking throughout its nearly eight-minute run. Their voices aren’t saying anything particularly deep…they seem to be introducing themselves and talking about dreams, and midway through the song Rapunzel8083 even sample once-inescapable Internet meme “Charlie Bit My Finger.” Yet they elevate these young voices from kindergarten babble to something worthy of Cinemascope via their production, which combines the jittery electronics favored by Kansai electronic artists with strings plucked from a historical drama’s soundtrack. Many of the segments here first appeared as solitary beats on Rapunzel8083’s SoundCloud page, but sewed together they become more powerful and become an audio adventure, one that never lags despite running as long as nearly eight beat songs. The grandeur of the pair’s music sounds good enough alone, but it takes on a new power when mixed with those innocent voices, “Miró Jazz” portraying childhood as something powerful. The highlight comes early, when one kid tosses off a line about studying, only for the music to swell in a way that would make Terrance Malick happy.
Nami Tamaki “Paradise”
One could easily turn cynical just taking a glance over Oricon’s top singles for 2012 list – it’s a seemingly endless parade of Johnny’s projects and groups ending in a big number (though, uhhh, more on that in a bit), one that makes it look like the actual sonic qualities of J-Pop refuse to budge from the same snooze-inducing sounds that sell stupid amounts of units. Look deeper than what splatters up against Oricion, though, and you start hearing a bunch of exciting stuff, like Nami Tamaki’s “Paradise.” The production, courtesy of Shinichi Osawa, takes cues from England’s Gold Panda, all half-second stutters (check the way Tamaki’s “mhm” gets looped just after the chorus) and tipsy synths, but all rendered into a pop song that never gets bogged down in experimentalism. Instead, this song uses those more interesting sonic decision as a way to construct a really great pop song that has a unique sound in 2012’s J-Pop marketplace. This is more like an oasis.
Shortcake Collage Tape “Polaroid Full Of Kisses”
What happens when something deemed terribly uncool by a large amount of people means a lot to you personally? A lot of Japanese artists…and many internationally…did just that with Japanese cartoons, an Internet punchline that was probably around when AOL started handing out free-trial disks. Lots of folks ignored how uncool many see anime as and instead flipped it into a central tenant of their artistic output, whether it be music or art or whatever. At the center of Shortcake Collage Tape’s “Polaroid Full Of Kisses” rests a sample taken from a cartoon show the creator enjoyed as a kid, dropped in here not as a gag or meaningless political statement (hello vaporwave) but instead an aching reminder of the past. The surrounding music, from the lava-lamp bass to the dismembered voice floating around before the anime, help drive home the swirling mood, the whole thing taking cues from chillwave but also being on its own trip altogether. The key, though, is that sample, joined by a melancholy flute line that makes this one sound painfully earnest, the mind caught daydreaming about a simpler time now long gone. It isn’t remotely trendy, but it’s affecting.
Super VHS “Remember The Night”
Speaking of getting caught on a memory…I listened to “Remember The Night” for an hour straight one night while walking around the neon-tinged streets of a city I didn’t know that well. It was the end of a particularly fun weekend, a much needed break from the hum-drum of everyday life, and as I stumbled around looking for Mexican food, this song from Tokyo’s Super VHS was already making me wistful for all that had passed. It’s a strange song, as its elements are jumbled out of time – the guitars say lounge, the synths say decaying city pop, the beat says “Push It.” The vocals are basically untranscribeable, recorded as if they started fading away once the words are out of the lead singer’s mouth. Yet this at-times-awkward composition nails its time-gone-by vibe incredibly well, and is 2012’s “jam of the year for walking around a city late at night with heavy thoughts on your mind.” The conclusion, when the synths start whirring off as the track fades out, offers a glimpse of hope that these nights can happen again, while still also acknowledging that they will never be the same. I’ll never be able to reclaim that time when this song meant so much to me, but I’m sure it will soundtrack plenty more.
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu “Fashion Monster”
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s just a goofy gal who likes wearing fake eyelashes, starring in silly music videos and singing about childlike behavior, right? Nope, not with “Fashion Monster” in her singles catalog. This Halloween single features almost all of the aforementioned qualities associated with Kyary – check the steampunk-meets-Yoshi’s-Island clip – and I’ve seen more than one person bemoan how people enjoy what is a glorified ad (because all music videos aren’t selling the music within, geez). Yet “Fashion Monster” finds Kyary, who spent the majority of her excellent debut Pamyu Pamyu Revolution up to shenanigans, barring her teeth. Yasutaka Nakata’s production veers towards a more simple rock-based creation, one accented with 8-bit burps that make it more Adventure than Adventure Time. It’s a surprisingly spacey – but driving – backdrop for Kyary to get reflective. “I want to say I’m interesting/But I can’t say I’m not boring,” she sings before also wondering “do you want to be bound to the rules of someone?” The fashion scene she practically represents now has long been dismissed, both by fashion people (I talked to a few who rolled their eyes at the mention of Kyary) and by those who just need validation that Japan is weird and people basically wear Halloween costumes (which, “Fashion Monster” and that video). Kyary doesn’t want her lifestyle put under the microscope or made fun…she just wants to be free, and in a year where she became the face of Harajuku, “Fashion Monster” is the sound of her lifting that scene on her back and telling everyone else to step back.
Fancy Books “Sister Carry Stars”
Bedroom-centric label CUZ ME PAIN stood at the center of the Tokyo music scene in 2011, and they spawned a decent amount of imitators in their wake. Saitama’s Fancy Books take cues from that imprint, but what makes them stand out is how they didn’t just copy moves from those artists. Instead, they took the CUZ ME PAIN sound and pushed it into a poppier direction, best highlighted on this year’s seasick “Sister Carry Stars.” The best cut from their Wisteria EP on Dead Funny Records, “Sister Carry Stars'” individual sonic elements are all woozy, yet arranged in such a way that the track never sounds experimental but rather pop. Like the best CUZ ME PAIN productions, it sounds slightly unsettling but Fancy Books avoid being copy cats and instead use those sounds as a platform to craft their own sonic identity.
AKB48 “UZA”
OK, I know, but don’t hit “back” just yet.
AKB48 serve a very important role in the J-Pop community, both for Japanese and English critics and fans – they are the big ugly pop mutation everyone can point to and be like “THIS is killing music in Japan” or “WHY are these people inescapable?” or “HEH guess this is why the birth rate is so low” or “FUCK THIS.” There are plenty of valid reasons to criticize Japan’s premier pop militia, and a bunch of them for music reasons (and I certainly have), but AKB48 attract a dislike that transcends your usual “what the hell is wrong with people nowadays” fist shaking. People loath this group to the point people say things that would get you slapped in different situations, whether it be about the people who like this group or the women comprising AKB48 themselves, who have inspired some really vile writing that is really straight-up misogyny. It’s easy to forget, for whatever reason, that AKB48 features real people doing something they presumably love (or hell, maybe just do it because they need to pay the bills), and that extreme criticism can get terrifying really fast.
What happens, then, when a pop group ridiculed by thousands suddenly turns towards the camera, scrunches their faces up and lets out a shout of “how annoying?” That’s “UZA,” AKB48’s masterpiece and the most self-aware J-Pop song of the year, a single that recognizes how hated the AKB institution is and practically breaks down from that fact, but manages to muster up a “piss off” to those folks. The lyrics, ostensibly, deal with romance, peppered with lines like “you should love him your own way/without thinking of the other person,” but could also be read as a message to fans, to ignore what others think of their interests (say, a giant pop group). Other parts talk about hurting people, and there is that chorus, which translates to “how annoying” and which, late in the song, is delivered in a dizzying fashion that makes it sound like whoever is saying those words is losing their mind a bit. This is a single that sold a million copies and landed as the year’s fourth best-selling track…designing it to have a chorus that says “how annoying” seems very thought out.
The ultimate trick AKB48 played, though, was making a song that is legitimately good on its own sonic merits. “UZA” came out on Halloween, so it required a “spooky” theme, but that constraint ended up being the best thing that could happen to this group’s music. This sounds dark and aggressive, a complete flip from their usual sugar rush. It opens with synths lifted from a horror movie and features vocal samples, including an unsettling “just use your imagination” line. In one of the biggest surprises of the year, it turns out that bathing AKB48’s vocals in Auto-tune actually makes them sound better, especially on a track like “UZA” where the more alien the sound, the better. It’s forceful and boasts a bunch of great moments and (controversial opinion coming up) is more daring than anything a decent-sized chunk of Japan’s independent scene could muster up in 2012. A lot of very talented people spent the past 12 months coasting on past glories, while AKB48 – a group with no reason to change their style, as they will sell a million copies of whatever they put out – actually did something daring with their sound. Ideally, this would be a wake-up call in 2013, but for now it will go down as 2012’s biggest surprise and finest middle-finger.
