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Review: Wednesday’s Start The Start

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Physical copies of Wednesday’s debut full-length Start The Start come packaged with a pair of classic 3-D glasses. Meant to enhance the anaglyph video for single “? Love,” the red-blue shades also offer an easy critical lead-in to discussing the music. I can see the first draft now – talk a little about how 3-D movies flourished in the 1950s, connect it to how Wednesday make music perfect for that innocent time when drive-in restaurants and bomb drills were the norm, and then elaborate. Work in a Happy Days joke and, voila, review done.

Unfortunately, having spent an extended period of time with Start The Start, it has become clear that Eisenhower-sheen was misguided and this review won’t be so simple to write. Wednesday are to ’50s guitar-pop the same way the upcoming Jackass film relates to 3-D cinema. Both feature stylistic hallmarks – elementary guitar and sweet vocalizing in one, things popping off the screen in the latter – but ultimately don’t resemble the older genre at all…sleek production, the fact the thing jumping at you is dong. Plenty of moments on this album might remind you of your construct of ’50s music, but nothing actually sounds like “Love Potion No. 9.”

Which isn’t a bad thing. To draw out this analogy, isn’t the number one complaint against most modern-day 3-D movies how forced they are? G-Force throws all sorts of things at the audience…but that’s about it. A similar problem plagues much of the “throw-back” music running wild on blogs today. Plenty of acts mimic Nuggets-era rock or the plastic sounds of the 80s, but many just do a good recreation and nothing else. Wednesday rarely just sound like a band mining a particular time period dry, but rather a group borrowing some aged ideas in the pursuit of hip-shaking music.

Start The Start crams as many catchy riffs into 35 minutes as possible. Don’t expect complicated song structures or elaborate breakdowns – Wednesday keep the chords simple. Album opener “Start The Start” is basically one extended chorus, ripping ahead on vaguely Strokes-ey guitars. “Hello Myself” and “Why Love Me” up the pace by making the drums move a tad faster, the prior’s beat sounding awfully familiar to the Man In Black’s “I’ve Been Everywhere.” They avoid complications, sticking to a guitar-bass-drums set-up for the majority of the album’s run), and get right to the point – they hammer out pleasing pop, cut out the fat.

The group’s secret ingredient to crafting catchy songs are their interlocking vocals. Co-singers Ryosuke Shimaoka and Tomoya Yamagota weave their voices together to make sickly sweet harmonizing on nearly every song here. Alone, the singing sounds rough, awkward English tumbled out. Joined together, though, it becomes a lovely blast capable of lifting “Hello Myself” and rambling late-album highlight “Still I Wanna Hear You” to particularly tasty plateaus.

Wednesday sound like a Pixie Stick fueled sock-hop, but focus on the lyrics and the music suddenly becomes a lot less Leave It To Beave. It’s not the typical “sad words intentionally dropped on an upbeat piece of music” trick that tends to grow annoying when played too many times. The band sounds way more confused than downtrodden, capturing the darker sides of adolescent longing The Four Freshman ignored – “? Love” finds the song’s protagonist wracking his brain trying to figure out if he actually loves somebody, while “Fill In The Blanks” reverses the situation, the singers begging someone else to make their intentions clear because they “don’t know what you’re thinking.” The chug-a-lugging “Hello Myself” focuses on jealousy of a friend who all the girls love, which causes the singer to bust out such Three Days Grace-isms as “I just hate you/I envy you/What is good about you? which sounds very, uh, un-Three-Days-Grace-like against the music. This teenage madness erupts on album highlight “YOU;” Wednesday slow the guitars down to slow-dance speed, but this isn’t built for prom night. It’s a kiss-off, the lyrics going “Don’t need you no more/bye-bye go-away/Don’t wanna be with you/cuz I’m not gonna be like you.” It’s the one point on Start The Start where the ever-present angst bubbles over into something angry…you just would never guess from the twinkly soundtrack.

Start The Start sometimes misfires – the percussion-less “St. Nicholas Tape” sticks out, Wednesday gets a little too enamored with backwards tape on “7. 8. 9. 10. Tomorrow” and the album sorta burns out at the end – but for the most part delivers peppy guitar-pop undercut by the emotional pitfalls of youth. Like the best 3-D films (this analogy again!), Start The Start makes up for a lack of substance by being constantly pretty. It’s tough to pick out flaws when the band fires catchy tune after catchy tune at you. It’s a collection of well-executed music sans gimmickry. It may be more indebted to the music scene of the 50’s than I thought.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlTr1oEhJUA&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Live Review: Deerhoof And OGRE YOU ASSHOLE At Akaso Osaka 3/23/2010

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Being a Deerhoof fan requires a lot of effort. I don’t mean in terms of appreciating the actual music – though jarring at first, the Bay Area group’s rough-meets-cute dissection and subsequent rebuilding of rock stands as some of the most spellbinding sounds of the Oughts – but rather all the baggage that comes with it. Friends who can playfully laugh off, say, Grizzly Bear go into full-on bash mode when Deerhoof comes up. “How can you listen to this?” “Uhhhhh, OK.” One long-time pal went as far as to say “this isn’t music” after I tried to show him the genius of “Panda Panda Panda.” Deerhoof couldn’t even catch a break when they tried to be more “normal” – end-of-decade albums Friend Opportunity and Offend Maggie veered towards more traditional song structure while still staying “Deerhoofian.” My mom more or less forced me to stop playing them during a road trip. To love Deerhoof is to admire them solitarily.

This devotion got put to the ultimate test Tuesday night in Osaka when Deerhoof played the Akaso music hall, and forces both technological and natural conspired to stop me from seeing some sweet fractured rock. Midway through my grease-laden KFC dinner I realized I was on the wrong side of town, forcing me to wolf down my mayo-heavy sandwich and rush through the rainy streets of Osaka to get to the subway. Once on the right end, I spent about 45 minutes wandering aimlessly around the maze-like streets of Umeda trying to find Akaso, my phone providing the worst possible directions. For a lesser group, I probably would have given up and consoled myself at Baskin Robbins. But for Deerhoof…I trudged on. I finally found the venue and could hear the band playing the opening track to 2003’s excellent Apple O “Dummy Discards A Heart” from outside. Despite being late, I ponied up the money and went in.

Deerhoof didn’t disappoint and made my soaking journey totally worth it. The band’s current four-member incarnation leans toward guitar-heavy sound, the duo of John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez providing the muscle behind the night’s Offend Maggie heavy set list. In front of a trippy projection mixing cut-up art with a movie about Pilgrims, they delivered true-to-album renditions of “Buck And Judy” and “The Tears And Music Of Love.” The emphasis on guitars added some twists to older songs – “The Perfect Me’s” goofy anime-circe-1975 keyboards got booted in favor of a metal chug that added a sinister spin on one of the band’s more peppy tracks. The live take of “Offend Maggie” ignored the vocals entirely and instead became an extended jam.

Then there were the two “unique” elements of Deerhoof. Lead singer Satomi Matsuzaki’s cute sing-speak has always been the main reason people shun this band, but she’s come a long way since the group’s early days. She still sounds child-like, but in a way that isn’t forced. She’s no novelty – she’s morphed into a legit lead singer and she sounded confident at Akaso, delivering clear lyrics on older songs that were once to squeaky to decipher. As for drummer Greg Saunier…he remains the true spectacle live. Hunched over his kit, he pounded away in his own little world that just happened to overlap with the rest of the band. His manic beating gave “Fresh Born” an energy not present on Offend Maggie’s version. Saunier’s both the main source of chaos and the dude responsible for keeping all of Deerhoof’s disparate moving ahead – this really stands out live.

Above all else, the Deerhoof live experience is fun. I don’t mean fun like “look he’s in a giant bubble” or “he’s standing on a ladder as he sings”…I mean Deerhoof looked like they were having a ball on stage. Matsuzaki busted out her signature goofy hand motions throughout the show, and on set closer “Basket Ball Get Your Groove Back” even did some cheerleader leaps. Saunier and Dieterich even got chances to take the mic, singing covers of Canned Heat and The Ramones respectively. Saunier also seemed to be getting a kick out of practicing his Japanese with the crowd…the fact he sounds a lot like Fozzie Bear making everything all the more entertaining. I’m still sure the majority of people I know would have hated the show, but to the Deerhoof fans at Akaso it was as perfect as it could get.

OGRE YOU ASSHOLE headlined the night’s event, making this the second time they have managed to take top billing over a far more interesting North American act. Though the fact Japanese fans actually recognize them is probably the main reason, I’ll still hypothesize that the real reason they came on last was because of how freaking loud they are. They sounded absolutely behemoth thanks to Akaso’s tip-top sound system, easily coming off as twice as loud as notoriously noisy Deerhoof. OGRE use the mammoth noise as their primary hook, hoping the pure aural battering distracts from the fact none of the members do anything interesting on stage and their songs are hit-or-miss.

That’s a bit too negative, as most of their set sounded good enough. OGRE could be easily tossed into the current “they listened to indie bands from the 90s” lot alongside Cymbals Eat Guitars and Surfer Blood – a little Modest Mouse there, a pinch of Built To Spill and a nice heaping of shoegaze thrown in. They find a good sound, latch onto it for a few minutes and hope the audience enjoys it. Sometimes they stumble onto something great, other times it’s the sonic equivalent of watching a dog chasing its tail for too long. Some of OGRE’s songs just circle the drain, and circle way too long. They have two legitimate bits of excellence, though – set opener “Pinhole” finds the band at their most cheerful, while the Lonesome Crowded West inspired “Coin-Laundry (Laundromat)” kills in any setting. OGRE YOU ASSHOLE sound fine from the comfort of home, but drag a little too much live. Especially following the constantly exciting Deerhoof performance.

Maybe I’m just bitter OGRE YOU ASSHOLE cost Deerhoof a later start time, which would have allowed me to see “Panda Panda Panda.” I don’t care what you say, that songs brilliant.

Review: Capsule Player

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The differences between Yasutaka Nakata’s Capsule project and his role producing disco robo-divas Perfume aren’t much. Both outfits pump out electro-fried pop songs along with the occasional “club friendly” number. Nakata mostly stays behind the boards for both bands, letting female vocalists take the lead while he messes with the results. Hell, listen closely enough and you’ll hear the same sounds in both group’s song catalog. Capsule and Perfume both bask in the same sonic territory, sounding like the result of Sanrio opening a dance club in the Blade Runner world.

Capsule’s latest album Player, though, does an excellent job highlighting the biggest difference between Nakata’s two primary groups. Perfection is the name of the game with Perfume – there are CD singles and ice cream bars to be sold. Capsule, existing in a place where they still end up soundtracking one of the biggest Japanese movies of the year without having to worry about landing on Music Station, can get away with playing around a little bit more. Player, a good album marred by poor pacing, showcases Nakata’s more experimental approach to pop sprinkled across 10 tracks, some of which are among the most pleasurable this project has created.

Two of the best pure pop songs Capsule have ever done bookend Player. Strange, considering both songs serves as tunes in the recently released Liar Game movie in Japan. “Stay With You” opens with skippy keyboards and claps before diving into a well-thought-out fury of dancey electronics and vocals digitized to pure sonic cotton candy. Even better is album closer and advance single “Love Or Lies.” It’s 80’s echoing opening and sliced up vocal sample bring to mind a whole bunch of modern day music trends – “Love Or Lies” is basically a Delorean song, a great one at that, worthy of more blog love – while still retaining the electro-action Capsule is so good at.

It’s all in the construction. The American band most comparable to Capsule would be Passion Pit – Nakata even offered up a remix of “The Reeling” last year – thanks to both musical endeavors tendency to load their songs up as much as possible. Restraint rarely finds a way into their music. But whereas Passion Pit approach the studio like wide-eyed Bible Camp kids ready to wild out, Capsule take their time to make sure everything fits just right. “Love Or Lies” has a dubstep-aping vocal sample, a rap and a freaking banjo – but everything gets used in a tasteful manner, the song never getting too claustrophobic. Same goes for album standout “Can I Have A Word.” It opens with Disney-credit strings and boasts all sorts of dancefloor appropriate noises…but Nakata paces the whole thing perfectly, allowing primary Capsule singer Toshiko Koshijima’s silver voice to shine.

Those songs feature traces of experimentation, but it’s on the rest of Player where Nakata’s more adventurous tendencies emerge. “I Wish You” resembles a J-Pop R&B ballad broken down like a Jenga tower being reconstructed…with carefully selected blocks missing. Fellow slow jam “I Was Wrong” opens with some skeletal Fever Ray percussion before edging into a more traditional standards structure. The vocals undergo slight surgery though, a fact only revealed in the higher pitched chorus and the way the singer’s voice sometimes splits from word to word. The pop-miniature “Hello” charms with its Simon-speed electronics and recycled drums (at least they picked out the best part of “Love The World”). Electro-banger “The Music” fluxes between pop and European house, standing out as the albums best long cut.

Speaking of…the biggest lesson one can take away from Player is that Nakata is far better at pop than house music. It should have been clear after “Edge (Triangle Mix)” off of Perfume’s Triangle which attempted to ruin that album’s otherwise superb flow. But nobody told Nakata, who manages to drain this LP dry two different times with similar songs. Following the excellent “Stay With You” comes the title track, a dance beat that would have been nice at four minutes extended to seven minutes. In one of the album’s rare moments of piling too much on, though, “Player” also includes a dollar store grime rapper with absolutely nothing to say except “get funky” and something about rainbows. This might have been tolerable for one verse – maybe – but having to hear about 4/4 beats for seven horrible minutes makes this song totally skippable. The album regains momentum, and things are looking solid as “The Music” ends. Then up pops the grating “Factory,” a second long-running club track and not a very good one at that. It’s jarring, and takes away some otherwise excellent momentum.

Save for those two dancefloor duds, Player ends up being another catchy collection of electro-pop from a guy really hitting his stride with multiple groups. Props also need to be dulled out to Koshihima, who manages to do something none of the folks in Perfume can do – break through Nakata’s heavy production and sound unique. The differences between the two bands are still scant, but this album highlights the crucial deviations.

New Sugar ‘N’ Spice: “Goldenblack”

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This one has been floating around since the start of February, but I just got around to listening to it. Osaka rockers Sugar ‘N’ Spice debuted a new song live recently, called “Goldenblack.” It finds the band really driving home there “rock and roll” mindset, recalling Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” with it’s main guitar line. Though you could also argue it sounds a lot like “Brickhouse.” Either way – classic 70s rock feel. I personally find the band’s more poppy numbers to be their best, but this more funktastic approach might be up your alley.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC5worWk-WY&border=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&hl=ja_JP&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

One Week With…Kaela Kimura’s Five Years

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Amongst the bright neon lights and garish mechanized crabs of Osaka’s Dotonobori district looms Kaela Kimura. The J-Pop star leaps behind a candy shell of colors appropriate for the city’s top tourist destination, part of her black shirt digitized as if to hide something. No ad save for the famous Glico Man comes close to matching the size of Kimura’s billboard.

This towering sign might exist in the immediate to sell copies of Kimura’s new best of Five Years, but it declares something else as well. I’ve survived the J-Pop industry for five years, the pop singer would say if billboards could talk. I’m still standing.

Best-Of compilations aren’t a rare point on an established artist’s resume. Kaela Kimura’s been making music for just five years and she receives the double disk “greatest hits” treatment. What is harder to find in Japan are established artists. New musical acts pop up all the time only to find themselves just another name in a sea of white placement cards at Tower Records (which still exist in Japan!). Five years might not seem like enough time to build up a hits disk, but Kimura’s managed to thrive in a very unforgiving environment. She has earned that prominent billboard placement.

But why? The release of Five Years offers a chance to figure out why Kaela Kimura has become one of the top pop stars in Japan. My introduction to her came via “You Bet!,” the new single included on this best-of album. I know next to nothing about her or her music prior to 2010. What about her music makes it stand out from a very, very crowded J-Pop field? One week with Five Years should shed some light on this question.

(Note: I only listened to the first disk for the purposes of this article, bypassing the second “limited edition” disc. The first CD collects her biggest hits, while the other set is made up of ever-so-slightly lesser hits.)

Monday

Like many other Japanese pop starlets, Kaela Kimura’s career casts her as a jack-of-all-media-trades. Born in 1984, Kimura started her rise to the top as a model in 2002. She landed in the Japanese teen magazine Seventeen, which helped to spread her name. In 2003 she transitioned into television, becoming the co-host of the program Saku Saku. Her “new media platform a year” march continued, as she made her music debut in 2004 with her self-titled album which peaked at #8 on Japan’s all-important Oricon chart. Things grew from there, as Kimura appeared in a feature film, cameoed on J-Dramas and shilled for the likes of Vodafone and Kit Kat.

Then, as if having a revelation brought about by one too many Suntory ad campaigns, Kimura turned her attention solely to music. She stepped away from Saku Saku in 2006, and the following year her third studio album Scratch climbed up to the number one spot on the Oricon charts. It was her first album to reach the top spot and in the words of J-Pop World “firmly established Kaela as a superstar in Japan.” She’s released two albums after that (followed by Five Years) to solid sales and further popularity.

Despite shedding the exposure hopping tendencies of her early career, initial listens through Five Years reveal that same itch simply carried over into her music. It’s the first real roadblock on the path to understanding Kimura: is she an antsy artist always looking to push forward into new arenas, an opportunist bent on cashing in on the latest J-Pop trends, or simply the Japanese pop version of David Bowie? I’m inclined to go with the middle choice after doing a little research into song three here, “BANZAI.” This track finds Kimura playing with Perfume’s disco-tech style, introducing an assortment of futurey sound effects and Autotune into her act. It’s a little bit more rock oriented than any of Perfume’s music, but looking at “BANZAI’s” release date leads to raised eyebrows. Slipped into stores in May of 2009, the song came in the middle of Perfume’s high point, as Triangle’s major singles all had seen release by then.

Five Years moves backwards through Kaela Kimura’s single-ography, and as the layers of pop paint peel away over the course of this hour-plus album all sorts of musical trends get a turn in the spotlight. There’s straight-up pop-dance music (“Jasper”), tropical tinged chill out sounds (“Samantha”) and even the Glee-stomp popularized by wretched cornball Mika (“Memories”). One of Kimura’s strongest points becomes obvious a few spins through this album…she knows how to adapt to popular music trends in a non-desperate fashion that allows her to stay relevant regardless of how the mainstream musical landscape changes around her. She’s a J-Pop chameleon.

Tuesday

Kimura’s genre-hopping exercises seem like business savvy advice meant to sustain a career. Then what about her first forays into the music world? Her earliest singles had to stand out somehow. I decided to focus on her four earliest songs on Five Years for today.

Her 2004 debut single “Level 42” ends the best-of album with a bland wimper. It’s a very straight-forward “rock” song evoking some weird ’50s feel (check the piano) that doesn’t offer any interesting tricks. “Level 42” appears to be making a strange turn when a string section pops up right before the chorus, but these interesting paths never get examined any further. Of the four tracks closing out Five Years, this one charted the lowest at (a still very respectable) #14. Not surprising, as the other three singles she released before 2006 easily trump her entry into the J-Pop arena.

Those three songs don’t find Kimura breaking away from this J-Rock-lite style…she wouldn’t do that for a few years…but they do find her playing around with more interesting pop ideas. Her second single “happiness!!!” goes for straight prettiness, Kimura “ooh oooohing” the sunny intro before letting her voice take the reigns over some subdued guitar and drum. Whereas “Level 42” bunched all the sonic elements together to form a big ball of whatever, “happiness!!!” steps off a little bit to allow Kimura’s Summery vocals to show-off. This comes to a peak on “Rirura Riruha,” an early creative breakthrough and commercial victory (charted at #3 on Oricon). Kimura’s third single finally finds a musical backdrop capable of matching up with her cheery singing. It’s might also very well be the first instance of the pop star seeking out a style to mime – “Rirura Riruha’s” bouncy guitar lines sound very familiar to Weezer’s “Keep Fishin.” Regardless of where the inspiration come from, it still stands as one of Kimura’s best tracks and definitely the highlight of her early career. “BEAT” sags a bit compared to the last two mentioned songs, but pulls off head-forward pop-rock much better than “Level 42.”

Predictably, Kaela Kimura’s earliest singles sound like an artist trying to find their voice, each additional song finding her a bit more confident than before. She’s still a long way off from being the artist present on Music Station circa 2010, but her pre-2006 songs helped her get her footing into the world of pop.

Wednesday
Online retailer YesAsia lists Kaela Kimura’s “Doko” single as her “first ever ballad single.” (http://www.yesasia.com/global/doko-japan-version/1013737617-0-0-0-en/info.html). It saw release in January of 2009. Though possibly just another musical change of clothes to keep her in the J-Pop headlines…I imagine “first ballad ever!” would be front page news in a hypothetical pop tabloid…, “Doko” stands out as a rarity in her singles catalog. I’ll cop to making a bit of a generalized statement here, but it seems like a very large portion of solo female pop artists in Japan count ballad-style songs as a large chunk of their song book. Five Years includes a whole two songs the Internet (read: retail sites, fan pages) tout as being ballads.

This wouldn’t be anything more than another slick marketing move except Kaela Kimura’s limited collection of sappy love songs are among the more interesting my foreign ears have heard from the country. Not knowing much Japanese, a J-Pop ballad can’t coast on its lyrics if it hopes to win over the ears of a geeky English-speaking blogger. It should make its emotional payload clear via voice and instrument, well also not sounding like every other boring ballad clogging the TV here. This best-of compilation compiles her two accepted ballad singles, “Doko” and “Butterfly,” along with a third song I’d argue falls into the slow-saptacular category. And all three, though not close to being standouts on this record, found a way to draw me in.

“Doko” ends up easily the best of the trio of ballads on Five Years. It never lags – the tone takes on a skippy tone from the first guitar strums, picking up steam with the introduction of a minor drum beat prior to the chorus. The song shines because of its pacing, avoiding the usual dramatic build-up to the massive emotional TNT most J-Pop ballads end up taking. Instead, “Doko” sticks to the same speed for the entirety of its playtime, replacing the usual over-the-top chorus jam with some double-tracked vocals and sneaky strings. It’s a very content song, never seeking out any transformation via orchestra movement. “Doko” just skips along happily (the violins being the only element to suggest anything less than cheery) and never overdoes itself.

“Butterfly,” released later in 2009, includes a few of the aspects making “Doko” so good, specifically an ever-present beat. Yet this track stands out as being her most generic ballad, with its “look at me” chorus and Christmas cheeselog collection of bells ringing off in the background. The chorus of It’s A Small World squeaks in “Butterfly’s” final minute drive the nail into the sparkly coffin. It’s one of the weakest songs on Five Years. The song does, however, include the wonkiest musical decision possibly of Kimura’s career: “Butterfly” features harpsichord as the major instrument. It gives the ballad a weird Shakespearian feel to it (“is this J-Pop I see before me?”) and makes the whole affair memorable.

One of Kimura’s earlier singles, “You” doesn’t often get labeled a ballad. The beat factors much more prominently in this song than her other two established ballads, and the whole thing moves just a little too fast to be immediately pegged as a “ballad.” At the very least it’s “ballad-esque” and, coming off Kimura’s first four singles which were all much more uptempo, a marked departure from what she had been doing. It opens with showery guitar playing followed by Kimura’s singing, flowing along to the chorus where, following a slight pause, the guitars pick up and her voice gets a little bit louder. It’s very much “Doko” in a chrysalis, only a bit more stripped down. Definitely the most plain of the three ballad tracks on the disc, but still a relaxing listen.

Thursday

Seeing as Five Years collects all of Kaela Kimura’s singles up to today (and seeing as how most people reading this don’t have access to this album/her music in general), I think it’s not to insane to highlight the best tracks of this album. Below are my personal choices for her top tracks. No videos, though, as YouTube seems to have taken all her PVs down. Google ’em folks, sorry. I’ve left “You Bet!” off for reasons that will become apparent later on.

“Rirura Riruha” (2005)

Aside from being Kaela Kimura’s first really enjoyable single, “Rirua Riruha” manages to highlight all of the miniscule talents of later day Weezer. This song alone trumps anything on the Weez’s last three albums. A low bar, but still a pretty decent accomplishment.

“TREE CLIMBERS” (2006)

For all the words here about Kimura’s frequent genre hopping, a large chunk of her songs are just pop-rock numbers. It’s the genre she’s most comfortable running in regardless of how many times she breaks out the Autotune. “TREE CLIMBERS” could safely be called her “alt. rock” moment, opening with big Foo Fighters-aping kit smashes before settling into one of the more aggressive verses found on Five Years. It gets progressively sweeter, particularly in the song’s center. It stands out for being a bit more bumpy than the other rocker numbers on this best of disk.

“Yellow” (2007)

For about three seconds, Kaela Kimura sounds like Zazen Boys. The precise blasts of guitar that open “Yellow” (and hang around for most of the song) sound straight out of Mukai Shutoku’s bag. The rest of the song fails to sound much like Zazen Boys (Kimura sings like Kelly Clarkson here) but it does tease with math rock the whole time.

“Doko” (2009)

Kaela Kimura’s best ballad. It took her a long time to reach this point, but worth the wait. Never smothering.

“BANZAI” (2009)

Wherein Kaela Kimura does her best Perfume impersonation. The key to “BANZAI,” though, lies in how she knows she can’t be Perfume: yes she breaks out the dancefloor feel and Autotune, but she quickly retreats back to the rock-structure she built her career on around the first chorus. She could have tried to make a disco hit and come off as really corny, but instead she split the difference and ended up with the most dancey song in her repertoire.

Friday

Flashback to the start of the week – I’m eating dinner with a local family. A TV tucked into a corner near the table is on, turned to a cooking show one second, a quiz game the next. The three high school aged kids can’t settle on one program. A commercial for Five Years comes on the stage, the older tracks featured in the spot capturing little attention from the girls. Then “You Bet!!” popped up and suddenly the trio of teenagers bopped along to the song as it closed out the ad. They finally found something they could focus on, at least for ten seconds.

After spending a week with Kimura’s best-of album, it becomes clear her best musical moment is the one opening this CD. Not that the rest of her singles collection lacks memorable moments – it’s just hard to enjoy them without wanting to become a Wikipedia detective to figure out what artist inspired the song. You can’t trace “You Bet!!” to anyone in particular. It’s Kimura taking the rock-pop sound she primarily rode to the top and turbo-charging it, all without losing the catchiness present in her prior highs. “You Bet!!” displays what Kaela Kimura’s music sounds like, not what she’s trying to sound like.

Though Five Years offers a great look back at her career, it’s really value lies in showing how Kaela Kimura moves forward. The disc reveals she’s been improving over the years, getting a hang of being a pop idol and not getting too comfy in one particular type of sound. “You Bet!!” is the culmination of all this, as she seems to have finally carved out a musical identity for herself. If she follows down this path, she’ll probably find this won’t be the last time towering above downtown Osaka.