At long last the worlds of J-Pop and heart-tugging CGI movies collide – Tokyo Hive reports a song by Hiroshima techno-pop trio Perfume will appear in Pixar’s Cars 2 both in the actual film and the soundtrack. The group’s track “Polyrhythm” will apparently appear in a scene where the main characters…who, if you haven’t been exposed to Cars before, are cars who act like humans…spend a night out in Tokyo. Beats Randy Newman.
All wisecracks aside this is actually pretty cool news for all parties involved. As Tokyo Hive notes, this isn’t just some J-Pop tacked onto a major American release in Japan to boost sales…”Polyrhythm” will now be Perfume’s global debut as it will be featured in the main cut of the movie and on the soundtrack. Obviously Perfume nerds like myself are amped for this…I should also note I’m a little bit of a Pixar geek who might take a bullet to save the last copy of Ratatouille…yet anyone who roots for the Japanese music scene should be a little excited as well. Sure, it’s J-Pop but at least it isn’t KAT-TUN or something. This can only be a net gain for Japan’s musical reputation, which sits limbo-low in a lot of Western minds. A few outsider reactions to Japanese pop:
– Look at this AKB48, Japan is SO WEIRD! (Semi-justified)
– Did you know boy bands in Japan have COOKING SHOWS WHOA WACKY ROBOT COUNTRY! (True! But not that weird!)
– Let’s allow X Japan to play at Lollapalooza. (Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)
Yep…mostly the butt of jokes. Perfume, though, seem to have become the one contemporary J-Pop group capable of worming into Western media without becoming a punchline. There was that time they inexplicably appeared on American Dad of all places, described as “Japanese funk from the future” and…well, actually being used as background music. No biting jokes, especially seeing as the folks behind that show usually love easy cultural pot shots. Pixar rarely goes for such an easy gag as “lol Japan” so it’s safe to assume Perfume won’t be skewered. This could actually expose the group to a larger fan base, even if said set of fans are an average age of seven (kids love Cars.
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebWsTKtTHzs”]