New Kindan No Tasuketsu: “Manatsu No Boyfriend”

J-Pop doesn’t need to be torn down and built back up. There are lots of bad projects selling lots of albums – this week, Kanjani8 moved more than 200,000 copies of a song, making it the highest-selling single of 2014 thus far – but plenty of great stuff appears on the charts too…and even just outside of it, on the prominent displays in music retailers and on the bills of big music festivals. No, what J-Pop needs is to have its borders expanded, because only a handful of acts are racking in impressive sales and (more importantly) appearing on festival posters. Basically, more acts should be sought out and given a chance…if nothing else, Bump Of Chicken can take a month off in the summer.

Kindan No Tasuketsu has been one of Japan’s best pop-music performers of the last year, releasing a flurry of fantastic songs (some hyper upbeat, other meditative) and a full-length album at the end of 2013. Her first new track for this year, “Manatsu No Boyfriend,” is a pumped-up electronic number featuring her familiar nursery-school-sing-song delivery and a big ecstatic chorus. It’s not quite as punch as some of her other dance-inspired cuts from last year…tough to keep that energy going for over five minutes…but still a very strong. And the video (below) is being pushed by TV station Space Shower TV. Here’s hoping this is an opening up.