I haven’t been sleeping much this week, so pardon me if this week’s Station To Station ends up being a bit briefer than others. It helps that I’ve written about some of these songs before. Gonna get at least…eight hours of sleep tonight!
NYC “Haina!”
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MowDcaiDN0E”]
Surprisingly, this new song from unloveable scamps NYC sounds different from the usual Johnny’s toxic sludge – unfortunately, it still sounds bad. Sometimes, when I have time to kill, I’ll watch kid’s show in the afternoon to study Japanese/be entertained by jokes even someone like me can get. This single sounds a lot like the goofy songs that teach toddlers to differentiate between different vegetables, except not as fun. The slower pace – not quite a driving pop song, not quite a ballad – renders “Haina!” totally goofy, and the singing one ups that in badness.
Kaela Kimura “Mamireru”
http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/xqf0w1_mamireru_lifestyle
mamireru 投稿者 Bored4Lyfe
Wrote about this one, but will just echo my old thoughts – the way Kaela Kimura keeps her fingers on the pulse of Japanese music is great enough (see: her sorta discovering Perfume, this sounding like Sakanaction), but that she manages to absorb those sounds and weave them into something distinctively her own is even better. The fact I’ve heard this song on TV a few times in the past few week? The best.
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu “Candy Candy”
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoK8DaJRDaM”]
A lot of people who like Yasutaka Nakata’s production work…or just loved “Pon Pon Pon”…don’t like this, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s latest single and her first release to be really jammed down the throats of the general public. It’s certainly different than the techno-fury of Perfume and lacks the straight-to-the-veins catchiness of Pamyu’s first single, but count me in the camp who likes this track a bit. Get over the lyrics…yeah, “chewing love” sounds messed up but is such a tiny part of the whole…and I think you find a really breezy, polished piece of pop, one packaged with a typically irresistible Nakata chorus. “Candy Candy” goes even more pop than anything on Perfume’s last album, but it’s another reminder that Nakata is really good at this stuff.
Kazuyoshi Saito “月光”
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eppFVZ45p5s”]
This dude gets an eternal pass for having the balls to post an anti-Fukushima song onto YouTube after the March 11 earthquake. Nerve! This non-controversial song (I think) is just OK, Saito putting on his best Bob Dylan impression without sounding like him…which is to say, not nasally. His vocal delivery is fluid, and that touch makes Saito’s latest more interesting than most, but this also strikes me as the sort of the song where the lyrics end up being as important as the sounds themselves. That means I’m certainly not the person to judge this, and frankly I’m not interested in it. So, this sounds just fine.
Rino Sashihara (of AKB48) “それでも好きだよ”
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCYvQWtFs5w”]
Girl knows how to wink at the camera, I give her that.
湘南乃風 “炎天夏”
Welp, can’t find this.
Winner Of The Week – Surprisingly good week! As much as I love Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s sugar overload, Kaela Kimura towers over everything else.