At some point this fall, Make Believe Melodies turned ten. I’d known this decade milestone was looming — mainly because 2019 also marked my tenth anniversary of moving to Japan to work in the countryside teaching English to bored teenagers “for a year or two, tops” — and toyed around with ways to celebrate. Then life happened…
This past summer, I watched Sakanaction play to a packed baseball stadium just outside of Tokyo, going on before Radiohead at one of Japan’s biggest music festivals. It’s not like I needed confirmation that Sakanaction are a big rock outfit in their home country — I’d already heard their songs countless times on TV, or…
1. Sakanaction’s music-video game remains near the top level of contemporary Japanese music, goodness gracious the bubble-era beauty of this. 2. It isn’t like Sakanaction went anywhere, but 2015 felt more like a celebration of the band’s rise up the rungs of the Japanese rock scene than…well, a glimpse of whatever was next. Mainly, the…
Sakanaction are in promotion mode, and off the heels of the video for “Years,” they’ve gone and released another video off their forthcoming B-sides and remixes collection. It’s for “Slow Motion,” which was a b-side for the (still transcendent, still tear-evoking) “Rookie.” The video is the real gem — throwback TV show motifs, full of…
Sakanaction have a new album out the first week of August! Pump the brakes a bit…Japan’s best (and most ambitious) chart-gracing band will release a “concept album,” though the concept turns out to be “b-sides and remixes” which…hey, fresh Sakanaction is better than no Sakanaction, but let’s not go throwing the “c” word around for…