Make Believe Mailer 87: Japanese Summer Song 2023
Or: "Planet Of The Bass?" How About "Country Of The Baseball?"
Japan is not lacking for a “song of the summer.” It’s “Idol,” it has been “Idol” and barring something huge come the fall “Idol” will be a year-defining hit. The folks out at matsuri have embraced it, which feels like ample evidence for its status as the jam of the season in the country.
In 2023, that feels weird. Or…maybe I just read too much English-language culture writing. This has been the year where the concept of the “song of the summer” — a classic prompt for any publication in need of an article — undergoes an existential crisis. Even as the usual first wave of prognostication arrived, the very concept of a “song of the summer” came under scrutiny, from writers and Twitter philosophers. Then came lamentations about their being no song of the summer, spurring more discussions about what it all means or how, actually, that concept never existed in the first place.
I don’t know if any of this is real or has ever been real — I’m thousands upon thousands of miles away with double-digit years away from the U.S., and Japan long ago moved on from most American pop as a mainstream concern (though…hold that thought) — but I will say that in the past week I’ve seen a sudden rush / desperation to declare “Planet Of The Bass” the “song of the summer.” The single…has the same energy as a D-tier SNL Digital Short, and it makes me believe most people would absolutely lose their shit if they heard an actual Scooter song. I lived through Cosmic Bowling, and this would not play at Cosmic Bowling.
Yet I also get it, because Japan also has what I would dub an “internet song of the summer” not too far off from “Planet Of The Bass,” at least in spirit. It’s by comedians, features funny voices and plays into a longer-running social-media-based schtick.
“Kaiho Exercise” comes courtesy of YouTube-centric comedy duo AmenboPlus. They’ve been at the online lolz grind since 2018, and have amassed just under two million subscribers in large part thanks to sports-based goofs. Baseball is their go-to sport, with their winningest sketches focusing on school baseball clubs (though shout-out the ones where they…imitate NPB batting stances, which become funny because they aren’t an all-star level player). What started as kind of joke free eventually mutated into something with recurring characters and bits…anchored by the tension between an overly serious team director with a goofy voice and a player who mostly skips out on practice.
That’s it, but it’s proved popular enough to zoom the pair into buzzed-about status and even result in a manga version of their central college-based baseball club story. “Kaiho Exercise” came out in mid July, loaded with baseball jokes and character beats (I’m assuming that’s why the coach is holding pudding at one point, but uhhhh I’ll leave that to the pros), quickly gaining attention even outside of AmenboPlus’ core viewership. It topped YouTube Japan’s Trending tab, and eventually took the top spot on viral charts on domestic streaming sites. Inevitably, that’s also kickstarted imitation on short-form video platforms…assisted by the pair’s own channels.
Perhaps it’s enjoying a boost thanks to the lingering joy of Japan’s triumph in the World Baseball Classic, or maybe it getting extra boost due to its arrival at around the same time as the annual Summer Koshien high school baseball. If you’re feeling ambitious, you could say it’s connecting due to its commentary on the soul-draining qualities of school clubs and inter-generational tension…but hey you pitch The Daily Beast that one.
Really though, it’s just one of those perfect intersections of multiple trends at once leading to greater online attention. It’s a YouTuber duo already on the rise releasing a silly song backed by a cheesy electronic backdrop that tends to be the preferred sound of these tunes (critically, it’s produced by ChibaNyan of popular-yet-revilved YouTube troupe Repezen Foxx, an outfit very aware of how to create a meme song). Fans get to see the characters they already know, while those unfamiliar with AmenboPlus just get to check out something goofy centered around the most popular sport in the country. And of course, you can get in on the fun too, if you want.
It’s very much in the same lane as “Planet Of The Bass” save for two important diversions. First, it feels like DJ Crazy Times’ schtick came together on TikTok in a month, at longest, while AmenboPlus’ baseball universe has been building up for nearly two years. Second, there’s nothing new about a comedy song like this becoming blurring the boundary between online and IRL (whereas “Planet Of The Bass” feels like a moment of confusion…which might say more about American media and how much space needs to be filled). This is familiar by now.
Comedy and pop have always intersected in Japan — Yellow Magic Orchestra’s ∞Multiplies features a bunch of sketches courtesy of goofballs Snakeman Show — whether through silly projects like Geisha Girls or earnest attempts from talents at popstar careers. In the 2010s, though, comedy-first songs enjoyed even greater attention, and more importantly offered clues as to where the Japanese music industry would go. Perhaps you could go further back, but Radio Fish’s “Perfect Human” (above) from 2016 signaled the shift. Consisting of two comedians and a bunch of dancers, the EDM parody first gained attention as a YouTube upload…of a performance on a variety show. Yet that was the year the video site became central to music discovery and distribution in Japan, and “Perfect Human” underlined the sort of art long overlooked in an Oricon Chart-first world1.
Months later, Pikotaro scored a global hit2 with “PPAP,” and that was also the year Okazaki Taiiku gained a name for himself by parodying specific tropes and styles of music…the most Kyle Gordon-ish of the bunch. Not long after, domestic users could see their favorite YouTubers collab on songs geared for the social media set
There have been so many comedy songs that have gone viral in Japan in the last…nearly decade now, that I can’t even remember them all (does anyone remember the one from the woman about dating parties? Like, rules to follow?). Hell, funny bits simply using existing songs helped give American pop…long pushed out of the mainstream by K-pop here…new life. Blouson Chiemi’s “career woman” bit became a phenomenon, and helped turn Austin Mahone’s “Dirty Work” into a summer hit.
It’s all just a reminder of a truth that “Planet Of The Bass” is reminding in the States (and kind of catching at least certain observers off guard with) and “Kaiho Exercise” underlines in Japan, which is how the way of measuring a song’s success is every bit as fragmented as how one finds music. If anyone actually stuck to classic metrics, the “song of the summer” is undeniable…it’s Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night,” which has dominated the Billboard Charts. But that doesn’t feel right3, because divining a single source of popularity is impossible, with so many platforms to study and even other media entirely to explore (there’s not a lot of difference between a song gaining steam from a variety show in Japan…and one doing the same from Barbie in the States, let alone actual TV shows too).
“Planet Of The Bass” and “Kaiho Exercise” aren’t big shifts in pop music or “songs of the summer.” They are just examples letting us know that a hit, online or otherwise, can come from anywhere in the 2020s…and from anyone. It’s not that serious…which seems right in talking about this genre of song.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
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Not to get too into the weeds, but this was happening well before too…Nico Nico Douga in the 2000s has just as many comedy colliding with pop moments…but this is the moment where it felt like the mainstream was really turning to the web first…even if it was to find dance routines from TV.
Say what you will about Pen-pineapple-apple-pen, but one of the weirdest legacies remains how it charted in the Billboard Hot 100, in the mid-70s, back in 2016. A fun game to play is to see what artists who get a bunch of buzz have never passed the Pikotaro Line.
I’ll leave it to writers in America to wrestle with the other reason a lot of people don’t want to grapple with this song.