Make Believe Melodies For July 27, 2021
Featuring The Best-Selling J-pop Single So Far This Year
Haru Nemuri — “Old Fashioned”
The obvious hook with “Old Fashioned” is the political left-hook, using the current Tokyo 2020 Olympics as a way to build lyrical momentum against those in charge who refuse to adjust to new realities. Like most of her previous work, she keeps the rage general, the Games being specifically mentioned but feeling more like a stand in for the sort of entrenched power that millions know around the globe. She remains one of the best at channeling that anger into something direct and open for all to embrace, with cleverness to boot (this is built around a donut metaphor!).
Listening to it, though, I’m just as equally struck by the sound….is Haru Nemuri HyperPop? Is that an idiotic question? I’ve been thinking about the style a lot recently for work reasons, with this lovely documentary by Noah Simon doing a great job of prodding the ol’ brain to think more about it. “Old Fashioned” plays with a lot of sonic ideas that have become linked with that term — rock colliding with rapped vocals leading to a digitally-warped hook where her voice ripples — but she’s also done something similar to this before, all the way back on Haru To Shura, where she blended her rock upbringing with an internet-born fascination with rap and electronic music. She doesn’t feel like someone in the same world as HyperPop…but she also does intersect with a lot of the same musical ideas, and reflects a similar background. It’s ultimately not that heavy an exercise — part of the thrill of HyperPop is knowing many of the artists involved don’t act too defensive about that term — but it does offer a nice chance to think about artists and songs that might not immediately be associated with that tag, yet still could exist in that orbit. Listen above.
e5 — “(uwu(༺ ✧ ༻”
Frequently, I see people bagging on Auto-tune and other vocal filters online, whether out of some old-man-Jay-Z aversion to playing around with your voice or out of concern that it makes the song sound off. For me, slather on as much as the stuff as possible, make it sound as inhuman as possible. Here’s a perfect example of the right amount of manipulation, with e5 transforming every syllable into an electrical surge. Paired with the urgency surging through this just-over-90-seconds tune, it makes for a racing bit of HyperPop, with e5 using a limited space to make sure every supercharged word hits directly. Listen above.
millennium parade — “U”
I saw a movie! Check another activity off that I’ve done before “seeing live music,” maybe 2022! I had some downtime on a recent trip to catch Ryu To Sobakasu No Hime, better known as Belle internationally. Maybe I’ll write a newsletter about it, seeing as a huge part of it is kind of about…Vocaloid / Virtual YouTubers / avatar pop? And that’s as dream-like an intersection I could ask for. The theme song by millennium parade is another strong number from Daiki Tsuneta’s electronic collective, using a marching-band rhythm to set the energy high and then let his female vocalist — always the key to their music, here provided by lead voice actor Kaho Nakamura — drive it home. Listen above.
Swiming Sheep And UZA — “Not Sure”
Smooth and slightly askew collaboration between Fukuoka bedroom creator Swimming Sheep and Korean electronic act UZA. A number where each brings their best attributes forward, and gels well with the other. Listen above.
CVLTE — praystaion 2
Wherein more elements of hard rock, horrorcore and visual kei (!) worm their way into Japanese HyperPop to create a grungy surprise. The moments of shut-the-fuck-up-when-I’m-talking-to-you release are cathartic although not always a hit, though they have a much higher hit rate than something like this probably should. Here’s my slight contrarian take — they actually sound best when peeling layers back, like on the fever dream of “robbers” or the emo-band-third-single soar of “memories.” Listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of July 12, 2021 To July 18, 2021
Back in the day, the Oricon Music Charts were the go-to path to music stardom in Japan. Acts of all sorts traversed these lands, trying to sell as many CDs as possible in order to land a good ranking on a chart choosing to only count physical sales, even as the Internet came to be and the number of versions offered for sale got ridiculous. Today, with the country finally in on the digital, these roads are more barren and only looked at by the most fanatic of supporters needing something to celebrate. Yet every week, a new song sells enough plastic to take the top spot. So let’s take a trip down…the Oricon Trail.
Snow Man — “HELLO HELLO” (805,691 Copies Sold)
That’s a lot of copies of a single sold! More than enough to be the best-selling single of the year thus far, outpacing plenty of heavy hitters and reminding of the continued power of Johnny’s in the market. “HELLO HELLO” is better than any top-charting Johnny’s number — even from a “new era” group like Snow Man — has any right to be, unfolding at a zippier pace that comes close to matching the absurd 2-step flirtation of “RIGHT NEXT TO YOU” but dials it just a bit back for some familiar J-pop pep talk. The little pre-chorus ramp-up is the best bit, and does a decent One Direction impersonation.
News And Views
Let us now purge ourselves of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Opening Ceremony, far and away the most contentious event on the calendar. Ahead of the July 23 spectacle, I took one more look back at the event that could have been. Then…the event we did have happened. Part somber, part goofy celebration with a little video game music sprinkled in. Also, Pictogram Person.
After spending four hours (gah) with this Friday night and then a morning thinking it over, I reviewed it for The Japan Times. I think it’s a good representation of the Games as a whole…which is to say, a no-win event due partially to the organizers but ultimately sunk by truly bizarre circumstances. Based on Twitter reaction, I don’t even think MIKIKO’s pop-culture-heavy version would have been received well either, as the situation this all plays out against is just too bizarre to inspire much positivity.
But THANK GOD it’s over, I can stop thinking about it and shut off my brain.
Gudetama has their own chill-and-relax beats channel.
The First Take presents the third edition of The First Take Fest, in mid August.
oh my god, has anything happened besides the Olympics????? Did focusing on the Olympics too much break my brain?
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies