Make Believe Mailer Vol. 61: Festival Pop
The annual scrutinizing of the Coachella font happened this week, and look! Right below Gucci Gang, just to the left of boy pablo! Electro-pop trio Perfume is set to play Sunday at the festival.
Play for yourself! Also, shrink Unknown Mortal Orchestra down, garbage!
It's a big deal! Ultimately, you get into weird definitions of just what J-pop means*, but Perfume certainly lay claim to being the first J-pop female group to appear at what is the most famous music festival going globally, and could even be the first J-pop outfit proper depending on how you read that (is X Japan J-pop? Is Cornelius J-pop?). And even just for the group, it's a big milestone. Considering they've toured North America a couple times now, this marks a significant ratcheting up for them...and a legit challenge for them.
Plenty, though, have zeroed in on where Perfume appear on the poster. I've only seen a little of it online -- I don't really venture into deep Perfume fandom, not after I went on a Tumblr four years ago devoted to the group only to find serious discussion of Cupitron -- but I don't doubt that a lot of people are surprised by how small they are, especially compared to K-pop outfit Blackpink, who got the biggie-sized font treatment despite being around for two years and have like nine songs total to their name. But then again, they are thrilled about it all, no Burna Boy boasting here.
On the one hand, feeling stressed out by font selection actually is worthwhile. The release of the Coachella poster might be a bigger event than the festival itself...unless you are Beyonce or Kanye West, the actual performances out in the desert usually don't get too much attention. But where you land on the poster does. Just look at the media attention paid to non-English performers at Coachella. Pitchfork included this point in a takeaway list about the announcement and...look, I don't want to rehash tweets, but Perfume completely got left out, despite being in the same position X Japan were in last year (labelled a "fiasco") which the writer claimed they avoided. Blackpink has picked up significantly more press, and a huge part of that is because of the sizing of their name -- Epik High payed a couple years back, but that wasn't a development mentioned all that much back then.
But on the other hand...it also isn't a big deal Perfume, or X Japan, or any other Japanese act around for a decade-plus with no shortage of love back in their home country. This is a legacy move for all of them, and even if having to go up against Beyonce like Yoshiki and company had to last year was no good, the fact they appeared on a Coachella bill at all still carries water. For Perfume, it's another killer bullet point for the resume (and...pure [well, semi] speculation here...I think their ultimate goal is the same thing a lot of other top-level J-pop acts have their eye on at the moment, which is the 2020 Olympics. That's the omega legacy maker). And besides, Perfume are late into their career, stuff like Coachella seems like gravy on an already illustrious run (same goes for X Japan last year). Blackpink are at the very start of their own, and are being positioned as the next huge K-pop group with a chance at making inroads in the States. The festival...or Interscope...is investing in Blackpink with Coachella 2019, and so far it is paying off. Perfume can just see it as another challenge few Japanese artists have tackled -- and probably enjoy it more. Jennie actually has to look alive now!
HYUKOH should bring out, like, Scott Stapp to counter this masterstroke
Yet Perfume's inclusion at Coachella actually plays a part in a bigger story about Japanese music in 2019. One of the young stories of the year is how well Japanese acts are representing on festival line-ups this year, with Primavera Sound being the best example. That one features Chai, Suiyobi No Campanella, Shonen Knife, Midori Takada and the artist behind my favorite 2018 album Haru Nemuri, who is on several bills this year. J-pop as an idea will probably never take off in the way K-pop has, but the trade off is that a wider variety of Japanese acts can find smaller paths (or smaller stages) to connect with overseas listeners. Korean music is absolutely bigger, but it also runs the risk of being cornered as only K-pop -- just look at any writing related to non-mainstream Korean music, and note how K-pop has to play the role of the villain. That's not healthy, let alone honest about how any publications that usually don't touch the stuff see it.
But hey, Coachella is a win for everyone involved, so let's not dwell too much on big picture stuff. And let's take a step back and really soak in the biggest winners of all -- the influencers, who will be their in droves, ignoring all but Ariana Grande.
* I feel a lot of bad, generalist writing about J-pop and K-pop (and other industries reduced to one-letter classification) would be avoided if we could all come together and find a common definition for these terms? Half the problem is nobody knows what J-pop or K-pop really means...is it shared sonic qualities? Simple issues of citizenship? Just industry specific? Not being clear on this is how bullshit like EXP Edition comes to be.
News And Views
Speaking of Perfume, I enjoyed Tamar Herman's interview with them. Lots of great details, including a reminder that A-chan's family pet growing up was a squirrel.
Kohaku happened....and the ratings went up! All those ex-pats hate watching, you dummies made NHK think things were getting better. Jokes aside, this year's edition was pretty loaded, featuring the first TV appearance of Kenshi Yonezu, a bunch of old-school legends, and plenty more. It was also the first time I ever watched it (OK, flipped between it and other offerings), and the two big observations I had were that 1. Kohaku is significantly weirder than I had been lead to believe it was (or at least 2019 was) and 2. despite everyone claiming that it is in decline, Kohaku is also the only thing anyone talks about on Twitter. Spend time with your families if you don't want to see Suchmos!
A less good time was had by Sexy Zone, who rang in the New Year by seeing one member fall into another dimension.
GACKT credit card? GACKT credit card
Finally, a cry for help...I need everyone to stop me from buying this Nishino Kana shirt, which is celebrating the end of the Heisei era (she was born in 1989, get it).
Oricon Trail For The Week Of...Hey They Took The Week Off, We Are Free Of This! Happy Holidays!
Perfume's GAME (33 1/3)
My entry in the 33 1/3 Japan series is out now! Get a copy at Bloomsbury or Amazon. Or at Kinokuniya bookstores in the US. Perhaps you heard they are playing Coachella?
Look At Me!
I wrote about the hell of trains and how people talk about them online for The Japan Times' Pulse.
Blog highlights: Boogie Idol, Oyubi, Abelest
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
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