Make Believe Mailer Vol. 70: F A E S T H E T I C S
At some point in the past 24 hours, Jim Carey and Benito Mussolini's granddaughter got into a Twitter fight. I don't even know anymore! Alessandra Mussolini is best known for being part of Forza Italia, a right-wing Italian political party (well, I mean, the whole "Mussolini's granddaughter" part actually gets the most attention). But back in the 1980s, she launched an ultimately doomed entertainment career. Which includes one of the dumbest artifacts of Japan's bubble era -- her very own city pop album
Released in 1983, Amore finds the granddaughter of the European dictator navigating a mix of disco and AOR-tinged numbers in Italian, English and...wait for it...Japanese. Alfa Records released this, which makes Mussolini a one-time labelmate of Yellow Magic Orchestra and P-Model. Though I'm not sure this was ever really expected to be anything more than a curio, which it most certainly is seen as. I first heard about it after buying this book, which is probably the best overall guide to obscure funk, disco and city pop albums published in Japanese. She appears right away in the "a" section, and it didn't take long to find out you can hear the whole thing on YouTube. Spoiler alert...it's not good. Still, it's a genuinely weird thing that exists, and such a leftover from a different time that looking at why it exists actually does offer some insights into the time it came out.
So, how? Long before becoming a whacked-out politician, Mussolini basically attempted to be a talent. She mimicked the career of her aunt Sophia Loren, a far more successful singer and actor who nonetheless attempted to help her niece make headway into the entertainment world. I will not bore you with the details of her adolescent film career, but she did not become a star of the big screen. So in the 1980s she drifted into a few other areas, such as being a model for the Italian and German editions of Playboy (this is a PG-13 email newsletter!) and her career as an aspiring pop star. She ditched the entertainment world after a producer asked her to change her last name, probably because it's kind of long and hard to say.
Her music career can be summed up by two singles and Amore, an album most record shops peddling rare vinyl note comes from a descendent of Il Duce (a good attention grabber!) though a few have hilariously failed to mention. As art, it basically exists somewhere between stuff like Lie: The Love and Terror Cult and George W. Bush's paintings: charitably, there are a few good ideas, but the novelty of an album made by a terrible person ultimately gets all the actual attention (if a Japanese person with a normal background released this, it would be totally forgotten). Amore basically offers three types of songs. The first is a slinky disco that's not quite city pop and nowhere near top-level Italo-Disco, but rather just kind of walking around the dancefloor pleasantly. The second are all the songs done in Italian, somehow the worst inclusions here despite this being in her native language. Maybe because Mussolini thinks she can actually deliver some lyrical beauty in her mother tongue, these tend to be slower and groggier, like rolling out of bed. Low point "Insieme Insieme" has a harmonica melody only a Foldger's commercial could tolerate.
The third, and the closest moments anything on Amore comes to being worth remembering beyond "Mussolini's granddaughter made a dance-pop album," are the cuts worthy of city pop status. In particular, two songs here were arranged by Hiroshi Sato — a pillar of the city pop sound and all-around Japanese music heavyweight — with "Love Is Love" being the best contribution here. Like all the Japanese contributors to this album, Sato was under Alfa at the time, so this was probably something he had to bang out before the end of the day while Mussolini was in town (and yep, she recorded this in Japan). So for Sato completists, maybe worth dipping into YouTube to get a listen...but you could also just listen to all of his other better releases.
So...why does this exist? Many of the people involved with this have died or are really old now, so getting tales about Amore are unlikely (and, like, is anyone actually going to interview Mussolini about her disco-pop album??). But context from the time offers some insight. This came out during the bubble era, a period when Italian products were enjoying a boom in popularity thanks to the idea of them being higher in value, especially Italian food, dubbed "Itameshi" in Japanese. So Mussolini's nationality carried some trendiness with it. It's also not farfetched to compare this to all sorts of other bubble-era splurging found during those days, ranging from luxury vacations to buying up foreign landmarks. What's more extravagant than commissioning an album by a relative of a dictator? Or maybe this is all just because Japanese people love Sophia Loren. She had been a star in Japan since the 1950s, and appeared on TV shows and in scooter commercials after. She was on SMAP X SMAP for god's sakes.
Whatever the reason, Amore exists, but isn't something you need to listen to, though its existence is interesting in its own way. But to cleanse your palette after all that...you can always listen to Jackie Chan's city pop songs instead.
News And Views
New era name, baby! Besides spurring some memes, artists responded to Reiwa, ranging from Kyary Pamyu Pamyu excitedly sharing it to Rino Sashihara posting some exciting reveal vids. Comedy "air" band Golden Bomber, in a move of super savvy, rushed out a song called "Reiwa." Now sit back and soak in another month of Heisei nostalgia before we really get going.
Kenichi Hagiwara of influential Group Sounds outfit The Tempters died this week.
Visual Kei group Janne Da Arc announced today they are breaking up.
James Hadfield's review of the new Suchmos album in The Japan Times is spot on.
Kizuna AI out here debuting her first ever music video. When Hatsune Miku first started gaining steam, lots of people wanted to compare the character to William Gibson's Idoru but in reality AI is way closer to that cyberpunk future, albeit with a way brighter color palette.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of March 18, 2019 To March 24, 2019
This week's top single goes to the group Matsuri Nine, a group I saw performing in a food court next to Tokyo Dome two weeks ago before the baseball game Ichiro retired at. I feel OK skipping over whatever this is. A Morning Musume best-of album tops the album side.
Perfume's GAME (33 1/3)
My entry in the 33 1/3 series is still out there! Get a copy at Amazon or Bloomsbury today. You can also read a nice story about the technological background of the current show over at The Verge.
Look At Me!
Wrote about one of the scourge of netizens in Japan -- ticket resellers -- for The Japan Times' Pulse.
Wrote about the junior high school rapper whose viral hit "Pussy" went viral last year, and now had a bunch of actual adult rappers jump on a remix, for Otaquest.
Blog highlights: Native Rapper, Soleil Soleil and a new server that has sped the site up nicely.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
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