Make Believe Me-lodies 2024

Annual self indulgence!

My brain played this trick on me throughout 2024 where I constantly was thinking — “Huh, I haven’t written that much this year, have I?”

As the new year comes into view and I start reflecting on the last 12 months, I’ve realized how idiotic that nagging feeling was. What’s happening is some kind of psychological wrestling happening inside my head regarding the realities of my work life nowadays, which involves a lot of PR-related freelance work that certainly does complicate the naive side of my brain imagining music writing as a “pure” pursuit that can’t be unsullied by *gasp* promotion.

There’s probably multiple therapy sessions of career hangups and dread rattling around in my noggin, but the main realization in December is — yeah, no I wrote a lot. I’m not even counting this very blog, which should shut my head up alone. I wrote a lot, and revisiting it, a lot of it was pretty high-level stuff. I traveled to Coachella, for god’s sakes.

It was a good year, both personally and professionally, though there were certainly stretches of high stress. There’s also the looming dread surrounding the media industry at large, but there’s nothing one guy in Tokyo can do about that, and I’ll bite my tongue on a lot of issues in the professional space (my brain drops the tension between writing and PR whenever the monthly payments for both sides come in). Instead, I’ll acknowledge how lucky I am I’m able to still do what I do at this volume, and with a few more pieces still to come in 2024 — a Japan Times music wrap-up, an interview and, either next week or early January, this blog’s own favorite albums of 2024 — use this week’s space for a little self indulgence in revisiting some of my work over the year.

Thanks again for reading and supporting Make Believe Melodies, a blog that turned 15 this year, much to my shock! As long as people are curious about what’s happening over here in music, I’ll always try my best to keep it going.

January

The year always starts out a little slow, as it’s mostly a month devoted to planning and prepping stories. Still, I appeared in the above video about city pop from the South China Morning Post, and got some thoughts off in The Japan Times about what J-pop in 2024 would look like (which ended up being…very right).

February

For a few days at the start of February, Tokyo was gripped by The Eras Tour. I went to Tokyo Dome to talk to fans from across Japan, Asia and the world who flew in to see Taylor Swift perform her much-anticipated concerts, while also having the very good luck to get a last-minute invite to the show itself. Not long after, I had the chance to talk with someone filling the Swift role for me personally, when I sat down with Shutoku Mukai to talk the new Zazen Boys album. I also profiled the ever-fascinating Crystal Kay too.

Elsewhere, I talked with the folks at Time Capsule records in England about a new compilation of Japanese reggae for Bandcamp Daily.

March

Going purely off of what it took to get done, the story I’m most proud of in 2024 is this Japan Times Longform piece about the global legacy of Akira Toriyama following his death. Besides exploring one of my favorite topics — the way Japanese pop culture spreads and shapes the world — I also got all of this done in less than a week. Sometimes you have to appreciate your own hustle.

Beyond that…what a varied month of articles. I talked with Violent Magic Orchestra for Bandcamp Daily. I wrote about the Crunchyroll Anime Awards and CHAI’s final concert. Topping it off was a feature on Happy End for The Guardian. This one took shape in late 2024, but due to various hiccups and a few botches on my part, took a little longer to come out (which…is a December trend, as I find myself in similar territory right now). Yet I’m really happy with the final piece, and it received a great reception.

This month, though was dominated by prepping…like, truly last minute organizing…for something the following month.

April

Over the past week, I’ve had a lot of year-end parties to attend, and a question I have been getting regularly is some variation of “what concert was the best you saw” or “what was your favorite memory of the year.” I always end up at the same place — going to Coachella to see (and talk to) a wide variety of Japanese artists step up on the global stage was exhilarating and, as someone covering the country’s music since 2009, kind of bonkers to witness. I’ve been doing this a long time, and part of me still can’t get over how J-pop is…accepted by so many abroad now.

Elsewhere, I talked with Serani Poji about suddenly becoming a Gen Z favorite in the TikTok age, and celebrated one of the most important anniversaries of the year — “Hello Kitty” turning 10. I also had a great example of salvaging a story that could have been completely sunk by goofy demands. This piece on “Four up-and-coming music acts to start spring off right” was originally supposed to only be a profile on one of them — but that became a near impossibility when they refused to budge on commenting on certain topics that are not a big deal but they just refused to acknowledge. So rather than cut the whole piece, this mutated into an “artists to watch” list, with the other three acts offering up quotes with super-fast turnaround.

May

After a hectic start to the spring, May moved at a much chiller pace, and in retrospect is probably the most laid-back month of the year for me. Still found time to talk to Ajate for The Japan Times, while also chatting Taeko Onuki for the Primer podcast, which was a blast.

June

I returned to The Japan Times’ Longform section to look at the summer music festival at a crossroads. This is the feature that I got the most praise from people in the Japanese music and media industry about. I find the topic fascinating, and over the summer I experienced it all first hand.

I interviewed Atarashii Gakko! for the paper too, talking with them while they were in Spain preparing for Primavera Sound. Also…and this is one of the moments that makes me feel scatterbrained about how the year unfolded, because this feels like it happened a decade ago…Mrs. Green Apple’s “Columbus” debacle happening this month, which I covered. It’s a funny controversy to look back on for many reasons, with the two most interesting developments being 1. it was powered by Japanese people, not aggrieved non-Japanese residents trying to flex Howard Zinn knowledge and 2. I actually think the band handled it about as well as they could, removing the video in less than a day and apologizing for it. By the start of December, I was invited to a big ol’ Mrs. Green Apple press conference¹ where they announced future ambitions.

July

A month of big stuff! I talked to Creepy Nuts, the duo responsible behind the year’s biggest J-pop hit “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born,” and we chopped it up about Jersey Club and junk food. One of my favorite chats of the year because the pair were super real about everything. I think back on the chat a lot as the year has gone on because, since then, I’ve found myself in lots of “industry situations” where people talk about behind-the-scenes matters, which tend to come down to “can this group actually do anything abroad” or “they don’t do it the right way.” I kind of hate this stuff now because it feels so soulless…while talking to the actual artists and hearing how they went about constructing the song feels so much more lively. I feel the reason I’ve managed to mostly stay sane is my end goal remains the same as it always has been — talk to the artists and share their story.

My biggest “hit” for The Japan Times in 2024, though, came away from music. I profiled Koenji bake shop Monsta Sweets and its owner. Fantastic cookies! Yet this one went crazy for other reasons, particularly editorial savvy to illustrate the following quote on social media: “You’re always told, ‘Oh, you’ll never be accepted in Japan because you're a foreigner.’ I’ve been accepted in a community and found a real connection to this place.” This resulted in the story spilling over to greater “foreigner Twitter” and beyond, resulting in anyone with thoughts on modern Japan using it as a spring board to their own thoughts (you should have seen how scrunched my face got when Noah Smith chimed in). Happy for it and proud of the story, even if I wasn’t aiming for greater commentary and just wanted to celebrate dessert.

I returned to The Quietus for a look at the current state of Japanese indie music, featuring quick chats with a lot of my current faves. I talked with Yuka Noda about her late-80s fusion escapist gem Karibu No Yume. And most importantly…celebrated the current state of Vocaloid.

August

All about live music, specifically festival life. I went to Fuji Rock and had a great time. I went to Summer Sonic and also had a lot of fun. I’m always very happy I can attend events like this, and more so this year because I have a feeling in the near future I won’t be able to go to them as regularly as I do now. Not a last hurrah, but I can see changes ahead.

Oh, and I got Girls Band Cry into The Japan Times. Coup of the year.

September

Look, I swear…the albums list for 2024 will come soon. Maybe in the first week of 2025, but certainly nothing as bad when I waited like two years to go through 2022. Here’s a preview for you though! Two artists responsible for top ten entries also happened to be subjects of features I wrote in September. Those would be Hakushi Hasegawa for Bandcamp Daily, and Pasocom Music Club for The Japan Times.

I also caught up with Chris Broad, the creator of Abroad In Japan and a foundational J-Vlogger, to see his new bar in Shibuya. I’ve interviewed Broad multiple times over the past decade, and he’s always super straightforward (and, given the kind of toilet-level content about Japan filling up the internet today, someone whose body of work is super impressive). Right after this interview, I ran over to NHK to see a special recording of the public broadcaster’s take on Tiny Desk Concerts, and to interview those in Japan and Washington DC involved with it about the show. That ran at the very end of the month.

October

I think one reason my mind imagined that I hadn’t written that much in 2024 was because, for most of the year, I was missing a second music-centric home for my writing. Generally speaking since 2010, I’ve always had The Japan Times and one other site zeroing in on Japanese music (previously MTV 81 and then Otaquest) acting as anchors, while I chase after random other stories from there. Yet that was lacking…until October.

That’s when scrmbl, a new English-language site focused on Japanese pop culture, started running stories, and I was fortunate enough to be invited to contribute from the get-go. Early offerings included an overview of J-pop in the 2020s (think of it as a mission statement for coverage) and a review of the latest Perfume album.

I caught up with Ginger Root for The Japan Times, and also talked with Chilean band Mareo!

November

NHK invited me to the Kohaku announcement press conference, dreams achieved.

I reviewed GRAND POP, and celebrated Love Village for scrmbl. OK, now this is why I thought I didn’t do much in 2024…I took November easy for a variety of reasons ranging from “I’m going to burn out if I don’t” and some private work-related things that I won’t disclose but made me LIVID for several weeks.

December

Lurking underneath the entirety of my 2024 was a weird feeling of…sort of being exhausted by the internet? I used to do a lot more online reporting, about trends and developments on Twitter / YouTube, but drifted away from that in recent years and felt straight-up repulsed by it all in 2024. I’m trying to do a lot less on social media. Part of that is because of the well-documented issues with X, but honestly…Bluesky feels just as depressing the more I use it, and doesn’t even have Japanese users really to balance everything out. It feels…pointless, and if I dwell on it I do get sad.

Anyway, I did at least celebrate the year in animals on the internet for The Japan Times, and I will also flex a little that I’ve replaced a lot of SNS doom-and-gloom with a return to the gym in recent months, which has been great. Here’s a cat meme about it up top.

Wrapping up the year, I looked at 2024 in TV and streaming for The Japan Times. I also went to Kanye West’s favorite restaurant (was very good). I also started kicking into overdrive for scrmbl, with a look at musical virality this year, plus a tribute to Miho Nakayama. I also delivered the first music interview for the site, talking to TEMPLIME and ending the year on a nice high note.

Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Bluesky — @mbmelodies.bsky.social
Follow the Best Of 2024 Spotify Playlist here!

1. Anyone who reads this blog should also pick up on how hilarious this is given what I think of their music. I felt like I was losing my mind when I got the invite, or maybe it was a trap.