Make Believe Melodies For April 10, 2023
This Is A Pro-APOKI Publication To Be Clear
Girls² Featuring APOKI — “Countdown”
J-pop has become a little too good at following K-pop’s visual and sonic styles, aided in party by actual Korean companies and producers playing a larger role in shaping everything about new groups. As business move that could make a lot of people a ton of money…smart! But why won’t someone think about the folks like me, who long to see groups try to crack the code for their own projects and get it gloriously wrong?
Bless your souls Girls². “Countdown” clearly knows what country to look towards for inspiration, but all the details are just off. The fashion and video style nods to K-pop, but it also looks a lot like a Hello! Project video from 2014. This is segmented and plays with style like…every K-pop girl group…complete with rap interlude, but it’s all still rooted in dance-pop, and delivered in a charmingly idol way (catch the little “yo!” at the end of the rap verse for a good example). It’s sung in three languages instead of trying to wow Americans with just one. Most wonderfully, an actual Korean artist appears as a guest, and one reflecting the actual trend of “avatar pop” playing out in K-pop right now. But it’s APOKI, the virtual singer who is more Lola Bunny than Web 3.0.
God, I love it so much. The calculations of K-pop get subverted by the “let’s put on a show!” energy of J-pop idol-dom, resulting in something catchy and goofy. We need that in pop, a corner a surplus of people take too seriously — like, sure, MOONCHILD will probably be nifty, but it’s not going to have a 3-D rabbit assuming the role of life coach pre-chorus. “Countdown” is a bunch of fun, and you can’t plan that in a board room. Listen above.
Lucky Kilimanjaro — Kimochy Season
Pretty sure it’s always Kimochy Season with these guys. Lucky Kilimanjaro’s objective from the very beginning has been to make you feel, and few groups have been as skilled at celebrating the joys of emotion and creativity like them. Their latest full-length builds on last year’s TOUGH PLAY (down to bringing back the mantra “I’m not dead!” at times, both call to live and reminder that there is a time limit to it all), continuing to cast Lucky Kilimanjaro as a Sakanaction for the self-help circuit, down to the inclusion of choirs meant to lift spirits up. What separates them from the “cool youth pastor” stink of Mrs. Green Apple is an awareness that dance music is what really gets the soul going, with the songs here shuffling along behind syncopated beats, sax samples and a “life is a dancefloor” pace. You can be as up-with-life as you want as long as you can back it up with sonic revelry. Listen above.
VaVa — Love Less
Rapper VaVa has a playful streak and an eclectic taste for backing beats — shout out Snail’s House. Both are on full display across this EP, a brief but dizzying set of speedy tracks interpolating the “Numa Numa” song and flirting with HyperPop glitchery (“uma uma”) while still putting his own energy on top. It ends with an acoustic-guitar-led mediation and, bless your soul for bucking industry trends, a “sped down” version of a song up top. Now that’s good hijinks. Listen above.
Japanese Football — Reflections Of You EP
If you want a much deeper dive into everything happening in Japan’s emo scene right now, you’d best be subscribed to This Side Of Japan, where Ryo keeps much better tabs on what’s happening in that corner than I do. Here’s a recent highlight that grabbed my attention, though, courtesy of Tokyo’s Japanese Football (sometimes making it clear is the best move). Reflections Of You uses space and speed changes as a way to up the emotional drama within, the band at their best when allowing themselves room to show off their precision alongside the feelings (“Locked Out”). Get it here, or listen above.
QU1L — “PRAY FOR U”
Though you can also get those same complicated thoughts across through squelchy electronics and distorted vocals, in a song that feels held together by digital tape. Listen above.
lazydoll — “Away”
The emotional ennui clouding almost all young Japanese SoundCloud / internet-cnetric creators gets turned into vapor on “Away.” Listen above.
SAI — “2022”
Washes of synth cover…a phone call, the everyday turned into pure mood and approaching therapy (or maybe the popping of a can tab has that effect on me). Lurking in the corners of this slice of life courtesy Ms. Machine lead singer SAI are remnants of worse times, with references to tough weekends and a longing for COVID-19 to end. A melancholy time capsule of recent history. Listen above.
Yoyou And CVN — “how r m”
For the first time in over three years, I went to an all-night club event. The party in question was AVYSS Planet at WWW, hosted by the online magazine of the same name and an event offering a great intersection of underground sounds in Japan (and beyond) for one night. SoundCloud rap courtesy of e5 collided with Toriena’s hardcore set, which gave way to an hour-long trance out courtesy of Minna No Kimochi. Fax Gang covered Miki Matsubara, which is certainly worth your time. Whatever exhaustion I felt the day after felt softened by the site of an experimental community coming together and mixing it up.
This new song from AVYSS editor / experimental electronic artist CVN and vocalist/creator Yoyou captures the creative energy hovering around the event. The latter delivers sweet and aching vocals, while the prior offers a backdrop that’s sparse when needed to be but also intense when the moment calls for a little more of a crush later on. It’s something familiar to all turned slightly odd, but with emotion intact. Listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of March 27, 2023 To April 04, 2023
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 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.
Nogizaka46 — “Hito Wa Yume Wo Nido Miru” (516,884 Copies Sold)
Ahhhh, idol sweetness undercut by the fleeting nature of youth…a formula that always works wonders for me personally. While nowhere near as angsty as Keyakizaka46 got, the latest from Nogizaka46 looks back on the hopefulness of youth…and kind of sighs realizing our protagonist gave up on dreaming because life. J-pop is well out of its glum 2020s phase, so in the end Nogizaka urge us all to dream once again (complete with nifty post-chorus breakdown accented by strings) but the sourness around the edges make that optimism well won.
News And Views
Shukan Bunshun talked to former Johnny’s Jr. member Kauan Okamoto, who detailed allegations of sexual abuse by Johnny Kitagawa, founder of Johnny & Associates.
Lots of Ryuichi Sakamoto memorial pieces rolled in over the last week, though I’m biased towards The Japan Times — James Hadfield had an excellent celebration of Sakamoto, while I talked with various artists in Japan and abroad about his influence.
Mitski could have been an idol, but instead…she was challenged to be a better writer. Let’s see her write a Dempagumi.inc song, then we can talk, though.
I love when THE FIRST TAKE deviates a little from its format, and of course Atarashii Gakko! mixed it up by performing TikTok hit “Otonablue.”
New development in Kabukicho — complete with new Zepp outpost — opens this week.
After what felt like months, Official HIGE DANdism’s “Subtitle” has been pushed out of the top spot of Spotify’s Japan 50 ranking. Congrats to a Vaundy song from 2020 for taking its place.
Imase going global. Or…at least a two hour flight away.
Twitter taking away the ability to embed tweets is kind of making this feel flat…oh well! Too bad. Have a YouTube video of Jesse from RIZE and The Bonez — one of the first people I ever interviewed in person in Japan! — showing off his tattoos instead.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
