Make Believe Melodies For April 21, 2025
Losing My Mind Over Oricon Trail This Week
Piaman — Friends
Piaman had me at the goofy Hanna-Barbera-ass sample popping up relatively early in “Hinode.” The first EP from Piaman — one half of dance unit RYOKO2000 and previously releasing music as Pianootoko — revels in fun little moments while it blasts ahead behind floor-ready jams. A sense of humor is to be expected from a creator behind a whole bonkers collection centered around synthesized sax, yet on Friends the silliness gets paired with sturdy sounds.
Like yeah, there’s some Wacky Racers lurking in the opener, but the bulk of it is sweltering house of the variety that should make Guchon proud. Previously released cut “Social Window” uses computer-talk sing-speak to add some charm to its throwback breaks, while similar robo-vocals shortcircuit on the throwback electro of “Accelerator.” It’s a dizzying mix, but Piaman keeps everything on track across these five tracks, resulting in a wonky but energetic set providing some of 2025’s most fun works. Get it here, or listen above.
T5UMUT5UMU — Phantom
Dance music built to pulverize. Producer T5UMUT5UMU’s latest offering collects some of their most physical-sounding tacks to date, the sorts of dispatches from a club ten stories beneath ground level. Drawing extensively from African genres such as Gqom and Amapiano, T5UMUT5UMU keeps it heavy even when introducing breezier melodies (see the delightful “Oasis,” featuring some tropical touches rattled and roughed up by the beat), and really leans into the maximalism on highlights such as “Twisted Thorns” and “Nights”. Get it here, or listen above.
bed — “Kaer Wa 3.0”
By all accounts, Tokyo outfit bed’s live show is one of the best in the country right now, being the sort of happening that people rave about every chance they get. I’ve unfortunately have yet to catch them live…the group, led by former Paellas’ frontman Tatsuya Matsumoto, embraces a club-like approach which means a lot of all-night events…so its output to me has been more hit or miss, the highs being disorienting genre experiments but the lows just sounding…like J-rock with mediocre amps. Which might not be fair, given bed’s pedigree for doing this in person so well.
“KARE WA 3.0” manages to both be a hit from the comfort of my home office and something I could imagine wowing in club asia. It’s built around riff hypnotics, less about stumbling across some sort of traditional song craft within its tumble but rather enjoying the ride for all its got. That’s underlined by Matsumoto’s singing. He’s not worried about fitting in but rather guiding the listener through the trip, and enhancing its spill. A winner in any context. Listen above.
Pachipachi Cosmic Computer! — "Dokidoki SKy Junjoo Pink"
The pair of cyber milk chan and cyber cider take a turn for an ethereal on their latest song as Pachipachi Cosmic Computer! Unfolding in a haze of electronics and directed forward by a simple beat, "Dokidoki SKy Junjoo Pink" finds the prior offering airy hooks while the latter delivers springier rap-sing verses, working together to create the project's most vapor-like work to date, with the playfulness defining both of their work floating at the center. Listen above. Note: This blurb originally appeared as part of scrmbl’s new “scrmbl selection” series which runs every Friday. I’ll be trying my best to avoid double dipping from here on out…but wanted to use this as a note to direct you towards that feature, which also includes picks from Eddie Lehecka and This Side Of Japan’s Ryo Miyauchi!
Blame Amber — “Hatata”
A playful bit of rock with enough oddball touches to be a cut above the bedroom pile. Blame Amber constructs a springy central melody and then delights in pulling parts of it out, filling the gaps in with warped vocal samples and electronic gurgles. This isn’t a deconstruction of pop as much as the artist adding her own modifications to it without losing the catchiness underneath. Listen above.
FNCY Featuring 9m88 — “Saturdays Vibrations”
One of the bright sides of 2025 has been FNCY — the trio of Chinza Dopeness, ZEN-LA-ROCK and G.RINA — picking back where they left off before going on hiatus a few years ago. Newest song “Saturdays Vibrations” nods to the past via its sampling — taking elements from the “rare groove” gem “Help Us Spread the Message” and De La Soul’s “A Roller Skating Jam Named ‘Saturdays’” which means there’s further layers of references at play — to create a very-FNCY celebration of well-worn sounds presented in a way that sounds as lively as when they first appeared. The trio even call on Taiwan’s 9m88 to join the party, adding an extra voice to the fun. Listen above.
CANI CLUB — “CANI-BALISM”
Give me your silly songs about crabs any day! The CANI CLUB project has been creating delightful busts of dance-pop for a bit now, and it continues with this fizzy little number, featuring breezy singing and a more amorphous approach to percussion. Listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of April 7, 2025 To April 14, 2025
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.
NMB48 — “Chuu-strike” (175,442 Copies Sold)
Whoa whoa whoa whoa…slow down, we got something special here seconds into the video starting. It’s my favorite genre of music video — fake news / late-night broadcast.
YES YES give me your fake news networks!
Oh I’m in heaven with this video. Moreso than the Magnolia Factory clip where they go on a David Letterman Show-ish program or even the Supercar video framed as a performance on a Dave Spector talk show, this accompanying work for “Chuu-strike” appears to have been made for less than ¥5000. They didn’t even try to give them a studio…it’s clearly someone’s living room. And man, these actors…could they not find a male announcer who can conceal a thick French accent even a little, or whose best acting comes from his eyebrows? It took me 20 minutes to get past the first 20 seconds.
Better still, it becomes clear “ONN” is supposed to be “Osaka News Network” and this intro is meant to credit NMB48 with the boom in tourism the city is experiencing, with our announcers hopefully getting whatever acting school credit they need by expressing their “love” of the group. “Well, THEY may have something to do with it” our French host says in a move that would lose any viewer of this channel, pointing towards the sky to make it even more confusing.
What I really appreciate about this Daiso-level news network is it then fails to tie into the rest of the video whatsoever. They don’t need this…but boy am I glad it’s here. The actual center of the video is NMB48 dancing in what initially looks like a really shitty version of Osaka before it gradually transforms into a CGI utopia. NMB48 ascends into the sky to perform on…a flower stage. Sure why not, wish ONN would report on what this is supposed to mean.
The coup de grâce to my mental state? This song is a faux Eurobeat pop number about baseball. Specifically, using the sport as a metaphor for not giving up in love (the “chuu-strike” refers to a pitch), and featuring some great touches about how the game is approached here versus in the States (they aren’t looking for a home run…a single will do just fine!). The choreography is built around swinging bats and pitching, which makes the initial part about “is NMB48 saving Osaka’s economy?” even more baffling.
I love it, please J-pop, as the world looks more at your music and the industry as a whole becomes more elevated, please leave space for beautiful trash like this. Listen above.
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Make Believe Bonus: Assorted Osaka Expo 2025 Music Thoughts
It has never been more over for K-pop as an international force, at least going off of what I saw at Osaka Expo 2025 this past weekend.
News And Views
Let’s just roll right into the disclosures…I help on the English-language PR front for MUSIC AWARDS JAPAN, so this big development on the industry-government front is something I’ve followed very closely (and honestly something I would have even if I was on the outside rather than the inside). The Kyoto event shared the nominees for the inaugural addition of the event this past week and…they are something.
I’ll stress once again I work on this in some capacity, but I’m trying to separate that part of my brain with the music journalist side (which, hey, is why I’m even involved with this at all). And that version of me finds these…interesting, in all senses of the word? The big categories play out pretty much as you’d expect…albeit with some confusion because it seems weird YOASOBI’s 2023 hit “Idol” would be up for an award seemingly focused on 2024. Yet that actually at least falls in the same decade, which can’t be said of other categories. Some of these are well put together — there’s a special DJ award that is stacked, and includes okadada — but others includes bewildering inclusions. Best Japanese Hip-Hop / Rap Song features…a Kenji Ozawa song from 1994? Best Japanese R&B/ Contemporary Song really stretches the definition of “contemporary” with two Utada songs from the start of her career and Tatsuro Yamashita’s “Ride On Time” from the year 1980. My personal favorite example — the otherwise great Vocaloid category fits in a vital number that also happens to be from 2011 alongside “Mesmerizer” and “Igake.”
None of these nominees actually matter as long as they don’t win1, but it does get at something I remain uneasy about regarding this entire undertaking and the government’s involvement with J-pop in 2025. Is all of this really a way to promote the future of Japanese music…or just a chance to pat yourself on the back for doing something? Because it would be way more meaningful to nominate, say, an actual young Japanese rapper over a near-60 artist who has never been a rapper. I’m still generally optimistic about what this all means…but the doubts aren’t vanishing anytime soon.The actual biggest Japanese pop culture news of the week is Gawr Gura announcing her “graduation” from hololive on May 1. That means much more for the world of Virtual YouTubing than music, but the shark creator dabbled frequently in song (including a new release after all this revelation), with her debut stream being punctuated by her “city pop shark” turn covering “Ride On Time.” She actually dabbled in that sound a lot over her career, including on one of VTubing’s finest albums to date courtesy of Houshou Marine.
Summer Sonic keeps on…happening, with some more acts announced.
Itagaki Mizuki, formerly of idol group M!LK and an actor, died after going missing in Tokyo.
Rapper JJJ died recently, according to Space Shower.
Utada Hikaru appeared as a special guest during Arca’s set at Coachella Sunday night, performing their remix of “Electricity.”
I wrote about the entertainment at the opening weekend of Osaka Expo 2025 for The Japan Times…and a general vibe check at scrmbl.
King Gnu held a guerilla live show (as much as something from a band of its size can truly be “guerilla”) in front of Kabukicho Tower last week, which attracted a ton of people. I respect those on social media who used this as a chance to remind of the greatest surprise concert from a huge J-rock name ever…the time Ichiro Yamaguchi of Sakanaction took to the Shimokitazawa streets super late at night.
Haven’t heard much from Rino Sashihara lately…turns out she’s day drinking with other YouTube-adjacent talent at a Kushikatsu Tanaka outpost. That is to say, she’s living the dream.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Check out the Best Of 2025 Spotify Playlist here!
If any of them do, this experiment basically becomes equal to the aborted “bad” Opening Ceremony from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the one where the Dentsu guy wanted Naomi Watanabe to be an “Olym-pig” and indulge in old-man humor.
Disbandment news is how I find out any given Avex group is 10 years old.