Make Believe Melodies For December 6, 2021
Not Alone, Not Hitori
uami — Hiru Ni Nemuro Hito
There’s something wonderful about disengaging from the world to turn inward. That’s not celebrating those cutting themselves off from the matters of the moment, but rather seeing what those opting to move at their own pace come up with while most others race forward within familiar operating hours. Fukuoka artist uami’s first full-length album Hiru Ni Nemuro Hito (roughly translating to “People Who Sleep During The Day”) uses space and sonic ripples to create a private world, where flashes of familiar pop structure emerge only to break apart under guitar feedback or sudden machine-generated percussion. What threads all of it together — even when it is acting as the disrupting force — is uami’s own voice, here drifting and multiplying over itself to create something gorgeous to tether to. It’s a great place to float for a while. Listen above.
4s4ki — “Shinsekai”
A little preview of…well, multiple thoughts currently in production. Over 2021, 4s4ki established herself as a central inspiration to a generation of (kind of literal) kids swarming to SoundCloud to share their own hybrid dance/rap outbursts. Those young creators defined the year with songs featuring…surprisingly optimistic views of themselves, as long as you pushed through the Strong Zero-fueled nihilism every young adult indulges in. “Shinsekai” is a lovely dovetail of these developments, finding the single most exciting Japanese artists going right now rejecting cynicism and self doubt in favor of embracing new possibilities through a digital cloud. Listen above.
trash angels — “Omedeto”
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about above.
@onefive — “Underground”
Batten Girls — “Watashi, Koi Hajime Tatte Yo!”
Idols always have to move fast — there’s a ticking clock, implied or sometimes stated outright over how long many of them can even do this, with rare and welcome exceptions —but rarely do they operate at this swift a pace. These two recent releases are 2021 highlights, all because of how they use speed to their advantage. For @onefive, that’s a way to get the blood pumping as they give themselves a pep talk over one of the wildest pieces of production to grace any pop song this year (I like when it sounds like locusts are eating the track alive). For Batten Girls, it’s about nervous heartbeats and the tingle of attraction, the drum ‘n’ bass ushering them forward, backed by a glow that is pure butterfly. And it never stops, because that’s not how anyone functions when crushing. Listen to both above.
Kizuna AI And De De Mouse — “Here For You”
Kizuna AI…or at least the people operating the virtual YouTuber…announced she would be going on indefinite hiatus in February (to…do something in the metaverse and/or be an NFT? Not clear on that). The character leaves behind a complicated legacy to say the least…the entire VTubing industry, a force in 2021, wouldn’t exist as we know it without AI, who showed the fandom potential of the form and crossed it over into the mainstream (complete with controversies that now seem to happen, like, biweekly in this space). She also established early on that music would be part of her talent skills set, working with netlabel names (and Yasutaka Nakata) to create buzzy electro-pop. That’s another common part of modern VTubing.
While she herself has been rather inessential towards the state of this world for about two years now, AI’s musical output remains pretty good…thanks to dynamite producer picks. Longtime collaborator De De Mouse returns for this climatic hurrah, using speedy rhythms (noticing a greater trend?) and enough electronic fireworks to give the character one more highlight in a surprisingly strong songbook. Listen above.
Food Poison Center — Hakimakuri Olympic
Wherein Foodman teams up with noise rascals Hair Stylistics (formerly Violent Onsen Geisha) for a set of tracks that add a sense of chaos to the Nagoya creators usual bounty of offbeat art. Though I will say, what’s most surprising is how coherent this all is — I clicked play bracing for noise to just destroy Foodman’s jolly beats, but they managed to strike a balance where both work surprisingly well. Like visiting the pleasant imagined neighborhood of Yasuragi Land and finding a guy bombed out on One Cup screaming at the pigeons outside the station as everyone else shuffles to work. Listen above, or get it here.
Jeter & Y ohtrixpointnever Featuring Seeda — “Fantasma”
Y ohtrixpointnever — fantastic name, especially for someone dabbling in the HyperPop corner of modern Japanese sound. Anyway, great example of the mish-mash approach a lot of these artists take, with a particular jarring drop into the rap section. Recommended for fans of underscores. Listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of November 22, 2021 To November 28, 2021
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 the 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.
Hey! Say! JUMP — “Sing-Along” (198, 291 Copies Sold)
You guys got it, I’m just going to…go step out…for a while…
OK, away from that snooze fest, let’s look at the silver and bronze slots this week instead.
Animated groups! This corner of J-pop remains largely overlooked by media but highly ahead of the curve. Love Live!, which is the universe the three groups representing that second clip above exist in, in particular predates the current fascination with avatar pop, extended-universe building and whatever feces the Bored Apes music group will hurl at us from beyond the Metaverse. For all the flack Japan gets for fax machines and CDs still existing or whatever, it’s weird to look back on 2012 and see groups like AKB48 offering early lessons in how to court a pop fandom online and a franchise like Love Live! turn to a multi-front multimedia approach to pop that’s slowly becoming normalized globally.
News And Views
Spotify Wrapped season has become a contentious time online, with the urge for artists and listeners to share their yearly listening habits as compiled by the streaming platform met by jeers from across the digital aisle by those who think this is the surveillance state at works and others who just don’t like sharing (?). Me, I’m just hear for the sweet, sweet stats. Spotify Japan revealed the most popular artist on platform within the nation’s borders was BTS, while Yuuri’s “Dry Flower” took the top song spot, just ahead of the K-pop heavyweight’s “Dynamite.” Though the rest of the top five in that category belonged exclusively to YOASOBI, who also lay claim to the most popular album on Spotify Japan. Oh, and don’t get me started on the viral chart, which features Mom and Girls’ Planet 999.
More interesting, at least to me, is what Japanese artists and songs are doing well globally. Some stalwarts remains — “Tokyo Drift (Fast And Furious)” shall never leave the top ten until Vin Diesel and family step away from the big screen — but the top artist slot belongs to, yep, YOASOBI, while the number one song is an Eve number doubling as an anime theme. Most surprising for me is #9 on the artist list, going to…extremely online rapper Takayan? I knew he had a strong international fanbase, but not enough to sneak past Kenshi Yonezu (I guess I helped, seeing as this song was my “most played” according to Spotify Wrapped).
/⋰ #Spotifyまとめ 2021 海外で最も再生された、 日本のアーティストと楽曲TOP10を発表!! \⋱ アーティスト1位は #YOASOBI🏆 楽曲1位は #Eve の "#廻廻奇譚"👏 プレイリストとあわせてCHECK 👉spotify.link/GlobalHitsJP20… @YOASOBI_staff @oO0Eve0Oo @nonsense_eye #SpotifyWrapped
On the other side of the streaming spectrum, Official HIGE DANdism won the first ever “Japanese Artist Of The Year” honor from Apple Music.
I talked to JO1 for The Japan Times, and looked at the many trends the group touch on as they try to rise up both the domestic and global pop ranks.
“Usseewa” — the title of Ado’s breakout song and also a phrase that caused a mini moral panic this past spring among the more whiny PTA organizations across the country — was among the winners of a “buzzword of the year” ranking, though Shohei Ohtani related words got all the attention (which were certainly deserving).
CHAI hanging out with ex-SMAP folks.
Streaming and outbound darlings YOASOBI held their first live show to an audience ever this past weekend, at the Nippon Budokan. Looks like fun!
Daniel Robson has a great feature on Shonen Knife in The Guardian, celebrating their 40th anniversary as a band.
Bunshun looks into turmoil within NMB48, as apparently many AKB individuals have “close connections” with Johnny & Associates talent, and it is tearing the group up.
No surprises here but still, confirmed now…entertainment industries in Japan didn’t do great during the pandemic.
What better place to end…than with more love for YOASOBI. Time named the duo’s “Kaibutsu” as the fifth best song of 2021.
Special Announcement! Make Believe Melodies is now on Ko-Fi
The album is called “Coffee,” yet he’s clearly holding a cup labelled “tea.” How embarrassing.
Make Believe Melodies is now on Ko-Fi! I’ve never seriously considered turning this into a subscription newsletter,in the same way I never entertained advertising opportunities on the old Wordpress blog, with the closest I’ve ever come being brainstorming ways “extra content” could be an incentive for people to support this. But really…the whole point of this has always been to share music that often doesn’t get much attention outside of the country with those interested, and why wall any of that off when the point is accessibility? At the same time, I wouldn’t say no to any financial kindness from readers / subscribers if offered (I guess full transparency: I used to do a round-up of this newsletter for Otaquest which offered payment, but that site is now on long-term hiatus so…the loss of that revenue stream has always been tough to fill).
So…here’s Ko-Fi, where you can make a one-time donation or a monthly payment if you’d like (and thank you so much for the one person who opted for the latter!!!). I don’t know if I will offer any kind of exclusive content for subscribers over there…it would be neat, but no idea what it would be while lining up with the ethos of the paragraph above…so for now just consider it a virtual tip jar that will probably just go to buying music on Bandcamp. So hey, go for it if you do but no worries if not…the fact anyone at all reads this is the most important thing to me. Kay, last time I’ll mention this unless some update happens, thanks!
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies