Make Believe Melodies For December 11, 2023
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yuigot — Guidebook
December is nearly halfway over, and that means year-end thoughts monopolize my brain. I shared my 2023 big-picture thoughts in The Japan Times this week, but that’s largely just touching on the marquee J-pop developments. A layer down…and on a more sonic level…the past 12 months were defined by the thrill of collaboration, and a giddiness at seeing just how porous borders could get. It feels like a direct response to COVID-born nightlife restrictions vanishing all at once. Anything is possible now…so let’s try everything.
As if to remind me of the futility of writing a best-of list before December wraps up, producer yuigot dropped their debut album Guidebook last week, perfectly underlining this 2023 theme. It’s not out of the blue…already a netlabel presence, yuigot is also 1/6th of PAS TASTA, whose GOOD POP captures this all-together-now ethos better than anything else. Nothing shocking to see it rub off on their first collection too. Here, the creator brings in Vocaloid voices, punipunidenki, bossa-nova vibes, Cwondo, samples sourced from fallout shelter videos, acoustic guitar strums, haruno and digital distortion to create a sonic playground. There’s a delight in smashing sounds — here maybe a little more playroom than you’d find in PAS TASTA — together that seems apt in summing up the year that was, and spotlights the biggest artistic thrill to emerge from it all. Listen above.
mekakushe — “Kataomo Magnet”
The left-field pop artist inches towards the middle…while happily letting some of their odder touches through. Here’s mekakushe coming as close as they can to sounding like YOASOBI, but with a glee in diverting into headphone-warping passages and experiments in silence-loudness before racing into the huge hook demanding to soundtrack at least a B-level anime. It’s a great example of tension at play between pop ambitions and a more unfiltered creativity. Listen above.
LANA — “99”
When the beat picks up an extra step…ummmmm, now that’s how to make a melancholy song really go. As always, LANA’s strongest ability remains her voice, which dips into a growl at multiple points here, as to underline the heartache lurking at the center of this coming-up-but-still-stressed anthem. Listen above.
KEN THE 390 — “All Day, All Night”
Take it from someone closer to 40 then 30…you can absolutely feel ennui in the club. KEN THE 390 recruits G.RINA to create “All Day, All Night” off of the genre-hopping set Unfiltered Blue. She gives the track a swift, somewhat-trendy (but not totally) energy that makes the ache at the core of the rapper’s verses all the more wrenching. Listen above.
JUMADIBA — Noodle
MC JUMADIBA links up with fellow rapper / rocker RYON4 for a set of bleary-eyed songs. It’s RYON4’s production winning the game, lending a slow-motion energy to these tracks over which JUMADIBA can do some of his best work of the year. Listen above.
chelmico — “Question”
A nice springy garage-leaning cut from a duo that continues to find joy out of this uptempo sounds. Helping to make the energy feel so good is the underlying sourness lurking in the lyrics, itself finding our protagonists more conflicted about their situation. Instead of getting down about it, they bop along towards whatever comes next. Listen above.
King Gnu — “):Asura:(“
I’ve mostly liked the idea of King Gnu more than I’ve liked the group’s music over the last few years. They’ve got some solids and I appreciate a project shooting a little edge into top-level J-rock after a decade of like, limp ballads from sensitive dorks. The quartet is important too, not just domestically but clearly influencing projects like Korea’s Xdinary Heroes, even if that group gets it all wrong. But personally, King Gnu have always felt like the “Hot Cheetos” of Japanese rock, better than most but offering little I’d go back for, whereas Daiki Tsuneta’s millennium parade output falls clearly in the “Flamin’ Hot” bag, the sort of thing I’m happy to enjoy way too much.
New album THE GREATEST UNKNOWN, though, is a genuine highlight from them, largely because it finds the band at the top of the J-rock peak and deciding “fuck it, try everything.” They offer up some familiar ballads and straight-ahead rockers (which I’ll say are better than usual here, I still really like “Ichizu”), but start going outside of its comfort zone quickly. There’s more experiments in moody electronics (Tsuneta really making his appreciation of Metome clear on some of these songs), messing around with tempo and, in what I can only describe as “Patrick bait,” a newfound fascination with digitally warping vocals. It’s the millennium parade approach grafted onto a band with a pop center, but willing to get weird.
The above is probably the best example of the just-try-it energy radiating out of THE GREATEST UNKNOWN. King Gnu rap over thumping beats before letting the song mutate into a dance-pop dash…before letting both sides clash. It gets downright chaotic as it progresses, careening towards a crash and even seeing vocals mutate all over the place, disorienting and thrilling all at once. Listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of November 27, 2023 To December 03, 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.
=LOVE — “Last Nota Shika Shiranai” (206,596 Copies Sold)
About as perfectly “fine” a J-pop idol song can be. Love the touches of drama delivered through the strings and the vocals, but it never feels too urgent. A boilerplate cut powered by personal connection.
News And Views
After months of waiting, the talent agency formerly known as Johnny & Associates revealed its new name last Friday. From now, the entertainment branch of the longstanding J-pop powerhouse will be called…STARTO ENTERTAINMENT. The CEO of this new agency is self-styled entrepreneur Atsushi Fukuda.
I’ll leave judgement to you dear reader, but the name…suggested by a fan...very clearly underlines the desire for a new start (with double “star” reference. Basically, everything the old agency did will now go on under STARTO. The other new company started in the wake of the reckoning, Smile-Up, deals exclusively with financial compensation for victims of Kitagawa.Yusuke Chiba, member of THEE MICHELLE GUN ELEPHANT and The Birthday, died in late November, according to information shared last week. The latest big-name musician to die unexpectedly (he was 55), this news left a lot of people shaken and surprised. Here’s what Spotify Japan’s Viral 50 looks like right now.
Breaking it up at #17 is…"Fairytale Of New York.” Heavy times.
Otoboke Beaver to open for The Red Hot Chili Peppers on upcoming North American tour.
As mentioned, I wrote about the year in Japanese music for The Japan Times, with a focus on how 2023 marked J-pop turning to the international stage. To underline that…
Ado1 announced the dates and destinations for her 2024 world tour…with stops across Asia, Europe and the United States. It’s an ambitious tour for anyone…*furiously looking up how many people live in Belgium*…let along a relatively new name in J-pop, but one with a lot working in its favor. Most notably, the fact that the North American and Europe stretches are “powered by Crunchyroll,” meaning the anime-centric streamer will be throwing its support behind the jaunt. They have a track record, as the same tagline was slapped on RADWIMPS’ 2023 tour of North America…which helped multiple dates move to bigger arenas due to ticket demand. I filed the above Japan Times piece way before this announcement…but this tour is kind of the perfect representation of newfound ambition.
Elsewhere…ever wanted to hear Jimmy Kimmel say “Atarashii Gakko!?” Well here you go…with the group’s performance on his late night show to boot.
Not quite at the same level but certainly worthy of international attention…Utada Hikaru2 celebrated their 25th anniversary by announcing a best-of album titled SCIENCE FICTION alongside a forthcoming domestic tour next summer.
Perhaps a bit less marquee…but Yuma Abe also planning to go abroad in early 2024.
Kyary and Marshmello…together at last.
The rapper formerly known as KOHH…is making his debut as a writer.
Nocchi of Perfume breaking out the Pokemon decks for Natalie.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Usual full disclosure that I was hired to write her initial English bio a bit ago.
lolz more full disclosure, as I’m part of a team working on Utada’s English language PR (did you receive a press release about this best-of? Odds are I sent it to you, tell me if you want off the list).