Make Believe Melodies For February 24, 2025

Goofy With A Heart Of Gold

Peterparker69 And Yojiro Noda — “Hey phone”

The duo behind Peterparker69 have constantly tried to present themselves as goofballs. That name, for one, but also merch apologizing for their laziness and music videos predominately finding them dancing in malls. One member goes by Y ohtrixpointnever. Perhaps in some other timeline the pair shine as sonic pranksters. Yet in this one, that class-clown exterior hides a deeply vulnerable interior.

“Hey phone” makes this clear, even if the accompanying music video spotlights Funny-Games-esque violence. It’s the Peterparker69 sound at its most crystalized — digital haze, understated-but-efficient beat, mutating vocals snaking between Japanese and English (and Spanish) just as interested in the texture of words as they are the meaning. The two focus on longing and farewells, accepting the pain of parting but holding onto the ache all the same, with some other great youthful touches weaved in (at one point singing a question — am I an adult? Answer: “I don’t care”).

Elevating it further — emotionally and as something making “Hey phone” part of a greater lineage in Japanese music — is the appearance of Yojiro Noda. He’s a vocal fan of Peterparker69¹, so this guesting feels a bit like him trying to elevate them up a touch, but his verse is a natural fit, both thanks to the teenage emotions that have long defined his output with RADWIMPS and because — like many in the “hyperpop” scene — Peterparker69’s members grew up with that band and other J-rock generating the same adolescent energy. Echoes of it have always rung off in their work…and here, they present themselves as a new era interpretation of classic feelings. Listen above.

Cuffboi — GRAY context

While still awaiting a J-pop cosign, artist Cuffboi explores much of the same sonic and emotional terrain as Peterparker69 on latest release GRAY context. Whereas that duo holds a bit more close to their chest and can be surprisingly minimal, Cuffboi revels in business, with his songs featuring Kid-Pix-bright synths and blown-out guitar melodies. His sing-rapping, meanwhile, mutates line to line, but plays out at a faster pace that gives the songs here an urgency turning into something especially frantic on highlight “seikaimowakarannwa*.” While more hurried, Cuffboi still explores the corners of modern life in Japan, and the emotional pitfalls within. Listen above.

tofubeats Featuring Neibiss — “ON & ON”

A nifty dance-pop song celebrating the act of creating floor-ready music. This swift speed is one of tofubeat’s best modes, and here duo Neibiss join in to geek out over the collab and praise the intricacies of drum patterns. Listen above.

Thelma Aoyama — EASY MODE

Thelma Aoyama has been known to throw a sonic curveball at times — recall her pivoting towards Eurobeat madness all the way back in 2019. The best moments of her newest album EASY MODE find her veering outside of the R ‘n’ B and balladry dotting the bulks of her nearly two-decade long career. Check the slippery dance-pop and generally silly lyricism of the title track, or the lurching rap horror of the NENE-featuring “Otsu” (Aoyama bragging “I’m not a rapper / but I can beat you”). Even the moment closest to her J-pop core — the twinkly “Where u r” — finds her voice slathered in digital effects, giving in a welcome glow. Listen above.

SHADORA — “SKY”

The every-versatile iga produced the beat to “SKY,” a new track from Fukuoka’s SHADORA. It’s a luminescent piece of music, flickering ahead but given additional urgency by the guitar melodies emerging out of the electronic strobes at its core. SHADORA themselves adds to that urgency, doing an admirable job in the first half rap-singing along with the music before upping the emotional intensity in its final segment, melding just right with iga’s creation. Listen above.

SPIIICA — “Unforeseen You”

I’m always tickled by artists who revisit their own work, whether for inspiration or for a chance to approach the past from a new perspective. Long-running rock trio SPIIICA’s newest single takes its name from an EP the group released back in 2017, and this 2025 offering uses this prior work as a jumping-off point to create a slinky rock number built for the shadows nodding to its inspiration (lyrics about nostalgia, though never really reveling in it as much as trying to squeeze something out of it) while still creating a mood all its own. Listen above.

PINKBLESS And nonayu — “Chromium”

The secret weapon to this rumbling bit of kawaii-pop with a thorny exterior? It’s produced by BAILEFUNK KAKEKO, who has been drawing from all kinds of brain-scrambling varieties of Latin electronic music, and here adds a needed dissonance to the otherwise lithe vocal melodies provided by PINKBLESS and nonayu. Listen above.

Sasuke Haraguchi — “Zen No Hanashi”

Sasuke Haraguchi And e5 — “Jigoku Sensei”

Two sides of producer Sasuke Haraguchi on full display this past week. The first served as the theme song to Chinese social video site Bilibili’s New Year’s celebration, and fitting for a site that was born out of Vocaloid fandom, it finds Haraguchi playing around with Hatsune Miku and Kasane Teto, though it’s the surrounding music — featuring fragmented moments of aggression, jolly synth melodies and a generally whirlwind structure — that really shine here. Will also say that the entire Bilibili special — which you can watch here — is fascinating, and a reminder of just how fascinating the intersection of Japanese and Chinese pop culture remains.

Closer to home, Haraguchi also contributed a song to AVYSS’ forthcoming label-launch compilation, working with e5 to cover Soutaiseiriron’s “Jigoku Sensei.” It’s a playful re-imagining of the original, using Haraguchi’s surreal approach to production to make the after-world metaphors dotting the song feel more exaggerated, all with e5 nailing the emotion come the chorus. Listen above.

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Oricon Trail For The Week Of February 10, 2025 To February 16, 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.

Takanori Iwata — “Phone Number” (44,363 Copies Sold)

A member of Sandaime J Soul Brothers hits the top spot with a pleasant albeit pretty nondescript bit of mid-tempo disco-pop. This might be the favorite to be the most ho-hum Oricon topper of the year…I don’t even mean that negatively, this is as fine as fine can be, like a glass of water or something.

Let’s take this moment to also appreciate a major development over on the Spotify Japan Top 50. We’ve been living through the winter of Mrs. GREEN APPLE, with that trio having an icy grip on these streaming charts. Thankfully, sakanaction’s big return (which I praised over at scrmbl) gave the people what they clearly wanted…anything else…and the long-running band currently holds the top spot.

News And Views

• Organizer Smash announced the first lineup for this year’s edition of the Fuji Rock Festival — set for late July in Niigata Prefecture — and breaking from previous years approaches to the initial wave of artists, they went big. Sixty artists were announced for the three-day fest, with the headliners being Fred Again.., Vulfpeck and Vampire Weekend. This is an interesting — all connotations of that word — trio to put up top and would probably spur some kind of discourse around these parts about a shift to electronic acts or the general challenges of landing Western headliners in the 2020s if Smash hadn’t dropped dozens of Japanese acts alongside them, because wow the domestic side of this makes it a must-see for me at least.
  
  The big one is Tatsuro Yamashita, making his first Fuji Rock appearance ever and what might be one of the best ways to see him live possible given how tough it is to land tickets for his solo shows. It also features a reunited Suchmos, Vaundy, Otoboke Beaver, Mei Ehara, Creepy Nuts and many more. I think Smash’s decision to announce more artists — especially Japanese ones — was smart, as I haven’t seen this much excitement for a Fuji Rock lineup in years.
  

• Summer Sonic, meanwhile, will share its first lineup at the end of this week…but in an effort to get out in front of Fuji Rock, they did share one headliner and one domestic support act — Fall Out Boy and Official HIGE DANdism. Well hey, impress us more this Friday, please!
  

• This happened on X, the everything site:

  

  

• Tone Glow talks with Ichiko Aoba.
  

• At long last, McDonald’s Japan and Hatsune Miku collaborate for…a fries flavoring? As the company says, “not green onion flavored.”
  

• Japanese karaoke chain Manekineko expanding into the United States.
  

• This is a pretty quiet week huh…well, new Yukopi album out soon!
  

  
  

Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Check out the Best Of 2025 Spotify Playlist here!

1. Full disclosure: I work as the English bio writer for RADWIMPS and Noda’s solo output…so I also have had the chance to talk to him about his love of Japanese “hyperpop.” Dude knows his stuff!