Make Believe Melodies For January 20, 2025
Sounds Of Pop To Come (I Hope)
Yuri — “USHIROJIKAN”
There’s no guarantee that Yuri — an emerging artist with one viral hit and a ton of potential — jumps up to the top level of J-pop. Yet maybe that doesn’t really matter, because what her and songs like “USHIROJIKAN” represent is more important. It’s a sign of a younger generation’s sonic texture changing in real time, and a hint of rising experimentation.
Like “Heart 111” before it, Sasuke Haraguchi produces and writes the bulk of “USHIROJIKAN.” He’s quickly separated himself as one of the slipperiest electronic creators in the country today — both with his fragmented solo work and spiky Vocaloid songs — and with Yuri displays something approaching a pop heart sliced up. For all the screams and synth punches cutting across “USHIROJIKAN,” there’s a melodic sweetness racing through it, albeit turned frantic when Yuri ups her vocal deliver a notch later in the song. Together, the pair show how discombobulating catchy sounds can be — and point, in my mind, to as exciting a future in J-pop as possible right now. Listen above.
Guchon — Bouncy Fox
Oh Guchon, you just always come through. The electronic party starters latest initially struck me as slightly understated compared to the melodic bounce houses he’d constructed over the past three years, more focused on syllabic repetition lifted up by acid elements. Yet here it is, still on repeat around Make Believe Melodies headquarters, an example of how he can pinpoint delicious vocal melodies and transform them into dance floor delights. Get it here, or listen above.
Ako — “Asa Ga Chikai Yoru”
While Ako’s 2024 output hinted at a more off-kilter approach to rock-pop in Japan, the one knock I’ve developed against it as the months have gone on is a lack of buoyant moments, of the locked-in rock sound being transformed into something cathartic. “Asa Ga Chikai Yoru” offers a vision of what a euphoric Ako can be, adding a little bit of groove to her unsettling rumblings and showing how even something with a shadowy side can still have fun. Listen above.
yhojin — “I miss you who went to the moon”
The dreaminess is what pulls you in. Those synth blurs, the distorted robo-vocals declaring how much they “miss you,” the general way yhojin’s voice floats over it all in the first part…”I miss you who went to the moon” feels like a cozy bed for its first third. Then it transforms into something more urgent. yhojin’s voice picks up a touch in intensity — at first sound a touch more harried, eventually breaking down into what sounds like static — while the electronic sounds around him become more disorienting and trippy. It never boils over, but rather comes close before being held back…feelings restrained, just barely, much more in the real world then in one’s own head. Listen above.
Yay boop — “E-girls”
A different kind of urgency at play on Yay boop’s “E-girls” — how to deal with those dang e-girls, explored both matter-of-factly and then as a growl. The star is the drift phonk mutation carrying it forward, a peak at a corner of Japanese creators taking the viral Eastern European genre and rejiggering it for their own modern means. Listen above.
safmusic — Verse1
The excitement a lot of music coming from younger producers in Japan — anywhere in the world, really — stems not from a rejection of genre but rather an understanding of how different styles can come together to form something fresh. Kanagawa producer safmusic’s Verse1 offers a wonderful snapshot of this process, connecting dance sounds with hip-hop and a smattering of rock (most clearly on the shoegaze-smacked longing of “Whenifallasleep,” featuring safmusic’s vocals under layers of fuzz). It feels both raw and long thought out, and an early 2025 highlight from the internet-music corner of the country. Listen above.
Yukiguni — Lemuria
The follow-up to last year’s melancholy-soaked pothos carries on the slow-burning nature of that set. The best moments exist in the same bedtown longing found on that 2024 full-length, letting guitar melodies stew until they bubble up enough to let the vocals let off some steam…before returning to the chugging pace that got them there. The dashes of emotional release via voice or guitar — like on “Kinboshi” and closer “Kaku No Kimi He” respectively — define the project’s first EP, and reminds of their knack for fitting drama. Listen above.
mekakushe — “Kimi Wa Snorkeler”
As someone who has avoided the activity since nearly drowning on a field trip sixth grade owing to a too-big piece of equipment, I am not remotely familiar with diving and snorkeling terms in any language. So mekakushe’s jaunty dance-pop submersible “Kimi Wa Snorkeler” marks the first time I’ve heard the katakana-ized version of “snorkeler,” and what a delightful sounding loan word! Here it just propels upward, adding extra lightness to a number already feeling weightless. Maybe anything would sound joyful against this musical backdrop. Listen above.
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Oricon Trail For The Week Of January 6, 2025 To January 12, 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.
Kis-My-Ft2 — “Curtain call” (117,090 Copies Sold)
Usually, a pop song choosing to play it safe and avoid leaning too far into a specific sound would strike me as a bit cowardly and boring. Yet I applaud Kis-My-Ft2 for avoiding the temptation to go full retro on “Curtain call,” because I can definitely hear the corniness in the corners via those saxophone honks. Thankfully they let a more modern dance-pop melody blur with it. The result is nothing particularly exciting, but significantly better than what bellows off in the distance. Listen above.
News And Views
As many do every week, I turned on Fuji TV at 6 p.m. Sunday night for an hour of low-stakes family fun courtesy of long-running cartoons Chibi Maruko-chan and Sazae-san. While the main programs remained the same as ever, something felt off about the ads. There were a seeming surplus of spots from the Ad Council Japan (AC Japan), an organization creating various public-service-type works about topics running from checking your pulse regularly to supporting children’s NPOs (???). “Huh, that’s weird,” I thought. “This only happens after a disaster, when the mood is grim and nobody wants to advertise. What’s up?”
I was not alone in this, with this compilation offering a snapshot of what it was like. “Oh, it’s about half, huh?”
Oh, right…a slew of big-name corporations such as Toyota and Nippon Life Insurance pulled all of its advertising from Fuji TV as a result of the alleged sexual misconduct incident from 2023 around former SMAP member Masahiro Nakai, which the station itself addressed this week amidst reports it had taken a role in covering it up…or even facilitating meetings like it before. There’s a lot happening in regards to this story, but most of the backlash right now is aimed at the station, understandeably so, owing to what sounds like prior knowledge of it coupled with efforts to bury it, coupled with the ongoing mass revulsion most have with mainstream media.In far less high-stakes controversy…teenage singer-songwriter tuki. started the year off with her first full-length album, teases of her real appearance AND a karaoke livestream with Hoshimachi Suisei. All great, right? Well look out…a 16 year old decided to act like a 16 year old. First she covered a Vocaloid song featuring (gasp!) references to sex, and then in a post sharing news of her chart success, viewers noticed the song she was listening to was Adult family’s “Anata No Chinko Wa Nani Senchi?” or “How Many Centimeters Is Your Dick?”
This…became a news story? That an adolescent is very adolescent? To the credit of the internet, plenty of people observed “right, this is what teens do” but since we are talking social media, plenty of other people flipped out at this transgression and wondered “where are the adults” to stop this. Like…chill the fuck out, I’d be worried about a teen not into horny jokes and goofy comedy songs. All of this seems very pearl-clutchy, but also a reminder of just how weird folks can be online.
And final twist…the dick-size song above is now trending online! Don’t get angry at things you are against, it just powers them!Rapper Ryugo Ishida of Yurufuwa Gang went to Fukuoka over the weekend to perform, and was attached, forcing him to go to the hospital after sustaining gnarly looking injuries. Like, don’t click this unless seeing a guy with intense swelling and some blood is something you can handle. Ishida alleges it was two other rappers who attacked him, which has prompted plenty of discourse online, including how this is a sign of how behind-the-times the Fukuoka rap community is.
Really, we could all learn from the power of friendship that is “Team Tomodachi,” which the latest group of English-langauge VTubers from Hololive covered over the weekend.
Sugar Babes’ Songs getting reissued in April for its 50th anniversary.
Nariaki Obukuro dropped a new album. More on this in the future!
Luminate released its 2024 end-of-year report, and nothing too exciting from it on the Japanese front — J-pop still gets quite a bit of billing, and the market overall is doing well. I think the most noteworthy part is that Mrs. GREEN APPLE got featured?
ZEROBASEONE recruited…Junji Ito to do the art for their forthcoming single. “Cool, Japan?”
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Check out the Best Of 2025 Spotify Playlist here!
The snorkel song is so good.