Make Believe Melodies For July 19, 2021
Hiatus Highlights + Cornelius Scandal Sinks The Opening Ceremony Lower
I’ve finally finished my big project, though I’m not sure how much of a hiatus I actually took during that time. Nonetheless, here are some of the releases from 2021, that got me through the last few weeks.
Spangle call Lilli line — Remember
Spangle Call Lilli Line albums aren’t blockbuster events, but more low-key happenings that tend to come out somewhat out of nowhere faster than you think. They’re the sudden GChat from a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while, which I’ll get to three months late. So to for Remember, the rock trio’s latest album and first post celebrating 20 years together as a project. How do you keep chugging forward? By staying unconvinced you’ve done it just right, and constantly revisiting previous times with an open mind.
For over two decades, Spangle Call Lilli Line have sounded “consistent,” but I think that’s largely because they tinker with what they’ve crafted rather than force grand statements every album cycle (see the long-running fascination with the song “Roam In Octave,” which they’ve revisited and revisited and revisited, finding new life in it each time). Remember marks a turn back to their early sound, more mid-tempo fare blanketed by synthesizer glow, but rather than play for nostalgia they see how the band of yesteryear functions in the world of today. That’s creating a blur of being at-ease and melancholy over deceptively skippy sounds (“epic”) while stripping down this old approach (“millim”) and having some fun with a Tears For Fears vibe (album highlight “spring,” which takes the extra step of featuring a sonic twist!). It’s comforting on a personal level, but mainly because it’s nice to hear a group of artists remain so curious in what they do for so long, and how they still aren’t ready to stop poking at their own imagination. Listen above.
DE DE MOUSE And TANUKI Featuring Hitomitoi — “Neon Light No Yoru”
A time-bending fusion of ‘80s nostalgia, ‘80s replication and late 2000s electro-pop, “Neon Light No Yoru” shines thanks to the inclusion of Hitomitoi, who was putting her spin on city pop while the YouTube algorithm was just a spark in some Palo Alto kid’s brain. Her singing adds the urgency that usually gets sliced up in so much future funk (though smart move also cutting her voice at points here to great effect). Here’s a heart-racing interpretation of a bunch of trends, synthesized into one racing shimmer. Listen above, or get it here.
Philosophy No Dance — “Telephonism”
I guess hearing great interpretations of city pop not anchored to nostalgia helped me get through 90 hours of work.
Tucked away as a b-side on a fun albeit too busy single from earlier this year, I missed “Telephonism” until Philosophy No Dance dropped the above video for it last week. And thank goodness they did, because it’s a 2021 highlight borrowing dusty trends without getting weepy eyed over bubble times. A failing of a lot of “city pop revivalism” today from all corners of the world is leaning too much into the neon-grazed absurdity of the 1980s, with the music being almost like a Lego instruction booklet telling you how to easily assemble your own “Ride On Time.” “Telephonism” uses the strut and maximalist touches of the style — strings and sparkles! — but grounds it in modern times, avoiding melancholy in favor of heart-fluttering anxiety over…getting a phone call. Coupled with the best vocal performance this group has ever done and a few modern sonic touches, this deep cut shows city pop doesn’t have to be a model recreated over and over again, but can be molded in clever ways without losing the emotional buzz. People in the ‘80s got nervous about not hearing a ring too, you know. Listen above.
LEX, Only U, Yung sticky wom — “TEAM”
Dudes having fun in Yokohama, and fitting in some “fuck the police” in there to show their world-awareness. Simple, fun rave up that really works now that summer has settled in.
yosumi, gaburyu And yaca — “gloomy”
The commercial claws are starting to wrap around HyperPop, which is a value neutral statement, but could definitely go wrong. Savor the times when something playing in those same waters remains pretty out there.
It’s….Showtime!
Episode four of POD48 is right around the corner, so catch up on the first three before our latest spectacular. Will also use this opportunity to note that South Korean music channel MNET has uploaded the intro videos for all 99 participants of their new reality competition Girls Planet 999, which is the spiritual sequel to Produce 48 (add China to the geopolitical mix!). Maybe I’ll rank all of them because I’m demented? Either way, go watch all of them.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of July 5, 2021 To July 19, 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.
ENHYPHEN — “Given-Taken (Japanese Version)” (200,424 Copies Sold)
I remain interested in the continuing intersection of anime and K-pop, with ENHYPHEN’s Japanese version of “Given-Taken” being coupled with an anime that already featured another ENHYPHEN song. Two sides meeting, not competing! Anyway, ENHYPHEN has been pretty good so far, especially within the context of 2021 K-pop male groups, and “Given-Taken” in particular embraces drama just right, down to constant string-powered unease and those morphed vocals. Just goofy enough.
Anyway, the two weeks I missed featured….some older Johnny’s groups, nothing to see here (besides…next week sees our biggest debut seller of the year from that talent agency, so they’ll get more spotlight then).
News And Views
Woooo boy, well the Tokyo Olympics Opening Ceremony continues to be a blackhole where good feelings go to vanish forever. The governing body announced the latest team for the kick-off event, lead by comedian Kentaro Kobayashi and with music handled by ‘90s staple Fantastic Plastic Machine (they might have landed these positions for these press pics alone). Also announced…Keigo Oyamada, better known as Cornelius, would contribute music to the Opening Ceremony. Specifically…revealed after everything that followed…he was going to compose four minutes of music for the first opening video package.
The news prompted many online to share an infamous 1994 interview Oyamada had with Rock In On Japan magazine, detailed in Japanese here. The portion in focus — Oyamada not just admitting to but bragging about bullying classmates with disabilities while in school, though “bullying” might not go far enough to document how ugly it got. This thread translates it into English, and big warning for anyone who doesn’t want to hear really graphic and intense violence, because it’s bad.
This spread quickly, and media picked up on it, soon leading to it erupting into a full-blown scandal. Oyamada issued a statement and apology late last week, but didn’t step away. The Japanese Olympic Committee said they weren’t going to push Oyamada to resign, due to time constraints. Oyamada then resigned on his own hours later on Monday night.
So that’s where we’re at days before the Opening Ceremony is set to be held. I don’t want to dwell on the criminal acts central to this story because it’s pretty straightforward — Oyamada committed heinous abuse against a disabled classmate, copped to it and bragged about it in an interview, with no apologies in the years since. There’s not really any room for a moral debate here.
Taking a step back, it’s more interesting to look at why this came out now because…this information has been floating around, even online (the linked article in Japanese went online in 2006, for example). It says a lot about how Japanese online culture and general culture has changed (an interesting side discussion I saw throughout the last few days…the ‘90s were the peak of a sort of extreme and edgy pop culture manifest in stuff like violent variety shows and Tokyo Shock Boys), but really reminds how toxic the Olympics…and especially the Opening Ceremony…have become at this point. This doesn’t come up and doesn’t go supernova if Oyamada just passes on contributing to an event that has been snakebitten for over a year now. Yet he didn’t, and people were going to dig…and those once glanced-over issues were finally elevated into the spotlight.Yeesh, that’s a heavy one, uhhhh let’s watch Kumamon try to do a NiziU dance.
Foorin, the children’s group behind massive hit “Paprika,” will call it a day in September following the Olympics.
City pop revival news! Momoko Kikuchi’s catalog landed on subscription streaming recently, while Junko Yagami penned her take on sudden viral attention for The Mainichi. Cinra, meanwhile, did a huge feature on the city pop revival, looking at it from a bunch of angles. It’s in Japanese, but even if you can’t read it…they have a pretty great set of recs, extending beyond the now-obvious numbers.
Good tweet
While I’d always hold a little bit of skepticism to news reported by a tabloid, this story about a video game not making it to Steam because Johnny’s doesn’t want their talents image out in the wild sounds right.
Media store and rental chain Tsutaya is actually a franchise business, and one operator has decided to end rentals of all sorts for their 74 outlets. Here’s a pretty clear sign streaming and other digital developments are changing the Japanese media landscape, and…well, maybe not for the better? I’m biased because renting CDs from Tsutaya, burning them (encouraged, sort of, by the company!) and repeating was a key way I learned about Japanese music after moving here. Maybe that’s a little too dewey eyed about lack of choice, but hey I turned out OK right? Right???
This Side of Japan honoring “PonPonPon” correctly 10 years after its video came out.
I wrote about the fantastic new album from Foodman for Bandcamp Daily…and also appeared on the podcast Foreign Correspondence to talk about my life. If you want to learn about growing up in a desert, my failed attempts at sports writing, J-dramas about journalism and more, listen now.
OK, OK let’s close out with one Girls Planet 999 video.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies