Make Believe Melodies For Nov. 14, 2020
Don't stop the city pop
Picture via Hitomitoi site
Ryusenkei / HITOMITOI — Talio
Part of the charm of city pop to an internet audience is the feeling of discovery, of stumbling across glitzed-out pop from a Bubble world that feels a million years away from what most experience in 2020. It’s funny, though, to look at it from the perspective of the Japanese music scene, where city pop never stopped being a thing, both as an influence for what came next (scroll down this academic paper to find the “city pop family tree,” which shows how Shibuya-kei owes a lot to this style preceding it) and as a reference point/nostalgia trip anyone could revisit. Pick up any of the city pop disc guides floating around Tokyo and you’ll see folks were doing renditions of this ‘80s-centric sound…pretty much ever since the economy burst.
Two of the best tackling it in the 21st century have been Hitomitoi — who has nailed the sound and look of metropolis-based pop while still giving it a contemporary twist — and Ryusenkei, whose 2006 full-length Tokyo Sniper channels the peak days of city pop perfectly, and will probably end up a discovered classic in 40 years when the city pop excavation comes for another generation. Listen to it below.
Talio (above) finds them…teaming up! At any point past 2015, this would be all the hook you need, but it becomes especially interesting thanks to what’s unfolded internationally and domestically over the last five years — city pop became a whole thing on the internet, while at home “new city pop” emerged, full of artists who sorta sound like the creators associated with city pop…but not really? That rush of horns at the start of “Kinyoubi No Venus” tell you that these two absolutely are nodding to yesteryear, and the 20 (!!) songs that follow offer some of the tightest and catchiest nostalgia trips you could ask for. Yet they’re also pros, so while it definitely can feel reverential, it’s also just quality, never letting fake memories stand in for polished songwriting. Plus, it’s a nice reminder of how city pop was, is and probably always will be circulating in the Japanese music industry’s DNA.
Kazumichi Komatsu — Emboss Star
The artist formerly known as Madegg started the 2010s as one of the nation’s most promising electronic creators — to the point where, and you have to trust me in this as Time Out Tokyo nerfed their archives and I’m going from memory, Kashiyuka of Perfume cited the Kyoto artist as one of her favorites — before getting a little too grad school in the middle of the decade. He’s come back strong though, and Emboss Star in particular is a highlight from Komatsu, balancing his wonkier sound experiments alongside more immediately melodic additions (getting a huge boost from a new generation of Kansai creators, Le Makeup and Dove, on the second song). Just the right balance between inviting and unsettling (check “Skip”). Get it here.
Shampoo Featuring nate and ponika — “Boyfriend”
Those opening notes made me initially think we’d hit the peak for “SoundCloud rap” sonically in Japan, but all three artists here work together to turn well-worn sounds into something jubilant. “Boyfriend” really pops because of the vocals courtesy of nate and ponika, who use Shampoo’s track as a trampoline to bounce off of, adding a glee to what ends up a very busy song.
Shintaro Sakamoto — “The Feeling Of Love”
Well, a delightful single from a staple of Japanese music! Don’t mind if I do.
Yorushika — “Kaze Wo Hamu”
I’m certainly a fan of Yorushika when they barrel ahead — this song! — but it’s also, like, their default mode of operation, so it can leave me a little winded after a while. Which is why their newest single is such a welcome shift, sparse and teasing funk. It sparks the same tension found in their swifter stuff, but inversed, revealing more depth to one of the country’s biggest projects going.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of Nov. 2, 2020 To Nov. 08, 2020
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 drip down…the Oricon Trail.
Sexy Zone “NOT FOUND” (244,021 Copies Sold)
Order restored to Oricon — after LiSA’s absurd three-week run on top of the physical singles chart, a Johnny’s group returns to number one with a “meh” song coupled with a video arguing that M. C. Escher is setting the visual pace for J-pop this year. Still, if we are talking about memorable clips for the week, Last Idol (#3 on the chart) carve their way into my mind through SWORD CHOREOGRAPHY.
News And Views
There’s a bit of new info that can be picked up in this Reuters story about the Japanese music industry shifting towards digital, so I want to highlight it. But…it’s also something that could have been written in 2016, and which features a few huge gaps that really get the teeth gnashing (no mention of YouTube at all is wild, as is ignoring global trends towards…non-music music purchases). I think there is an interesting deeper story to tell about how Japan has moved towards digital, but I think the chance to roll out the “CDs…Japan still loves those, right?” just proves to be too inviting for more generalist Japan journalists.
K-pop/J-pop Twitter is having its regular two-month wrestling session with “cultural appropriation,” but I have to admit this tweet featuring Koda Kumi killed me.
Avex’s financial woes continues, as they’ll reportedly sell their building in Aoyama.
I wrote about the rise of reaction videos on YouTube in Japan — with a heavy focus on how music has helped push this trend into the country.
To bring this back around to the first point in this seciont — The First Take held an online music festival (below), and it’s the latest example of how that YouTube program kind of holds the blueprint moving forward for Japanese music. It’s something that feels “authentic” and intimate, but is clearly sponsored by a major music label (OK that’s just speculation but…like, those shots really linger on the headphones, ya know…). Yet this compromise works, as it helps give a new era of J-pop something to differentiate itself from the sound of “global pop” while also giving them the resources to…offer subtitles in all kinds of languages.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies