Make Believe Melodies For November 22, 2021
I Am Thankful...For The Nogizaka46 Pachinko Machine
Keeping it short this week, in order to focus on work so I can take a break this weekend!
Uiro — iro iro Case.2
The follow-up to a delightful set of fizzy funk from last year, Uiro gets even more limber on iro iro Case.2. The rhythm moves at a faster clip this time around, even when Uiro strips down their songs (“Praxinoscope”), while also allowing themselves more space to weird out a bit (“Act Normal 2” being their wildest interpretation of the style yet). Get it here, or listen above.
chelmico — “San Oku En”
Why be so glum about the state of the world in your pop when you can instead higlight what you want…with no taxation. Duo chelmico return with a delirious celebration of luxury aspirations, featuring a Latin-pop backdrop that remains rare in J-pop. Listen above.
tamanaramen — “The Light Behind My Eyelids”
One of the more focused songs from tamanaramen this year, without losing the wispy quality that makes her and this loose collection of left-field creators so memorable. Listen above.
Cuffboi — Replica1.0
One of the best representatives of Japan’s “hyperpop” (or hey, give it the name you want) delivers a fantastic debut album capturing everything that makes this movement so exciting — and Cuffboi brings a bunch of the community’s other intriguing names to help explore what’s possible with this stylistic-skipping approach. Highlight is “VVV,” which highlights another important detail of most of this music…how optimistic it can get. Listen above.
ermhoi — “Dream Land Song”
Does millennium parade making it onto Kohaku mean ermhoi also gets to appear? Listen to her latest above.
AprilBlue — Itsuka No Umi
End out this section with some straight-ahead indie-pop, courtesy of Tokyo back-to-basics project AprilBlue (also featuring Azusa Suga of For Tracy Hyde). A great EP that eschews experimentation in favor of pure drive. Listen above.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of November 8, 2021 To November 14, 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.
Naniwa Danshi — “Ubu Love” (705,787 Copies Sold)
Spent a bunch of last newsletter talking about a new crop of boy bands and how they are changing the landscape of J-pop…and then Johnny’s newest debuting outfit kinda crushes all of them sales wise. A great reminder (including for me) that it isn’t quite as easy to flip an industry over…and that for all the changes in J-pop recently, you can bet on cheery male idols from the country’s most powerful talent agency finding a way to stay on top.
News And Views
I was invited on The Idolcast Podcast to talk about the state of J-pop, among other topics! Some rare takes within too, listen here, or below
I also wrote a feature on Kyary Pamyu Pamyu for The Japan Times looking at her legacy ten years on.
Biggest music story of the week was Kohaku line-up, at least the first round of it…here’s the full list, just in case you missed it.
Uh huh
The bit I’ve watched of Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop live action are pretty weak, but hey at least they brought Yoko Kanno in. New York Times with a nice profile of her.
James Gui wrote a fantastic feature for Bandcamp Daily about Tokyo’s “genreless rave underground,” which features a lot of my favorites, and is also a great gateway into…a lot of fantastic stuff happening in the Japanese underground this year.
This Nogizaka46 pachinko machine debuts TODAY…should I go play it for content? Let me know, maybe this is how I break into the world of pachinko content.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies