Make Believe Melodies For October 4, 2021
Escape Velocity
femme fatale — “Club Moon”
There’s three moments on the otherwise fanciful dance-pop of femme fatale’s “Club Moon” that let some contemporary realities…and accompanying stresses…sneak in, and snap me ever so slightly out of jubilance:
A reference to SpaceX.
When describing a fantastical space club with alien guests and crater-adjacent amusements, a very quick mention about how there’s no crackdowns or police pressure on the venues here. The dreams of punters caught up in a decade of no-dancing laws…and once again starting to feel very real…summed up in one aside.
During the bridge, a lyric about moving your whole family up to the moon. That’s played for fun, but carries a whiff of sadness when looking at the state of the world and…sort of wishing it was possible.
Those little reminders of life in 2021 — intentionally Musk-y or brushing against en vogue dread — make the escape of “Club Moon” all the better. This has been one of my favorite songs of the year since it and the VR-assisted fantasy of a music video (above) came out a month ago. All the immediate highlights of the song require no deep dissection — produced by Kenmochi Hidefumi, “Club Moon” latches on to a “future club” sound offering ample space for the sisters of femme fatale to tag in and out of the verses, trading raps and sing-song lines. That’s familiar sonic territory for Hidefumi…which makes the electro bridge that surges in after the second chorus such a sudden shock to the system. I’ve never heard him try to be Yasutaka Nakata before…but he kind of nails it, and adds extra emotional oomph…though, even on first lesson, it’s really just a nifty pivot.
Mostly, it’s just stupidly catchy. Plenty of music out of Japan over the last 12-ish months meet that criteria, though. What has made “Club Moon” stick around in my head is how it chooses escapism — not the la-la-la-covering-my-ears-cant-hear-you empty positivity of so much contemporary pop, but rather opting to pursue flights of fancy for the sake of it — as a way to elevate itself above modern J-pop attitudes.
MAISONdes Featuring Wanuki and asmi — “Yowanehaki”
The latest downbeat post-Vocaloid pop song to become a viral hit in Japan is MAISONdes’ “Yowanehaki,” featuring Wanuki and asmi (above). Despite lacking the venom spray of an Ado or the pathos of a YOASOBI, MAISONdes explores similar lyrical themes as those acts and the many others that have enjoyed newfound attention in recent years as a disenfranchised younger set gravitate towards the glum. It’s about feeling horrible while out at night, realizing you’ve lived your life by the instructions of a “manual,” further self loathing and then a call to live better that rings a little hollow, like a student trying to get out of a conversation with their teacher by saying “it won’t happen again.”
It’s a perfectly fine song, and I continue to appreciate this downbeat take on modern Japanese life much more than the unearned optimism offered up by other 2021 hits peddling the opposite vibe, both here and abroad. Still, the cynicism is starting to grind down J-pop.
Maybe it’s a little much to imagine a better future…but do we have to stop being creative too?
Suiyoubi No Campanella — “Momotaro” (2014)
It wasn’t long ago that obscured and the absence of meaning sat at the center of seemingly all Japanese music. Soutaiseiriron teased the cryptic in their late 2000s rock, but they mostly were just playing around with language, arranging clever metaphors and obscure puns together into catchy tunes. A whole generation of bands followed…and still do…that approach. Then you had Suiyoubi No Campanella (Wednesday Campanella for foreign markets), a dance-pop trio bringing in elements of hip-hop as a way to create topsy-turvy numbers centered around mythological figures, like their party-starting interpretation of the Japanese folktale Momotaro (above). That group worked because lead vocalist KOM_I pinballed against syllables and sentences, indulging in all the potential language has. She performed songs about yetis and samurai on popular shows like SMAP’s TV program and Music Station, for goodness sakes.
It’s too easy to call femme fatale the torchbearers for this pop approach after KOM_I announced she would be leaving Suiyoubi No Campanella in September. The aforementioned Hidefumi, now serving as principle producer for femme fatale, was also responsible for 90 percent of Suiyoubi No Campanella’s musical output. He seems to be treating his new role with this duo as an extension of what he did alongside KOM_I…which is to say he’s really revisiting a lot of still-warm ideas.
No complaints from me — if you are going to borrow, take it from one of the best pop acts of the 2010s. Alongside the sound, femme fatale have flirted with the same escapism Suiyoubi No Campanella did so well. The above-linked “Kodo” revolves around slipping out of Tokyo to a sort of elevated-fantasy version of Shibuya. “Club Moon” goes even further, to the point of being a seasonal novelty, like the McDonald’s Japan Tsukimi Burger. It’s September release date and rabbit/lunar centered lyrics/video tie to Tsukimi, which you’ll have to go to Wikipedia to read more about, this isn’t an encyclopedia. Everyone involved has fun with the folklore, imagining megaclubs in the sky complete with move-busting bunnies and Champagne fountains overflowing with carrot juice.
It’s silly and ultimately fun…and like any truly ecstatic experience, the thought of it ending and having to head back into reality can take you out of it, even for a second. That’s “Club Moon,” a fantastical pop number with hints of 2021, but never providing escape from any of that as much as offering escape away from it all, into pure imaginative goofballery (and shuffling beats). That’s something J-pop could really benefit from, even if just for a little bit.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of September 20, 2021 To September 26, 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.
Nogizaka46 — “Kimi Ni Shikarareta” (535, 794 Copies Sold)
Boilerplate, but bonus points for setting chunks of the video in a neighborhood I know relatively well (Sangenjaya, shout out that Starbucks with the great basement seating area).
News And Views
Twitter user @zippu21 compiled a list of Rate Your Music’s top Japanese albums, with soundtracks and live albums excluded. Take a look at the results.
Sure, just one website…but a website long expressing a deeper interest in Japanese music than, well, most other spaces for musical fandom out there on the internet. What has tickled the interest of many social media users is how it offers a radically different idea of a Japanese canon than what has emerged out of Japanese media over the last few years. That’s largely because it’s a list shaped by the internet itself — YouTube recs, 4chan and Reddit deep cuts, a smattering of critically lauded throwbacks. Yet as the original tweet mentions…no Happy End in sight, despite that group becoming the definition of canonical in Japan over the last decade. Interesting creation showing how differently Japanese art is being digested abroad…which somehow includes Advantage Lucy? Sure!
Oh, they also shared the follow up soundtracks list which is arguably more interesting, because…way more people have experienced Japanese music through video game and movies than anything else.
Japanese singer Yukika Teramoto moved to South Korea, became just Yukika and found success releasing city-pop-inspired tunes while also putting out one of the more inspired efforts at “lo-fi” YouTube music to date. Well now she’s reverse importing back to Japan with “Tokyo Lights,” below, released via Universal Music Japan.
On the city pop front, Hitomitoi’s entire discograpy is landing on global subscription streaming, opening up a whole new avenue to one of the most important (and stellar!) acts helping to shape the narrative around this genre, at least in Japan. Go listen to City Dive a hundred times.
Rock music to be used as weapon against bears in Iwate Prefecture.
The State Of Emergency…which Japan has been under for the majority of 2021…officially ended at the start of October, and people almost instantly tried to flip back to “regular life” mode. Anecdotally, my neighborhood’s drinking area suddenly became way more packed last Friday night, while my favorite Japanese baseball player almost instantly emailed fans about “an opportunity to buy tickets to upcoming games with expanded capacity!” (I bought one). It also signaled a looser…at least slightly less judged…club scene, with events at places like Club Asia going off without a hitch.
It also saw The Starfestival in Kyoto…an electronic music festival…happen, with none of the hub-bub surrounding other events from the last couple of months. Great for them, looks like a pleasant and fun time! I doubt it will happen…music remains in the crosshairs, and the moment a rebound happens, I bet clubs get thrown under the bus…but here’s hoping fests enjoy slightly less scrutiny moving forward.Japanese acts are also starting to tiptoe into the world again. Ichiko Aoba announced a European tour starting in just over two weeks, while tricot announced a similar jaunt for Spring of next year. It’s not all smooth, though — Haru Nemuri (great new song btw) postponed a 2021 North America tour to next year. Meanwhile, on the reverse…King Crimson appears to be the first major non-Japanese act slated to play the country later this fall.
An outdated media platform attempts to glom on to an important musical movement in Japan…the MTV Video Music Awards Japan 2021 will present The Daily Bell Award (I assumed named after the Bell Lab’s experiment birthing vocal synthesis, hey I wrote all about how that ties to Vocaloid), going to a Vocaloid producer.
Steampunk Miku
Will live music return to normal now that the State Of Emergency is over and Tokyo numbers are currently under 100 for the first time in an eternity? Maybe…but whatever happens, enjoy this footage from a Sawa Angstrom show.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies