Make Believe Melodies For September 14, 2020
Japanese music highlights featuring Negicco's Kaede, and how it has gotten me through a lot of late nights
Kaede Stardust In Blue
I’ve been staying up way too late recently, mostly to finish up a slew of big work projects all due in September. For the past two weeks, I’ve attempted to figure out the best musical background to foster focus — both to literally get into a zone where I can quickly complete repetitive task thousands of times over, but also to block out an increasingly dire global mood, a somehow-more-exhausting-as-of-late Twitter discourse and my own creeping insecurities about writing. After much trial and error, the solution for me has been understated pop prone to flights of fancy but largely built around softer elements ideal for nocturnal existence. I’m looping Reality, Kan Sano’s more laid back songs, this new BOWKYLION and...OK, a little vaporwave, a slight outlier.
Negicco member Kaede’s latest mini-album Stardust In Blue fits nicely on this sonic mood board, offering a jazzy drift underlined by melancholy. It follows a pattern that has helped Kaede’s main outfit last so long in the often fickle world of idols — while Negicco have their go-to producers, they’ve also teamed up with artists who help guide them to Shibuya-kei throwbacks and netlabel-meets-city-pop trips. For Stardust, Kaede works with the band Lamp to create these late-night strolls, getting their relatively easy-breezy sound adjusted for her (complete with some welcome woodwind touches — an element running through a lot of the songs I’ve sought out for relaxation, even the slightly more uptempo RYUtist album). It avoids on-trend city pop trappings in favor of something with room to stretch out, and everyone involved uses it to craft an album inviting even in its moments of longing. Stardust offers a distraction with enough pop flourishes to make you perk up amidst 2020 (or just the work grind).
Jinmenusagi And kiki vivi lily “Natsu Wa Owaranai”
The first double take here comes from hearing “DubbyMaple on the beat,” referring to a beatmaker I remember orbiting Trekkie Trax when they started out. Glad to see they’re back crafting a beat balancing thump with twinkle. The second double take comes from seeing kiki vivi lily totally steal this one with her sing-rap. She does it even as Jinmenusagi delivers one of his best verses ever. An all-around display of talent from artists hailing from very different backgrounds, but making it all gel just right.
Stones Taro BAM002
Kyoto’s Stones Taro has reached Make Believe Melodies status where, whatever they do, I’ll just say something, even if it comes down to “did it again!” BAM002 runs from stuttering house to synthesizer wonk outs (standout “Muddy FIsh,” which is Stones Taro adding a sense of the surreal to the familiar).
Nate “flashback”
The familiar strum of a guitar ushers “flashback” forward, but as rapper Nate has been doing for a few years, she doesn’t give into the emotional oblivion of SoundCloud rap. Rather, she delivers a sing-rap flow that adds bounce to a song about longing for a past now lost, but presented via bright melodies closer to J-pop (the vocal effects being drenched on help a lot too, almost turning Nate into a human-meets-Vocaloid hybrid).
Spool “Suicide Girl”
Wherein the downer sound of 2020 comes to Japanese indie-pop. Spool’s “Suicide Girl” revolves around the desire to connect with the titular character, and whether that’s a person or a metaphor doesn’t matter because this still ends up being a juanty number centered around something far more serious than its skip would indicate. Then again, that’s the same sense of realism appearing all over Japanese music right now, so why not let it emerge from the indie scene too?
Gucci Mane X EITO “Kush Is My Kosui”
Great job by Lil’ Yukichi for finding a way to make one of the biggest songs of the year in Japan actually sound fun.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of August. 31, 2020 To Sept. 6, 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.
STU48 “Omoidaseru Koi Wo Syou” (163, 625 Copies Sold)
The entire music industry has suffered due to COVID-19, with live shows being wiped out and tours pushed back. While the situation is starting to move forward — venues will go from a 5000 person limit to being able to hold half their capacity — one group that has an especially hard path forward is STU48, the nautical-themed AKB48 sister group. Based in the Setouchi Inland Sea, their idea to stand out from the 48 masses was to hold their live shows on a boat that would cruise around the body of water. Welp, guess which industry might have it worse than entertainment coming out of all this. STU48 announced in July the ocean shows would no longer happen, robbing them of the one gimmick they could rely on to truly stand out. While continued idol support means ho-hum singles like this one can climb up Oricon, it’s also now much harder to really make any case for what makes them different now that they’ve lost the ship angle. Perhaps they can rebrand as the “new normal” idol group, and do socially distanced shows in a spacious park. Akimoto, hit me up, I have ideas for days!
News And Views
In the latest chapter of “Arashi is going all out before they go on hiatus,” they announced that their next single due next week was written and produced by Bruno Mars. I saw plenty of people on social media taking jabs at this, but this is a pretty significant collaboration (I feel like Bruno Mars’ status as biggest pop star in the world existed in the pre-November void of 2016, so when we hard pivoted to our current reality his party-starting pastiche felt really out of step). More on this when it arrives.
Call it a hang up I need to work out, but I’m always hesitant of general news reporters / foreign correspondents writing about music because…well, it isn’t their strongest suite. This Washington Post story about Japanese rappers with South American ancestry is a welcome exception to that, largely because it isn’t really about music but a greater social issue.
Sometimes, young people save traditional Japanese art. Other times, a karaoke bar saves local communities.
NHK’s year-end spectacular NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen will feature no audience this year.
Gaze upon this entry in 88Rising Sean Miyashiro’s goofy “work diary” for The New York Times, and just soak in every word.
Best part of this is that a video about this has already been done
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
