Issue #11: Seishun Collection
Exploring the new Sakuran Zensen album, Hide's swan song, and the possible definition of music that sounds Japanese
Hello! Welcome to This Side of Japan, a newsletter about Japanese music, new and old! You can check out previous issues here.
Have you heard this one before? “This song sounds Japanese.” For a while, I considered that description, that it sounds Japanese, as a lazy shorthand. Maybe you haven’t heard it exactly in those words but instead as similar comments like “this sounds like J-pop” or “like anime.” I get the gist, but those terms are still too technically ambiguous even if they can arguably point to a specific aesthetic. Besides, I often hear those terms thrown around by people who have a rather narrow perspective on Japanese culture.
These days, though, I do consider more and more that Japanese music as a term can touch on specific sensibilities that are unique to the culture. I still don’t really go about describing music as Japanese outside of the basis of its geographical origins, but I do find myself thinking that an artist or band is uniquely Japanese based on things like influence, style, themes, narratives, etc.
The music of Sakuran Zensen, the band responsible for this issue’s Album of the Week, for example, represents Japanese-ness to me. I note how the punk band takes on British influences in my write-up because it is a fact that they listened to The Clash and The Jam as they began finding their identity. But the band’s music also resembles many other punk bands in the country that echo the spirit of The Blue Hearts, a quintessential Gen. X rock band of Japan, and their self-titled 1987 album—a classic record full of qualities that define a part of my view of Japanese-ness.
The simple punk of The Blue Hearts is of course not unique to the band, but it’s what they delivered using the vehicle of punk that feel wholly theirs. Instead of embracing nihilism as he ruminates about his doomed future, frontman Hiroto Komoto celebrates the glory to be found in the present while embodying the invincibility of youth. The music suits anger or sardonic attitudes and yet his lyrics bleed with deep sincerity: “All the sudden, yesterday will start to fall apart/ if that’s so, let us start something right here right now,” he screams in “Mirai Wa Bokura No Te No Naka,” or “Our Future Is in Our Hands.”
The Blue Hearts’ romanticism towards their youth tap into the classic Japanese narrative of seishun—a formative period of one’s life often associated with one’s teenage years. Countless high-school keion clubs give birth to new bands, like Sakuran Zensen, inspired by a simple want to play music with friends but also a desire to be something; it’s no wonder the experience inspires movies and TV shows. The music that comes from this often sounds loud, fast and loose like The Blue Hearts, whose sentimental punk-rock music is a defining entry to what seishun and in turn being Japanese can sound like.
Of course, the definition of seishun differs with each person. Japanese-ness can mean different things too, depending on one’s point of view. Maybe the example I just offered with The Blue Hearts and their descendants don’t exactly fit your take on it. It’s certainly not the only definition, and I can only hope my newsletters can open up your current definition of Japanese-ness to include many other perspectives.
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As I mentioned, we got a punk-rock album as our Album of the Week for this issue. We revisit more classic rock in our look back at the Oricon charts as well. If rock isn’t your thing, there’s new Soundcloud rap and Utada Hikaru’s new single in the Singles Club section. Here is this month’s Spotify playlist of songs that didn’t make the cut for May. Happy listening!
Album of the Week
I Am Sakuran-Zensen by Sakuran Zensen [Tawashi]
Recommended track: “Taximan” | Listen to it on Spotify
Sakuran Zensen are itching to make an absolute mess in their debut album, I Am Sakuran Zensen. The young punk band doesn’t care whether or not they look clever, not minding how openly they may wear the influences of the British first wave on their sleeve. All that matters in the record is that they have a blast while they let out some steam, and its dedication to pure thrill makes for an exhilarating 30-minute ride.
At the center of this punk-rock whirlwind stands singer Yuuki Yamamoto, who drives much of the album’s unhinged momentum through his off-the-cuff performance. His delirious vocals gives the songs an unsteady feel as it also supplies the music with an extra shot of adrenaline. Characterized by a slight insecure shakiness, it also becomes a fitting vehicle for the juvenile antics and naive feelings that spill out throughout the record.
The band show their age most from the amount of depth, or there lack of, in the lyrical content. The range of topics skew very narrow as Yamamoto either sings about love or a sudden impulse to destroying everything in sight, and the exploration of both starts and ends at the titular lyric of its respective song. The gang is pretty straightforward in “London Boots”: “let’s go buy some London boots/ let’s go stomp someone with it.”
That said, words become tedious when Sakuran Zensen already communicate such a primal rawness through ramshackle punk riffs, Yamamoto’s anxious whimpers or the joined screams of all of the band members. Those elements recreate the highs of camaraderie, but it also gives a shape to the messiness of desire. “Hammar” hits on both as it taps into teenage confusion through the lyrics and music: “It’s not that I hoped for a life like this/ I just wanted to be a hammer and destroy,” Yamamoto sings about the equal shame and satisfaction of surrendering to pleasure.
I Am Sakuran Zensen shines when it recognizes that two-chord punk works wonders when you just give into the sound, and the album’s best songs find Yamamoto not only getting lost in the music but also in the thick of the crowd. “Boy Meets Boys” captures the romance of starting a band at its essence, with Yamamoto joining like-minded friends to try and work out their inexplicable attraction to music into something more intelligible. The best they come up with is the titular chant and a racket of punk-rock noise, but that’s all Sakuran Zensen really need.
Singles Club
“Take Me Your Way” by Fennec Fennec [self-released]
Oh, it would be a lot more wonderful if the outdoors seemed safe enough right now to freely bask in the sunny guitars of “Take Me Your Way.” But what’s more cruel is the situation that frontwoman Kanasta has to deal with, where just as the days get more lovely, her relationship has to meet its end. “One day, if us two/ can go back to when we first met/ will you fall in love again with someone like me,” she asks in the chorus. At least her world still shines bright, and she still seems able to admire what she once had.
Take Me Your Way is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “American” by Clalas; “Music Is Your Only Squire (Not Afraid to Keep Going)” by Naive Super
“Tonight” by Los An Jewels [Tapestok]
The idol-meets-Soundcloud rap get-up of Los An Jewels have brought much exciting music to follow since they debuted earlier this year, and the group’s monthly singles have so far suggested they have so much more room for growth. “Tonight” from the series may be the strangest and therefore the most daring yet. The beat’s heavy distortion and the thick Auto-Tune obscure the idols’ lyrics, their voices emerging from the white noise like a cryptic online dispatch. While their words are blurred into muffled sounds, together cohering into a hypnotic melody, one maudlin lyric cuts through the static: “I hope you are not crying.”
Tonight is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Twilight” by Hiyadam; “Ah” by Yurufuwa Gang
“Time” by Hikaru Utada [Sony]
The low-key R&B production of “Time” sounds as though Hikaru Utada tried her best not to wake up her child while she put it together during a 2 a.m. recording session. The brittle drums quietly shuffle along, and the warm keys quickly disappear once it sighs the melody. The conversation of “Time” is also reserved for the wee hours, touching on matters too delicate for words: “Crying over being dumped by someone you like/ The happiness in being the only one who can comfort someone like you,” she sings. Utada finds peace from such a complicated, tension-filled scenario, of two lovers who crossed paths at the wrong time, and leave it to Utada to write about it as sharp and concise as the minimal beat.
Time is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Tokyo” by Chiai Fujikawa; “Worksong!” by TAMTAM ft. Chinza Dopeness
This Week in 1998…
“Pink Spider” by Hide with Spread Beaver [Universal Victor, 1998]
No. 1 during the weeks of May 25 - June 1 | Listen to it on YouTube
Hide makes failure sound glorious in “Pink Spider,” his last single before his death 11 days after its release. Everything but the bellowing guitars suddenly gets pulled off the track after the roaring chorus. Time seems to come to a complete halt. The singer is in free fall, his life flashing before his eyes. Before he gives into his doom, he unleashes one last scream—“it was because the sky was too high”—as though he flew too close to the sun.
As a frontman of his own band, Spread Beaver, the former X Japan guitarist sings a pop-metal fable of a spider attempting to fly in search of a more fulfilling world beyond its web. As a bird whispers it temptation—“take those butterfly wings and come with me/ over there, you can do whatever you want”—the herculean yet groovy metal riff colors the idea of trying the impossible into even more of an enticing affair. Of course, the spider succumbs to its own hubris, coming to terms with its own limitations as it falls to its death.
I can’t help but project Hide’s own fate in reality when I listen to “Pink Spider.” It’s very easy to work it into this allegory about a soul trying but ultimately failing to better his life. Despite it being attached to such a context, however, Hide displays full control of the world he inhabits and the emotions he wants to express in the song. Instead of the demise, he lets you feel the power in faith and possibility. The vision of clearer skies is alluring, heavenly even, through the spider’s eyes, and the act of flight sounds like pure magic. Considering the tragic subtext, “Pink Spider” almost has no business being this exhilarating to listen to.
Next issue is out June 10. You can check out previous issues here.