Issue #12: Akarui Mirai
Breaking down the new Yonige album, a dream New Music collab and a new wave of Japanese pop nostalgia
Hello! Welcome to This Side of Japan, a newsletter about Japanese music, new and old! You can check out previous issues here.
Considering the Japanese music industry’s past aversion in sharing its older catalogs for streaming, the entire discography of Showa pop icon Momoe Yamaguchi hitting streaming services (as of this writing, only in Japan) this past week feels like an event. It’s likely the decision was partly because of the coronavirus with companies having to rely on old media to make up for delay of the new. Over on the TV front, TBS is scheduled to air a re-run episode of the Showa music countdown show The Best Ten later in June while stations have been editing together digest versions of past hit dramas to fill time slots.
But I also like to think the decision was made in part because Japan’s mainstream media somewhat acknowledges that there is a legitimate interest to revisit Showa pop media right now, particularly from the younger generation. Coincidentally last month, variety show Matsuko No Shiranai Sekai dedicated an hour-long segment on Showa pop led by two 27-year-olds as the episode’s hosts. And the enthusiasm seems to trickle down to an even younger age range. BEYOOOOONDS’ Rika Shimakura, 19, or Keyakizaka46’s Minami Koike, 21, shared their personal countdown of favorite ‘70s and ‘80s hits on YouTube and radio, respectively, and I don’t think they’re the only idols, if not of the Japanese Gen. Z population to have a strong interest in this era of pop.
Of course, most people of this demographic were born in the Heisei era (1989-2019) or just about, so they weren’t there to experience the music of Showa firsthand. Their interest is often the product of a secondhand nostalgia, inheriting their parent’s or family member’s love for the music. They’re enamored by a not-so-distant past, close in comfort to feel some intimate proximity but far in actual distance to be able to look at the era through rose-tinted glasses.
This Showa pop love in the younger generation intrigues me because my own connection with older Japanese pop lies most in the music of Heisei, not Showa. Specifically, the era of J-pop highlighted in the drama series M: Aisubeki Hito Ga Ite. While the show consistently delivers soap-opera ridiculousness, it also doubles as a museum of of ‘90s J-pop. It can’t tell the love story between a fictional version of Ayumi Hamasaki and former Avex Group CEO Max Matsuura without referencing Avex Trax and the label’s other blockbuster artists of the decade such as TRF and Every Little Thing. The sort of J-pop that surrounds the world of this drama show is not only a part of my own childhood but also what I recognize as my parents’ music.
So it’s fascinating to see two different yet equally vivid narratives of commercial music nostalgia happening simultaneously. The media stressed a look back into the culture of Heisei these past few years during the transition into the Reiwa era, but Showa culture seems to also have a strong presence particularly with the young adults of Reiwa even with their lack of actual personal connection. I don’t find a specific decade dominating but rather about four or five sharing equal space in the mainstream conversation. And with the tendency of Reiwa music to fold old music into the new, time in J-pop continues to feel like a flat circle.
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Speaking of Showa pop, the date of this issue just about coincides with the 35th anniversary of the one-day music festival All Together Now, which was once described as “Japan’s version of Woodstock,” according to Wikipedia. The This Week in… section will cover more about that. The selections in Singles Club, meanwhile, are very now, one of them informed very much by COVID life. The Album of the Week doesn’t seem to mind about time at all for better or for worse.
This issue also comes with supplementary reading! I translated an interview with Yonige, the band responsible for the Album of the Week. (The interview was done by freelance writer Chinami Hachisuka for Yonige’s official website.) You can check out the translated interview here if you want to get more insight on the songwriting process of the new album.
Happy listening!
Album of the Week
Kenzen Na Shakai by Yonige [Warner Music Japan]
Recommended track: “Kenzen Na Asa” | Listen to it on Spotify
Yonige deliver their most laid-back record yet in Kenzen Na Shakai. The rock duo’s restraint is just a matter of getting real. “I started getting less and less interested in the dramatic things, and it started to become more of, how do I write about how nothing is going on,” the band’s Arisa Ushimaru said. The band’s second album loosens up a need for intensity to capture the everyday at face value, and Ushimaru’s sober perspective as a songwriter gives way to one of the year’s most bittersweet rock albums.
The two don’t seem too concerned about whether or not they strike gold on any catchy riffs, and instead settles into the comforts provided by its pretty, emo-adjacent guitar music. That said, the duo offers kinetic rock as much as sleek beauty. “Akarui Mirai” fumbles around like a reduced, more melodic take on math rock; the drum beat of “Oujougiwa” switches up about halfway through like the band hit on a sudden burst of new inspiration. The hooks just announce themselves in less direct ways, the band landing upon humble, fleeting joys without much fuss.
The music’s lack of glamor feeds off of Ushimaru’s lyrics about the everyday. Some read more jaded than others: “That person I admired turned out to not be a genius,” she sings in “Kenzen Na Asa” as if she was in for a rude awakening while the guitars shrug off any smugness. But she’s mostly focused on presenting life as is, locating a mood halfway between content and resigned. “It’s whatever/ everything will be fine/ please stay the way you are,” goes the refrain of “Mitaina Koto” with Ushimaru taking the minor speed bumps in stride.
Yonige’s disinterest in creating moments in Kenzen Na Shakai admittedly results in a slightly passive-sounding album by nature. That said, the ease in which the rock duo settles in their intended mood comes not from aloofness but sharp precision. It all goes back to their interest in portraying realism. Epiphanies are in abundance, but Ushimaru presents them not as a seemingly random flash of thought both in language and delivery. “If I knew the sight I can see now would be the last, would I have been able to keep at least one promise,” she sings in “Kenzen Na Asa” with her calming melody softening the blunt realization. The best moments land unassumingly but only because that’s how it hits in reality.
The duo sometimes do draw attention as they do in “Oujougiwa.” “Goodbyes always happen without a sound/ without being able to realize what I even lost,” Ushimaru shouts in a rare moment among the noisy commotion. But they still come to terms that it’s no use dedicating intense energy to an irreversible fact, and they embrace the fleetingness of it all while brushing at its melancholy. Kenzen Na Shakai recreates the routine feel of the everyday and yet still manages to unearth its touching moments.
Singles Club
“Machi No Hito” by Lucky Old Sun [Mastard]
Something about mellow, lightly jangling rock—and in the case of Lucky Old Sun, also a wistful touch of a trumpet—make for great music to look back on how a place you’ve called home has a changed. Or more specifically for “Machi Ni Hito,” how your perspective of a city has altered since you arrived. Yoshiaki Shinohara and Nana sing about a station front—“the usual meeting place,” the latter begins—feeling totally different after a split and yet the people who come by remain the same. The bittersweet track is fittingly a tie-up song for an upcoming romance film, Machi No Uede. Even without the movie, though, Lucky Old Sun tell enough.
Machi No Hito/Mark 2 is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Age of Transparency” by FANCLUB; “Ukishizumi No Tsuzuku Sekai” by Yunohana
“Cultboi” by Mom [JVCKENWOOD]
Mom continues to elude anyone trying to pin him down to a single genre. While he teetered between a lo-fi hip-hop beat maker and a folk singer/songwriter in last year’s spectacular Detox, he now steals bits from today’s rap scene for the lead single from his upcoming new album, 21st Century Cultboi Ride a Sk8board. The young singer screams out a verse through a scratchy filter over an equally blown-out beat—and then the music switches into sunny guitar pop during its final minute. He shyly burrows back into his soft hippie side while trying not to make a fuss, but the smoothness of it all only comes across as a flex.
21st Century Cultboi Ride a Sk8board is out July 8. Listen to “Cultboi” on Spotify.
See also: “Cats & Dogs” by Kid Fresino ft. Ayano Kaneko; “Hitsuyounai” by Sushiboys
“Virtual Love Story” by Simpatix [self-released]
The tongue-in-cheek feel of Simpatix’s new song called “Virtual Love Story” is not lost on the idols. The duo’s producer Yamamoto Sho penned the lyrics during the stay-at-home period: “well, things are like this now/ I haven’t seen your face yet/ I love it when you say, ‘oh, but that doesn’t matter,’” Yufu Terashima opens the sweet funk track. Terashima and her partner-in-crime Tsukina Takai also filmed the music video from the comfort of their respective homes. But it taps universal enough for it to speak upon long-distance love in this very online decade. If anything, COVID just adds another dimension to a charming lyric like “let’s go on a date where we don’t take one step outside” in the chorus.
See also: “Soleil” by Miyuna; “Follow You Follow Me” by Sandal Telephone
This Week in 1985…
“Imadakara” by Yumi Matsutoya, Kazumasa Oda & Kazuo Zaitsu [Express/Funhouse, 1985]
No. 1 during the weeks of June 10-17, 1985 | Listen to it on YouTube
What a flex, this record. And what a history. Yumi Matsutoya, Kazumasa Oda formerly of Off Course and Kazuo Zaitsu formerly of Tulips linked up for this one-off funk-pop jam. The latter two musicians’ home label Funhouse built up the star power present within this trio and touted the collaboration in the single’s press release as such:
“They developed the history of New Music, and they’re now currently walking the path of its future. These three Big Artists, Yumi Matsutoya, Kazumasa Oda and Kazuo Zaitsu, put their creative minds together for their appearance at All Together Now.”
All Together Now was a one-time music festival held at Japan’s National Stadium in 1985 to celebrate International Youth Year. The festival marked the first-ever music concert to be hosted by the venue, and it featured a stacked pop line-up: Alfee, Kumiko Yamashita, Sada Masashi, a reunited Happy End, Motoharu Sano with the Heartland and a dozen more.
Billed only under her own name on the festival flyer, Yumi Matsutoya kept the big details of her set on the low. For her live band, she ended up calling up three former members of the disbanded Sadistic Mika Band as well as Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi of Yellow Magic Orchestra. Kazumasa Oda and Kazuo Zaitsu, who also played with their respective bands that day, joined Matsutoya to sing their new joint single that the three just dropped a week prior.
Every musician involved in Matsutoya’s All Together Now band show up in the credits of “Imadakara” as well. The powerful meeting of minds produced one groovy yet heartbreaking record that touches on a love story ephemeral as the band who wrote it. “We grew apart, didn’t we, without being able to accept our sadness?” The three sing in the chorus while trading those wistful lyrics among each other. “But I love the two of us back then.” They look back on a bitter time with a fondness that can only be adopted with time.
Next issue is out June 24. You can check out previous issues here.