Issue #23: Ne Minna Daisuki Dayo
The last issue of 2020 looks at the new Ging Nang Boyz album, the Akina Nakamori single that made me a fan, and our usual three highlight singles
Hi! Welcome to This Side of Japan, a newsletter about Japanese music, new and old. You can check out previous issues here.
We only have a couple months until the year is over, and for This Side of Japan, this will be the last issue of 2020 until I eventually pick it back up again in January. As I alluded in the latest issue of Idol Watch from last month, I am currently working on a couple big year-end lists to look back at all of the great Japanese music released in 2020. I’ll be putting the main newsletter on hold to work on those lists, which is planned for now to be out in the second week of December, but I’m also giving myself some time off in general to pursue other projects.
It’s been really fun working on this newsletter throughout the year. I already paid attention to new music releases from Japan before launching This Side of Japan, but the newsletter definitely inspired me to be even more proactive at finding Japanese music. That effort began to show as I started organizing all of the year’s finds into a Spotify playlist (which will be available for you when I share my overall top songs of the year list!). Currently, the amount of songs (one per artist) is only a dozen or so away from equalling last year’s playlist, and I’m only at maybe a little more than halfway done transferring songs from my many smaller playlists.
Seeing the sheer abundance of interesting songs from Japan this year constantly makes me re-evaluate the Singles Club portion of my newsletter. Clearly, sparing words to three songs every other week hardly makes for an adequate amount when you see that I’ve accumulated (hoarded?) over 500 songs this year from my music search. I’ve tried to remedy that somewhat by sharing with you a playlist every month of what else I had saved so those songs can maybe get some eyes and ears even without any writing for them.
But trust me, I have been trying to compensate for that lack by doing my best to curate the very best singles from my finds to fill that small three-song slot with the most worthwhile discoveries for every issue. I try to feature range as much as possible, and to stay away from being redundant, I try to keep it to one rap song, one rock song and one dance song, for example. If there are more than a few good ones in a similar lane, and it’s pretty much every issue, that’s what the “See also” portion is for.
What takes the most precedent, though, is whether or not the song being featured can produce good, worthwhile writing from me, and that really influences the curation in a very different way. Yes, the song has a nice beat, great vocals and a catchy hook—but what else can I say about this? I have to be able to attach an interesting narrative to its origins, a creative description to its sounds, or a compelling explanation of its mechanics. This element, I think, can do more harm than good. As I have written before, this can favor certain types of songs while keeping out others based on my own limitations as a writer.
It’s not the fault of the song than it is a failure on my ability as a writer and critic to write about its appeal, whatever that may be. It’s a classic dilemma of today’s music journalism, where it still carries over this consumer guide/buyer’s review approach, that keeps away certain music from being more visible. It’s a dilemma that I, too, often have to navigate while working on this newsletter, and there’s a certain, added responsibility in me navigating it well as I try and cover a scene of music that’s not written about a whole lot.
I don’t really see This Side of Japan as some big, bad venture that will change the state of music journalism. I’m just happy if you discovered some cool tunes through the newsletter and maybe became more in touch with what’s happening in music in Japan. But I am mindful that not too many music journalists are writing about Japanese music nor is there too many places to easily read about them. I am aware that I have an audience, so it’s not fair to my readers if I don’t take the production of This Side of Japan seriously.
With that in mind, it’s been a great joy putting this out every other Wednesday and compiling idol songs over at Idol Watch every other month. I already have a few big features planned for next year, so I hope you stick around as a reader of This Side of Japan in 2021. I’ll see you in December!
Album of the Week
Ne Minna Daisuki Dayo by Ging Nang Boyz [UK Project]
Recommended track: “Otona Zenmetsu” | Listen to it on Spotify
Kazunobu Mineta can’t help but let noise bleed onto the surface of his raucous punk music. The 2014 live album Beach is so drowned in static and hiss, it’s almost unlistenable. But as the mastermind of Ging Nang Boyz, he doesn’t mean to be antagonistic or forge a distance between his listeners; in fact, his songs practically assume the listener as kin to the point of oversharing. Noise emerges more as a side effect of the music not being physically capable of containing the volume of his emotions. If a Ging Nang Boyz song seems dangerous to approach, it’s because it overwhelms with its openness and the raw, intoxicated ways in which he expresses it.
Tender confessions continue to emerge from thick static in Ne Minna Daisuki Dayo (or Hey, I Love You All), the band’s first album in 6 years. The songs bleed so sincere with love and affection, it borders into the saccharine, but Mineta does not care one bit about hiding that behind cool or cleverness. The noise hardly dresses up his shameless ‘60s rock pastiche as well as its hippie-isms with more than a few parts recalling Oasis’s early albums than a basement punk record. While he frequently sings about rock ‘n’ roll as a savior, he doubles down on the Anglophone tics in “Love Is Forever” with its big, jangling riffs but also the lyrical nod of “strawberry fields dreams” in the chorus.
Shamelessness and the willingness to be emotionally naked to the point of humiliation have made Ging Nang Boyz such an enduring act since the band’s 2005 classic debut, Kimi To Boku No Daisanjisekaidaisenjiteki Renai Kakumei. Mineta’s songs may have softened as the years have gone by, but his gestures of affection don’t differ much from the days he confessed to stealing his high-school crush’s gym-class uniform. “I want to love you / oh, aren’t I gross / oh, I can’t help it / let me suck you to the bone,” he softly sings in the chorus of “Bone,” an otherwise sugar-coated rock letter. His writing has solidified into this clumsy pop, overwrought with sappy sentiments and perverted sweet nothings, and he presents it as such a pure form of self that it’s hard to deny.
How Mineta sings with a pure, almost childlike innocence after decades into his career impresses most in Ne Minna Daisuki Dayo. His perspective on life has yet to sour from age, and his die-hard commitment to the bit keeps his sincerity captivating no matter how much it can lean into the cliche. As naive as some of the lyrics can sound from a singer-songwriter of middle age, his simple-minded approach ends up producing rewarding results especially from music so eaten up by noise, with songs literally encouraging people to throw away logic and get lost in the loud mess.
That experience of being consumed by the enormity of sound is also what makes “Otona Zenmetsu” a stand out from the album. After a few minutes spent finding footing in the wash of guitar drone—“Why were we born? Why do we die,” goes the opening lyrics, shrouded in feedback—Mineta emerges from the delirium to dedicate a song to lost souls. “So we the people who were once here can laugh from the bottom of our hearts,” he shouts the main refrain as if it’s life or death. Elsewhere in the album, he sings about how rock ‘n’ roll can heal and memorialize. It may sound foolish to believe, but Nee Minna Daisuki Dayo convinces for a moment that there’s nothing to lose in taking those words to heart.
Singles Club
“Maboroshi No Youni” by Ibuki Takai [Apollo Sounds]
“Like a mirage,” goes the titular refrain of Ibuki Takai’s single from her new album, Kaleidoscope. Her object of desire remains just out of reach throughout, and their presence feels even more fleeting and phantom-like when described over the singer-songwriter’s ethereal pop music. While the prickly drums softly punch in a beat over the smoky pianos, Takai’s breathy voice curls her syllables as she patiently unfurls them. The lightness of her voice can mask how subtly tragic the lyrics about unrequited love can read— “like a mirage / you laughed and said / ‘only if there was time for just the two of us’” she recollects a bittersweet memory—but the melancholy lingers well after the song is done.
Kaleidoscope is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Porcelain” by Ichiko Aoba; “Fastiteration” by The Mellows
“Kanashiikurai Diamond” by Ryusenkei & Hitomi Toi [Victor]
My expectation for the new mystery-comedy drama Talio: Avenger Buddies was perhaps a bit skewed knowing that the music for the series would be done by Ryusenkei and Hitomi Toi—two longtime collaborators in the city-pop revival scene. The pilot episode was so-so, and it sadly had nothing to do with city pop, but it did provide great opening and closing themes by the duo.
“Kanashiikurai Diamond” graces the ending credits of the series. The balmy, jazzy funk by Ryusenkei suggests a romance waiting to unfold, and Hitomi Toi sighs with envy at the sight of an almost-too-perfect couple in love: “like diamonds / they steal each other kindly,” she admires, “the more they’re drawn to each other / the more bittersweet the sound of the waves.” The cinematic pop sounds heart-warming but also a bit tinged in sadness, like the scene taking place in front of Hitomi Toi is something she can’t acquire.
The Talio soundtrack is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Omajinai” by Lynn Honoka; “Strangers” by Yumi Matsutoya
“Omae” by Tricot [8902/Avex Trax]
Tricot have been well known to arrange jagged, complex guitar lines into catchy pop songs as showcased recently as this January’s Makkuro. The band, meanwhile, say hell with tying fancy knots for “Omae” and instead thrash around with a blistering, very straightforward riff to open their latest album, 10. They cause a big mess with speed, though the noise is minor compared to the shouting match inside the mind of frontwoman Ikkyu Nakajima. “Ah, I have to live with me everyday,” she begins about being her own best friend; “You’re the worst at shutting up out of everyone in the world,” she bemoans in the chorus. The wrestling music practically sums up Nakajima’s internal fight, but at least the exploding chorus provides a moment to air out some stress.
10 is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Tsuki No Hikari Wo Miteiru” by Fishborn; “Shojo B” by RoE
This Week in 1984…
“Kazarijanainoyo Namidawa” by Akina Nakamori [Warner Pioneer, 1984]
No. 1 during the week of Nov. 26, 1984 | Listen to it on YouTube
Akina Nakamori may have more iconic songs from the ‘80s, be it “Shoujo A” or “Desire.” Out of all them, though, “Kazarijanainoyo Namidawa” was the one that first stole my attention. The chorus exemplified the stoic on-record personality that I would hear about from her other passionate fans. Nakamori snaps back with the fierce titular line in the chorus—“tears aren’t decorations,” she sings as a reminder to take her feelings seriously—while rocking a smooth funk groove. She punctuates the lyric with disco ad libs as if knocking sense into playboys and blessing the dance floor are one of the same.
Nakamori establishes an icy cool in “Namidawa,” but denting her image despite her effort is really the point of the song. The hint of vulnerability revealed in the chorus reminds me of “Yokusuka Story” by Momoe Yamaguchi—an inspiration to Nakamori as an idol and singer—and how the ‘70s icon’s resigned lyrics plays counter to her stoic image. “When it looks pretty, it’s OK / but tears, they’re just a bit too sad,” Nakamori explains in the chorus of “Namidawa” as though the person saw something about her they’re not supposed to see. She can’t quite reconcile the conflicting trade-off: she hates it when her feelings get played with, though she also doesn’t want to drop the charade that she’s not swayed by emotions.
This put-on performance of a tough girl by Nakamori also gets humored by the lyricist and legendary songwriter Yosui Inoue. The verses build up this girl who’s not scared of anything, and the extensive way in which Inoue writes about her fearlessness borders into almost self-parody. “I never cried before,” Nakamori starts off every of her run-ins with shock and danger. “Even if I’m picked up by a speedy driver / Even if they give a sudden spin / I was never scared.” How she playfully howls in the chorus with ad libs in between suggest the idol, too, takes this persona-building as a fun exercise. When faced with real tears and a rush of emotion, the warped vocals don’t suggest tragedy as much as confusion from not being able to properly articulate such an overwhelming sensation.
Nakamori had the tone and demeanor down to present herself as the stoic, cool woman, her voice sticking to a deep, smoky register that would define her work. But in retrospect, “Namidawa” was just the beginning of this iconography that people would know her by. She would sound much larger than life as the ‘80s progressed. Her vocals grew more powerful, and the music became more extravagant and otherworldly. “Namidawa” in comparison sounds like a child trying out adult clothes, and yet she’s already getting used to the fit like she was born to play the part.
The next issue of This Side of Japan is out December 9. You can check out previous issues here.
Need to contact? You can find me on Twitter or reach me at ryomiyauchi9@gmail.com