Issue #86: Fall of Spring
We return with words on great summer albums, Seiko Matsuda's "Aoi Sangosho," and our picks for Songs of the Summer
Hi! Welcome to This Side of Japan, a newsletter on Japanese music, new and old. You can check out previous issues here.
How has this year’s summer in music been for everyone? For me, as my personal playlist goes, it has consisted of a lot of U.K. garage revival and post-dubstep circa 2008-2009 with a bunch of idol music from the 46/48 and Hello! Project camp in between. Oh, plus BRAT and NewJeans. I, too, was in awe from clips of Hanni cover Seiko Matsuda’s “Aoi Sangosho” at NewJeans’s fan meeting at Tokyo Dome.
How was this year’s summer in music for Japan? For one, I was excited about Kana Nishino’s return to music, which couldn’t happen at a better time as nostalgia for Heisei-era J-pop continues to grow but also with the rise of more relationship-talk R&B singers who seem to come directly from her line. Things seem to come full circle in this meeting of late ‘00s J-pop and J-pop of today’s J-pop in a song like Miliyah’s new one with LANA.
TikTok continued to crank out dance crazes—one of which we’ll get into very soon below. And I’m still intrigued whenever a buzz born from the platform grows too big for the more traditional industries to ignore, leading to TV producers booking, like, KOMOREBI and Kocchi No Kento to fill out a two-hour program. Speaking of TV, nothing could maybe prepare for Sasuke Haraguchi appearing on Matsuko No Shiranai Sekai to talk for an hour about “the world of DTM” and getting Matsuko DX to engage with the music of lilbesh ramko. Haraguchi, though, has yet to slow down his work rate this summer. At this point, you have to keep up with the guy if you want to follow where J-pop is going.
So what did summer in Japan sound like? I can only hypothesize from the songs that pop on my various media feeds, be it on social media or television, and the life that it has taken as I observe it from across the pond. But it’s always fun to think about the so-called Song of the Summer, so I wanted to draft up a short list to sum up how music in Japan sounded in summer 2024. Enjoy!
“SMASH HIT” by DJ CHARI, kZm & JP THE WAVY [INNER WORLD]
DJ CHARI orchestrates a summer anthem practically out of sheer will, not caring a bit about the possible irony in naming your single a “SMASH HIT” before it’s even out. But his vision behind the single justifies his case, starting from the triplet thumps of Jersey club—still a hot sound in today’s Japan’s rap—courtesy of ZOT on the WAVE. JP THE WAVY lays his chill yet acrobatic verse like he, too, already won before the competition even started while kZM bounces across the track, often breaking out to a warbling croon. The brazen summer collab fuses those feelings on one track, that sure-shot confidence and hard-to-contain excitement both felt from knowing you just got your hands on, well, a smash hit.
Listen to it on Spotify.
“Underground” by f5ve [Three Six Zero]
f5ve indulge in the harder strains of club in “Underground.” Just as they teased on their semi-trolling X account, the group drops a 177-BPM rush of a beat come the chorus, all throbbing bass line and skittering drums that snap like camera shutters. (For a clearer look at its aims, production-wise, it’d be wise to check out its para para dance.) If they sound more forlorn than amped, though, it means not even the hardest and fastest of beats can distract them from their existential crisis at the club. “A place where I can finally be who I want / let’s all go together,” they sing in the chorus after recounting their life-sucking routine from being tied to their 9-to-5. For a moment there, f5ve find what they seek from their own rave escapist fantasy but only until the drums go quiet again.
Listen to it on Spotify.
“Shika Iro Days” by Noko Shikanoko (CV: Magumi Han), Torako Kushi (CV: Saki Fujita), Anko Koshi (CV: Rui Tanabe) & Meme Bashame (CV: Fuka Izumi) [Lantis]
If you have not been subjected to the first 10 seconds of this song until now, please stop the song now and consult any TikToks made with it instead. Like Creepy Nuts and their gone-viral anime single, the opening theme to Shikanoko Nokonoko Koshitantan has grown into something bigger than its attached show, thanks to its silly little dance. The song itself? A brassy, lackadaisical, if a bit standard fare of an anime song with a zippy vocal volley between its voice actresses as they unravel the basics of show’s premise: a deer girl leading the Deer Club at her high school (I know). But its nonsensical titular lyric turns into a mesmerizing spell through repetition, especially when combined with its dance that’s mindless in its simplicity. The absurdity bears hardly any point, just people shaking their hips with their arms locked, but ask me if I’ve ever got shikanoko nokonoko kishitantan to stop playing in my head all summer.
Listen to it on Spotify.
“Ai To U” / “Ai To U (Sped Up Ver.)” by Mega Shinnosuke [self-released]
After seeing the singer-songwriter dabble in several different genre since the wake of this decade, I always found Mega Shinnosuke most at home in this mode of shy-boy indie-rock. He sighs in “Ai To U” about a crush he knows won’t reciprocate his feelings. But despite him being openly insecure, he sings the chorus with winsome confidence, like he can’t hide his own pride about writing such a sticky melody himself. The sugar content of the chorus heightens in its sped-up from, the version that has burrowed its way into TikTok. While the edit scrubs away much of the nuance beyond its surface sweetness, I want to think people on the platform are also subconsciously connecting with the moody singer-songwriter, so hopelessly in love.
Listen to it on Spotify.
“Kirai Ni Natchauyo” by Kaneyorimasaru [Victor]
Kaneyorimasaru understand summer flings sound best over exuberant pop-punk riffs. If only the feelings confessed by the band in “Kirai Ni Nacchauyo” was steeped in as much confidence about its fate as the lively music. As they share out loud how head over heels they are, they can’t help but dwell on the worst: “May your love with anyone else never fall through,” they sneak in a selfish wish in this deceptive breeziness while their insecurities bleed into an otherwise radiant chorus. “Kirai Ni Nacchauyo” ends up expressing more the anxiety behind harboring a crush, the band knows it’s no less essential than the joys.
Listen to it on Spotify.
Welcome back to This Side of Japan! Hope you enjoyed some of the intermittent material while we were absent. The Thai idol feature in particular has been something I wanted to work on for almost a year now. But we’re back to regularly schedule programming—well, almost—with our picks for singles, an Oricon flashback for a hit very dear to my heart as well as a round-up of a few great albums released over the summer.
Happy listening!
Favorite Albums: Summer 2024
While we get back to our regular routine of covering new albums, we decided to round up a few albums released over the summer that we missed in coverage while we took a break. Here are three albums from July and August that we enjoyed.
Maid-san and Witch by gaburyu [self-released]
*Recommended track: “Vraveater” | Listen to it on Spotify
Every so often last year, I’d catch new uploads on YouTube by gaburyu of songs made with the IA Vocaloid. The tracks scanned too complete as a picture to see them as one-off experiments despite a lack of a clear project attached to them at the time. Though, with a different character on their respective covers, including the fox maid seen above, each suggested as being of its own contained universe. Some throughlines could be spotted in the singles, mainly the blown-out, kitchen-sink electro-pop sound in the vein of their hyperpop peers like hirihiri and phritz, who, like gaburyu, also had found Soundcloud their second home this current decade. A track like “Umo” echoed the producer’s own past work of softer, more bashful synth-pop tied to the platform, and yet it was the uploads with brasher electronics and clanking percussion that made a mark, especially with the choppy, warbling vocals of IA. All that and then some more got collected here in their new album, Maid-san and Witch, this summer, with now amazing Vocaloid tracks from the past year finding a proper home.
Fall of Spring by Endon [Thrill Jockey]
*Recommended track: “Hit Me” | Listen to it on Spotify/Bandcamp
Even amidst the harshest screeches, you can find a solid bluesy, Boris-ian riff or two in Endon’s 2019 album, Boy Meets Girl. But the equation behind the noise-metal band’s latest is all noise, no metal, with Taichi Nagura’s screams curdling in the thick fuzz of blistering electronics. Fall of Spring perhaps takes a hint from the back half of the 10-minute jam of “Doubts as a Source” from the previous LP, with its instruments crumbling down to the tune of siren raids while Nagura’s whimpers continuing even after the debris settles. Throughout its 9-minute stretch, “Hit Me” fleshes out that collapse into a full arrangement consisting pure brutal contact as the vocalist brings the sound of agony to the forefront: read the lyrics if you’d like, though it’s likely you already felt it beforehand. Despite the fatalism surrounding its equally doomed music, however, the noise somehow soothes as it fully consumes the space.
I’m Back by Gokou Kuyt [self-released]
*Recommended track: “Peacekeeper” | Listen to it on Spotify
Time has been kind to Gokou Kuyt as the rapper makes his grand return in I’m Back. His go-to sound of candy-sweet, plugg-like synth beats hang like cousins among the shiny swag rap that’s been in vogue this current decade, and so he sounds at home when indulging in those sounds new to his catalog. I can’t shake off my fond memories of Chief Keef’s Finally Rich and its stylistic nods to Soulja Boy when I hear “Go!” and please believe I mean that as a compliment. And while his go-to emo raps prove to be highlights, the attached production adapt to the current times to freshen up his music ever so slightly: “Peacekeeper” shows off a faint drill influence while “Light’s Up!” ties together the classic and new through its flashy Game Boy textures. He’s back like he’s never left.
Singles Club
“FREAK” by ELAIZA [Polydor]
If Elaiza Ikeda is flirting with the idea of an experimental phase for her music career, her dip into jazzy math-rock in “FREAK” should more than convince her that, yes, go all in and branch out from her comfort zone of late-night R&B. The nervy guitar work might check out after learning this song’s produced by POLKADOT STINGRAY’s Shizuku—actual friend of Ikeda’s, apparently!—whose band has honed in on this exact guitar-playing style as their bread and butter. Yet embellished with a more low-key arrangement, the song recalls more of the passive-aggressive jazz-rock duets of DADARAY through its music but also its lyrics: “You freak me out / don’t make me say it over and over again,” she quips in the hook. While the busyness of the music ends up scattering the heat behind her actual words, “FREAK” remains a hot ball of energy containing Ikeda’s unresolved frustrations.
Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “JO-DEKI” by POLKADOT STINGRAY; “Datte, Kinsei” by chef’s
“Idealogue” by Gensenkan [Northern Sadness]
For a glimpse into Gensenkan’s last outing, skramz 2022, take the glowing words from the great punk label Long Legs Long Arms Records: “It’s an album that makes you realize what skramz should be in 2022 through the lyrics, sound, artwork, everything expressed by Gensenkan.” Two years later, the Tokyo band serve a taste of their follow-up, 7 Songs, that’s just as declarative as 3LA’s raving review. They hardly spend time clearing their throat despite the time passed, hammering down intense hardcore with precision. Out of all the different approaches in which they deploy their fury, I cannot get enough of the one done during the first quarter, where they clear space for a glorious thrash riff. While the lyric sheet sees them spiral down a brooding mental hell, Gensenkan summon a furious flame for us to gander in awe.
7 Songs is out Sept. 13. Listen to the song on Bandcamp.
See also: “Into the Flame” by RECLUSE; “Night Cruising” by Sugar
“intercept” by Japanese Ape ft. Catarrh Nisin [self-released]
In his debut full-length, Jape Rondo, Japanese Ape culls together a collection of rugged beats that sputter as much as they skip about—some frothy U.K. drill here, wobbly grime there. “Intercept” ranks among the album’s busiest with fat dubstep bass lines bubbling from a propelling production driven by speedy garage drums. Yet the rapper’s zen cool among the rush suggests that for all the album’s dance-adjacent sounds, he might be a boom-bap guy at heart, who wants to introspect over chill loops. “Red eye race / I am my only enemy,” he intones in the chorus as the music rushes by. It’s just Japanese Ape against the beat, and he’s hardly shook, focused on dropping knowledge above all else.
Jape Rondo is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Summer course” by chelmico ft. Neibiss; “Shimokitazawa” by ONJUICY & nonomi ft. AKOSIA
This Week in 1980…
This section is usually dedicated to the Oricon number ones throughout the chart’s history, but for this issue, I’ll write about a hit that did not make it to the very top.
“Aoi Sangosho” by Seiko Matsuda [Sony, 1980]
Highest position at #2 during the weeks of Sept. 8-29, 1980 | Listen to it on Spotify/YouTube
Once her plane touched down at Haneda airport, Seiko Matsuda sprinted down to the runway to sing her single “Aoi Sangosho,” live for TV. This was how she made her debut appearance on former music-countdown program The Best Ten, a spectacle that almost didn’t happen: when he learned the idol’s flight was scheduled to land a bit earlier than posted, producer Shuji Yamada allegedly screamed to the airline to slow down the plane so his show can go on as planned. Everything miraculously fell into place for Matsuda that night in August, 1980, the pop icon arriving just in time.
And her breakthrough single sounds like the arrival of a moment. The idol ushers in this sensation of the brand new before she utters a word through its now-iconic opening phrase: ahhhhhh, she stretches that syllable into infinite, spreading her arms open wide to embrace the rushing breeze of the string arrangement. “My love / runs for you riding the southern wind,” Matsuda continues in the chorus. With her heart set out to take flight, she sounds ecstatic to be enveloped in such a warm, vast feeling where only forces of nature can aptly define its larger-than-life scale.
Matsuda entered the scene just as it began to transition into a whole new era. The spring before, in April 1980, her debut performance on another music program, Yoru No Hit Studio, followed an obnoxious yet somewhat prophetic introduction. “Some people call her mailbox Momoe-chan,” the show’s MC Jun Inoue joked with a dad-joke pun, “and by that I mean, she’s a new star with potential to be post-Momoe-chan.” He was referring to the huge void about to be left open after Momoe Yamaguchi’s retirement from entertainment, which was announced just that March, but this post- period extended in spirit to encompass the idol scene at the start of the ‘80s in general. The big stars of the ‘70s either began to age out of relevance or had bowed out completely, and so the incoming idol classes had even bigger shoes to fill than their predecessors.
But it’d be too perfect a story if the people immediately crowned Matsuda as the new heir. Her debut record, “Hadashi No Kisetsu,” which she sang at Yoru No Hit Studio, performed just-fine in the eyes of the public, with her leaving just as modest an impression of her as an idol. Her voice rang sparkling clear on the song, the big-band arrangement beatific as the romantic start to summer that the idol sang about. As elegant and polished as the record sounds, though, I wouldn’t fault anyone at the time to find her or her music lacking the glamour or drama served from the singers before her. In the shadow of the idols before her, Matsuda appeared a bit… ordinary.
As time will eventually prove, this image of a rather ordinary girl precisely has come to define Matsuda as the idol of her generation. She embodied the closeness of a girl next door, and “Aoi Sangosho” taps into this connection as a seemingly everyday icon to its full strength. As her emotions inflate into a sensation beyond imagination in the chorus, her voice swoons into a sigh come the verses. And just as the music gear back into motion from her daydreams like a run-up to the mighty refrain, she lets this winking lyric slip out in perfect timing: “Anata ga suki,” she sings — “I love you” — like it almost accidentally poured out from pure elation. Before one can properly take in the moment, the song has been fully carried away by the arrangement into the chorus, and the brief mention of “you” alters how one might position themselves as they experience the rest of the song: I am now directly a part of this precious moment, with her eye to eye, perhaps as the very person inspiring this electric feeling.
Like all great idol songs, “Aoi Sangosho” hinges on its ability to let listeners suspend disbelief for a moment and settle into the narrative — I don’t want to call it fantasy — as well as the personality driving the record. Anyone can say what they want about the real Seiko Matsuda and how well this song represents her. The concept and likeness behind “Aoi Sangosho” are partly a reflection of the interests of the singer’s own: much has been said about the kind of songs she preferred to sing during her early years. But as unforgettable as it is, the almost calculated precision of the anata ga suki hook also possibly planted the seed for the invention of the term burikko — a cunning personality whose gestures are all methodical to win favorable attention while acting unassuming on the surface — first bestowed to this very idol as she grew in popularity. This, as a lot of detractors like to remind us about idol songs, is all made-up.
But all the strings being pulled to trigger the idol-pop magic become beside the point when the record is on. While the music is absorbing, Matsuda is just as gravitating a figure as she sings about an infatuation that’s seemingly impossible to contain. When people talk about Seiko Matsuda, the idol, I think the girl who’s first heard on “Aoi Sangosho” is the one who comes to mind: a young girl with a sincere heart and a whole lot to still experience. But also the awe-inspiring feelings attached to the music, too, with it representing her pureness as well as her excitement for what life had to potentially offer. Her later records interacted with this record as a foundation in one way or another, either expanding on the romance or subverting it as she aged in real life: when it comes to the latter, the melancholy of “Akai Sweet Pea” would not be as poignant as it is without what was laid out about Matsuda in “Aoi Sangosho.”
Countless idols have appeared since Matsuda’s breakout year of 1980. Their identities all seem either inspired by or in reaction to the person introduced in “Aoi Sangosho”; when people say not that kind of idol, in sound, style or attitude, however distant in era, they likely mean not like that girl. And this year, music program Shuukan Nine Nine Music interviewed hundreds of idols performing at Tokyo Idol Festival about their favorite idol songs. “Aoi Sangosho” ranked number 3, below Buono!’s “Hatsukoi Cider” and AKB48’s “Heavy Rotation.” Almost 45 years after release, I want to think idols today still hold on to the song in attempts to embody the personality as well as the feelings shining on that record once the music is on.
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Next issue of This Side of Japan is out September 18. You can check out previous issues of the newsletter here.
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