Dispatch, Week 5
New BVNDIT, the iPod Classic, ranking the Dempagumi solos
Hello! I write about music time to time, mostly in my newsletter but also in other places. For whatever this is, I basically want to blog about random things I come across during the week to an audience of no one — or maybe someone? — in these times of isolation.
BVNDIT: ‘Carnival’ (2020)
(“Children,” from Carnival)
BVNDIT’s new mini album, Carnival, gives a home to the two digital singles, “Cool” and “Children,” that they released during the past couple months. They’re admittedly very cheesy songs. The former really pushes the #GirlPower mantra, and the latter similarly sings a rather sentimental theme about how the girls aren’t kids anymore. But I find it more worthwhile than the newer tracks included in the mini album. They define a pretty fun, unque personality through those songs. There’s a committed earnestness that lends itself to read as cool from a pre-teen perspective, the kind of point of view that looks up to heroes or slightly older, adult-like figures who seem like they have a complete sense of their world and blind enough to not think of questioning the merits of their broad-stroke philosophies. It reminds me of Itzy songs. I like to imagine an alternative universe where BVNDIT explores this lane instead of the more well-trodden one pursued in “Jungle.” They’re still new enough to pivot if they really wanted to.
iPod Nostalgia and Justice for CD Players
It has fascinated me to observe the different kinds of music players that shows up in K-pop music videos these past few years. It’s fun to keep track which ones have gained some hipster chicness over time. Vinyl record players have been a mainstay for a while now, and cassette players — Walkmans, boom boxes, and the like — have become rather common too.
The iPod Classic, I think, is starting to crop up into this group as seen in CHEEZE’s new music video for “Today’s Mood.” I’ve yet to see any videos that feature the offshoots: the Shuffle, Mini, Nano and the Touch. Nor have I seen other MP3 players. But it’s well apparent that the point of nostalgia for music devices have moved into the 2000s.
What bums me out personally, though, is that this would mean portable CD players will likely be skipped over when it comes to the nostalgia treatment. I’ve long wondered what the nostalgia for the CD would look like. The only ones I can think of is the reference of the CD-R and the Minidisc in album art and packaging. Though I’ve yet to see a reminiscence of the actual physical thing and the technologies to listen to the music recorded on it.
The Bonus Solo Songs from the New Dempagumi.Inc Album, Ranked from Worst to Best
6) Rin Kaname: “Kimi No Heart Wa Watashi No Mono”
5) Ayane Fujisaki: “Gunjou Ekisupanda”
4) Nagi Nemoto: “Yume Wo Miru”
3) Mirin Furukawa: “Me Me Me”
2) Eimi Naruse: “Legend of Ei”
1) Risa Aizawa: “Abnormal Q”
Let Me Tell You About M: Aisubeki Hitoga Ite
I’ve been told by several folks before I began watching the drama that M Aisubeki Hitoga Ite features some of the most hilariously bad scenes in recent memory, so I didn’t go into it looking for the most awesomely told biopic. To backtrack and remind, this thing isn’t even a biopic but based on a non-fiction novel based on the relationship between Ayumi Hamasaki and Max Matsuura. But it’s hard to keep focused that this is fiction when they introduce so many things tethered to reality, things that are so specific to real dates and real events. It’s even more frustrating when they don’t commit enough and start to play liberally with things like release dates and the actual course of events. Disbelief can be suspended for only so long.
This being a story of Ayumi Hamasaki and Max Matsuura, the story largely revolves around their record label Avex Trax — or sorry, A Victory. And this being a time before the debut of Ayu, so around 1993–1997, Tetsuya Komuro — or Tenmei Kira, the TK initials being a big hint — shows up time to time too. So much of the show borrows from Avex property. That said, considering the label’s exhaustive campaigns over the decades to revive Komuro’s hits in some shape or form, it’s interesting for the label to be involved in a narrative where not only Komuro is portrayed as the heel within Avex Trax but he’s also suggested, by Matsuura, mind, that his time is close to being finished.
(To be fair, if Avex is not squeezing pennies out of Komuro’s material from the ’90s, the label is flipping Ayu’s music in some way. So the focus on Ayu to tell the label’s story is far from a counter-narrative, but I also haven’t really seen Avex put Komuro in such a light, that he could be a villain and to be open about his fall from grace.)
I’m interested in how M tells the story of J-pop during such an ascendant time, but I’m also a big Ayu fan, so I’m following how it tells her story too. I never really dug around her early history. Watching this huge mess of a show, I remember why I never really did.
You see, I hold her music dearly; her lyrics mean the world to me, and I would probably go far to say it got me through some shit when I wasn’t feeling the best about how my life was going. I had a hunch of who these lyrics, or at least the “you,” might have been addressed to. Before M, the novel, went viral for its content, I knew the two had a relationship, so it’s not news that it couldn’t been for Max Matsuura. But it still ruins the myth for me to see it actually reenacted, true to reality or not. The origin story, I might not care, but the creative process, and the discovery of her creativity, I can be more personal with while watching the drama handle how it goes.
The third episode, currently the newest one before COVID halted filming, centers on Ayu discovering that she has talent for lyric writing through Max Matsuura. It’s supposed to be an illuminating moment in her path to artistry, but it ends up demystifying both the process and the subject of the actual work for me. Is M going to affect my relationship with Ayu’s music? Definitely not. Am I going to keep watching M once new episodes hit production. It’s likely: I’m bored and I need something to keep me entertained.
Congrats Sailer, You Made It to Friday
See you next week!
