This Side of Japan: May 2019

This month’s Japanese music on YouTube by Homecomings, ZOC, Tokyo Shoki Koudo and more

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s new single “Kimi Ga Iine Kuretara” comes with yet another music video full of visual gags destined to go viral. Stunning as the clip may be, she seems to know a hit YouTube video isn’t enough for a song to gain exposure nowadays. She also uploaded a clip of her dancing to the single on TikTok with a simple choreography, set to the thumbs-up gesture to go with the song’s chorus, made for others to hopefully use for their own posts on the app.

At least since Twice’s “TT” went viral back in 2016, social media has introduced an incentive, if not a demand for a successful pop hit to be more than just pure listening material. Young consumers have been interacting with and sharing tracks while playing them in the background, many of them mimicking the point dance of the respective song: Hinatazaka46 recently had TikTok users try out what they called their Hi-dance (with arms shaped like the hiragana for “hi”) set to their number-one debut “Kyun.”

But while Hinatazaka’s dance already accompanied the song as part of its choreography, Kyary’s thumbs-up move seems to be made separate from the song’s choreography and more for TikTok-sharing purposes. The origin of Angerme’s dance for their latest single, “Koi Wa Accha Accha,” also feels blurry in intent as the group campaign the song with an aggressive focus on making it go viral. Their commercials double as requests to form your own flash mob at train stations, soccer fields, public pools or wherever else you wish.

Angerme’s dance itself doesn’t have much of a connection to its accompanying song. If anything, the song becomes the promotional vehicle for the dance. As TikTok’s popularity as well as YouTube culture continues to boom, I wonder how either social media platforms will further inform the pop music of the near future. Like Angerme’s song, would crowd interaction take more precedent? Would choruses need to inspire easy-to-learn gestures? Fast, flashy beats more favorable over slow, mellow ones? As an act like Yorushika and their song “Tada Kimi Ni Hare” can prove, people are discovering new music through the platform. Would it influence how to make them too?

Here are my top 10 picks of new Japanese music from this month on YouTube. There’s also a rundown of more releases from May below. You can also check out these finds and more on this month’s Spotify playlist.

10) Kyary Pamyu Pamyu: “Kimi Ga Iine Kuretara”

Kyary’s world still unmistakably sounds like hers: the single’s whimsical toybox EDM with a touch of chiptune sound effects is business as usual when dealing with a Yasutaka Nakata production. But while past singles seemed to exist in isolation, separate in some daydream universe, Kyary navigates the real world here like any other millennial particularly the self-gratification as well as the stresses from social media. Sorry if that sounds like pop thinkpiece fodder, but it’s much more simple and sweet than it’s described on paper — a truth for every other great Kyary single.

9) JUBEE: “Blue Zone”

A part of rap collective Creative Drug Store — also home to VaVa and BIM — JUBEE rides a sleek garage-house track for the one-off release, “Blue Zone.” Fitting for the beat, he pens verses about shuffling to the dance floor of the club while sipping on soda and Jack Daniels. The rapper lays low key, stuck in a lazy daze: “I’m already super high,” he admits . And his voice acts as a stoned-out counterpoint to the slinky 2-step, painting the club as a hypnotic venue.

8) =LOVE: “Niji No Moto”

The B-side duet “Niji No Moto” performed by =LOVE members Maika Sasaki and Iori Noguchi satisfies any cravings for melodrama left behind by last year’s “Teokure Caution” — a maudlin pop that the idol group has yet to revisit as a lead single. The pensive pianos, a rush of strings and power riffs all provide a bittersweet taste as called by the song, and the lyrics sinks deeper into dramatics: “at least let me know/ did my tears become a rainbow,” the two asks in the chorus for a song titled “The Source of a Rainbow.”

7) ZOC: “Chu Pri”

For their bubbly flip side to the serious-minded debut “Family Matters,” ZOC exhibit an almost meta-level of self-awareness to idol culture. Or at least, the idols know the rules very well as they sing about deleting photos of the past and uploading new profile pics to change into different identities. They fight for and eventually demand your loyalty, not afraid to call out a fan dabbling into different fandoms and exploit their cuteness to get what they want.

6) Q-Pitch: “Nanika Shiyou”

Q-Pitch keep it simple for the lead track of their new album, Kurushimi Kanashimi Kirei. “Monday/ Let’s do something/ Tuesday/ Let’s do something,” they rally to make the best of one’s 24 hours in the chorus because, well, “another day isn’t promised.” As the equally stoked skate punk riffs as well as the music video reminds, however, the idol group doesn’t aim to wax poetic other than that having a blast isn’t rocket science.

5) She Is Summer: “Darling Darling”

MICO’s new project, Miracle Food, as She Is Summer lands right in time just before the arrival of her namesake season and its hopeful flings. The glossy funk of lead song “Darling Darling” immediately starts with a snuggling scene, and she dives even deeper into an exciting connection in the tender chorus. “Melting into the same temperature/ Everything for this moment, I’m waiting for a meaning,” she sings. The cozy feeling seems fleeting yet none of that matters when MICO’s wrapped up in it.

4) Nakigoto: “Metropolitan”

The indie-rock duo’s “Metropolitan” allures at the surface with that slick guitar tone reflecting blinding light at every angle in which the serpentine riff bends. But its shine only draws you into a dizzying world that only gets more difficult to navigate when guided by vocalist Emily Minakami. She sweetly spills a series of unrelated lyrics and urban details as if they’re oblique clues. From what I can deduce— “I can’t see any stars tonight/ oh, no… I’m not crying,” she sighs — city life isn’t the most glamorous experience for her.

3) Tokyo Shoki Shodo: “Saisei Button”

The voice of singer Shiina cuts through thick feedback in “Saisei Button,” and the same ringing noise washes out the buzzing guitars and clashing drum fills of the “animal girl band” into one flattened bashing of sound. What begins as a breathy sigh intensifies as the song gets more personal: “Your room, still with the smell of your ex-girlfriend/ That shit photo you took with her,” she sings. She doesn’t explain more about the relationship or the promise made as referenced in the chorus, though the furious music should already tell enough.

2) Homecomings: “Cakes”

“Cakes” captures a relationship not quite in full bloom with the connection between both parties decidedly undisclosed. Perhaps it’s a scenario inspired by the song’s accompanying film, Ai Ga Nanda, which its cuddly trailer opens with this confession: “I wonder why I’m still not Mamoru Tanaka’s lover.” While the lyrics suggest something great to come — “if I can keep talking to you so honestly, a warm melody probably would fall upon the city,” a part of it goes — the gentle strums and Ayaka Tatamino’s understated sigh keep the relationship low key like a lovely little secret.

1) BiSH: “I Am Me”

BiSH wipe away the muck of their usual punk-rock for “I Am Me” yet they also refrain from embellishing the track with sentimental strings — the other typical move if they don’t cake a song with grime. The jangling alt-rock of “I Am Me” instead feels cozy and humble, more down to earth than anything the group has released in some time. The idols sound more easy-going, too, not too burdened by doubt nor too sappy while singing about glimmering hope.

More Japanese Music…

Pop…

• This is probably only relevant to me, but hey, whatever: Chara wrote a song, “Hoshikuzu Calling,” for actress Mayu Matsuoka to sing for a commercial of apparel brand Rope Picnic. It sounds exactly like Matsuoka singing a Chara song with those breathy vocals over low-key guitars and twinkling accents.
• Speaking of tie-ups, Aimyon-penned song “Tachimachi Arashi” for Haru Reo — a fictional acoustic-pop duo formed by actresses Nana Komatsu and Mugu Kadowagi for upcoming film Sayonara Kuchibiru — is now out in the world. She wrote three songs for the movie.
• Chelmico party hard in “Switch” but of course in the Chelmico way: a BBQ in the patio with champagne, a karaoke all-nighter and a thrilling rap volley between Mamiko and Rachel.
• Kenmochi Hidefumi’s first solo album in nine years is an exercise in footwork — a subgenre that has turned up in his work as part of Wednesday Campanella. The producer faithfully follows conventions, almost frustratingly so, but as lead single “Fight Club” suggests, it’s overall a joyous dalliance.
• Kiki Vivi Lily takes a low-key toybox beat by Sweet Williams and shyly daydreams about a crush in “Caffeine Chudoku.”
• RIRI teams up with KEIJI and Nariaki Obkuro for the title track of her new Summertime EP. The moody hip-hop track gradually grows into an effervescent EDM drop.
• Yasutaka Nakata handles production for a new solo artist, Momo Mashiro, and her debut is exactly the arcade-game synth-pop escapade that you’d expect from a title called “Piko Piko Tokyo.”

Rock…

• Genie High’s new one, “Genie High Rhapsody,” lets it all soak in that, wait, the band’s line-up is actually so bizarre. The quirky electro-rap writes that point home through its verses referencing each members’ main gigs: Enon Kawatani is Enon Kawatani, Ikkyu with Tricot, Cookie and Kabutoyo Koyabu in the entertainment industry, and Takashi Niigaki in… Well, that becomes a punchline in itself, too.
• Enon Kawatani stays being busy: both Gesu No Kiwame Otome and Indigo La End shared new releases with “Himenai Watashi” and “Hanikandeshimatta Natsu,” respectively. The latter band brings a more straightforward rock number than the guitar squiggles and harmonies of the former.
• Mysterious masked band Kami-sama, Boku Wa Kizuiteshimatta dropped their debut album, 20XX, this month. “Deadlock” from the full-length is yet another addition of furious emo-rock that they’ve been teasing out for a few years now.
• A highlight from the singer-songwriter’s March album, Clumsy, Kobasolo’s “Haru Ni Yuraredo Kimi Omou” gets a video push.
• Tempalay preview their upcoming summer album, With Love from the 21st Century, with the woozy rock single, “Be Absorbed, Shake.”

Idol…

• Someone on Love Music described Chiaki Mayumura’s appeal as a singer/songwriter who can make a song about anything on the spot. That on-the-fly feel really shows in her major-label debut, Meja Meja Monja, and the two songs she shared from it, “Kiseki Kaminoko Tensaiinu!” and “Daijoubu,” gives a good peek into what you can expect.
• Dempagumi.Inc surprised with “Ne Ushi Tora U Tatsu Mi,” a high-energy pop fever written by Kiyoshi Ryujin about fated meetings and… Zodiac animals?
• Juice=Juice kicks it into high gear with the electric-guitar-driven “Hitori De Ikiraresotte Sorettene Homoteiruno?” (“You Can Do It On Your Own” Is That Supposed to Be a Compliment? is the rough translation, and the single is delightfully dramatic as it sounds.) “25-Sai Eiensetsu” meanwhile reminds me of a typical song from K-pop girl group GFriend: a retro, sepia-toned vibe, heart-fluttering strings with shiny piano keys and that sentimental synth whistle.
• Melon Batake A Go Go not only put out the ghoul-hunter surf-rock “Nightmare Before Vampire,” but the group’s Rutakama also dropped her own solo rock number, “Runaway Girl.”
• Momoiro Clover Z shared a track from their new album, Momoiro Clover Z, what seemed like every other day. The buzzing, CHAI-assissted New Wave of “More We Do!” was the most stylistically interesting out of the batch while the funk-rap “The Diamond Four” best sums up what the group tries to do in the album.
• Morning Musume go retro and filter shiny Bubble-era funk through their usual EDM sound in “Seishun Night.”
• Nogizaka46’s currently promoting for “Sing Out!” and the B-sides are once again are more worth the time: the group’s centers Mai Shiraishi and Asuka Saito duet in “Noyona Sonzai”; “Heikousen” takes a bubbly, more idol-like stroll; “4-Banme No Hikari” gets sentimental over going into a new school grade; but the breezy funk of “Kassouro” is my favorite.
• Shiritsu Ebisu Chugaku called up Enon Kawatani (again, busy man!) for “Trendy Girl” — an adult rock cut that finds them curious about love.
• Toricago released a new full-length, Pan, which includes a lot more moody rock tunes in the vein of last month’s “Kuchibashi.” They also offered a slight sunnier and more slow-paced yet just as sentimental video upload for “Wakamono No Subete” from the album as a taste.
• Staying true to what they sing about in the song, Uijin runs non-stop in the video for the earnest, dream-chasing lite-metal “Ignition” — one of many solid singles from the group’s almost-monthly series of releases.