appears

There are a great deal of records that I would love to have the time to talk about in depth; Morrisey’s Greatest Hits (not his first and most likely not his last, but probably both for me), The Used’s Shallow Believer (hey, remember when McCracken and Way were bosom buddies and that was enough to sell records?), Vampire Weekend’s eponymous (that indie record every major musical publication shit themselves over)… But doesn’t not talking about an album get the point across just as well? Doesn’t it say more if I choose not to lambast a record on the mere intentional spite the omission inspires, that I’m unwilling to even mention a crappy record in the off chance someone might take it upon themselves to prove me wrong? You are welcome, then, to take a listen to Junkie XL’s Booming Back at You. Don’t stop there, take a listen to The Hush Sound and Panic at the Disco’s newest as well (did anyone else notice all the Sgt. Pepper references in reviews for that record? It’s like Pretty. Odd. has become the Sam’s Town of 2008 for musical musers across the board). But what about the records that were good, just not good enough?

PlayRadioPlay! released Texas last month and the electropop world was immediately abuzz (abuzz = blogs caring enough to upload the leaks). While there’s nothing remotely ambitious about the lyrics (drug addiction, ode to real-time girlfriends), the style of the record appears oddly simple, with grade-school lyrics, low-key tempos, and thin, Death Cab-inspired vocals. While “Some Crap About the Furniture” is a testament to the youthfulness of the record (”You were the best thing summer gave me / Better than silence and no school“), keeping target audience hardly ambiguous, the momentum of the record is ultimately sustained when teenage-cry-cry tracks like “Without Gravity” and “More Like Worst” pigeonhole the record into the typical teenage MySpace chewing gum samples. “Forgiveness, the Enviable Trait,” one of the only moody tracks worth a further listen (and composition: at 2:21 its transience could be the sole hook) provides little consolation: what is the point of this record again? Saying something like that could easily overlook the one incredible half of this record, but there’s not much to do with the leftover tracks.

You wouldn’t be hard pressed to find American rock inspired acts outside of the continent, and while this would be the perfect introduction to ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION’s March album WORLD WORLD WORLD, I’d rather turn it over to Nell, a Korean rock band who released Separation Anxiety and that I, admittedly, did not get around to until two weeks ago (I could talk about WORLD WORLD WORLD but that band has become such a disappointment since Sol-fa, it’s better if I let them die a quiet death). The title song would have you making epic predictions for the rest of the album, which is, of course, hardly the case. “Separation Anxiety” has an amazing melody and finishes on a sweet note (OK, I have no idea what the lyrics are, but the song sounds sad enough - I won’t digress and begin discussing what wonders the intangibility of words can do to a music piece, not here) and “Moonlight Punch Romance” is, well, exactly like the title sounds. It’s amazing: in a country that seems proud that both pop and rock records are inundated with ballads that sound like every Top 40 ballad of the early 90s, that a record finally, maybe, wouldn’t do that, but then it doesn’t have time to, not when it’s busy re-writing each of the songs in succession, some with success (”Afterglow,” the brilliant English-lyriced “Tokyo”), most with failure (everything I didn’t just mention). And dude, he like, totally stole Taka’s glasses in the promotional video.

The days when Q101 weren’t just relevant, they were purveyors of alternative, seem so long ago and that’s probably because they were. I can’t think of anywhere but college radio that Boy Kill Boy’s Stars and the Sea would not only be played, but hailed as the forthcoming Audioslave (do kids still listen to that? I’m stuck for an analogy and uninterested in doing research). The record has some clever punk influences scattered among the tracks, enough to keep them edgy and exciting (”No Conversation,” “Loud and Clear,” the Ramones-esque “Two Soul” - that’s Joey, not the band), but there’s nothing particularly outstanding about the album that makes you want to go out and, you know, download it (the ultimate in 21st century scorn, I know).

Neon Neon isn’t a rock band, not exactly, but I’m going to stretch the Cars influence on Stainless Style as far as I can so I can babble a bit about “Dream Girls,” “I Told Her on Alderaan,” and “Raquel.” More New Order than Big Country, the tracks are nothing less than clever pop tracks that wouldn’t seem out of place on some big name 80s reunion tour (even the vocals sound of-the-date), yet I still can’t think of a better way to relive one of music’s most fun decades without being nauseatingly indulgent in cliches. Yet while “Steel Your Girl” and “I Lust U” are pretty catchy (hey, is that italo disco?), the MSI vocals of “Trick for Treat” and meaningless repetition of “Sweat Shop” and “Luxury Pool” close the doors on the decade, bringing the grunge and rap of the early 90s that ended the party for many a weekend cokehead businessman.

Cut Copy / In Ghost Colours / March 22, 2008
03. Lights & Music / Hearts on Fire

I often find it essential to make the distinction between a “fan” and a “critic,” particularly when it comes to music blogs and that distinction becomes blurry to the point of nonexistence. When I choose to review an album, am I doing it as a critic (”I may not personally like this, but I can see the appeal, look at it in relation to its contemporaries, and realize this is significant and you should know about it”) or as a fan (”My personal aesthetic loves this, maybe yours will too”). It is this reason I have avoided talking about Cut Copy’s new album since it was released a month ago, urging myself to take a few steps back to contemplate the meaning of choosing Cut Copy’s 2004 Bright Like Neon Love as best album of 2006 in relation to my immediately positive reception. I pointed out the simple lyrics, examined the heavy pop hooks, and questioned the reliance on voiceless segues that needlessly bulk up the track number (6 of the 15) but to no avail: In Ghost Colours is still an incredible record, fan or critic.

From “Lights & Music,” the italo disco based single that glitters brighter than its following segue “We Fight for Diamonds”, to the moody “Strangers in the Wind,” a bi-polar self-discourse in uncertainty, the album is the veritable definition of positive psychology’s “flow,” a term commonly referred to as “in the zone,” “in the groove,” or what we may now refer to as In Ghost Colours. While the genre ultimately depends on rhyme and shallow meditation is often interrupted by the inclusion of several elements both unrealistically brilliant (acoustic guitars) and characteristically appropriate (reliance on synth, of course, lots of synth), it adequately fulfills the requirements and makes decent headway on originality - if melody is the key ingredient, Cut Copy, as always, provides an ample serving. Even the worst bits, those seemingly needless interludes, provide breathing room to what is sometimes an overwhelming auditory overload (”So Haunted” is so huge it both begs repetition and acknowledges the futility of it - will that segue from electric guitars to pure keyboard ever sound the way it did when you didn’t see it coming?).

Nothing is as wonderful as the implication that a record can be both critically and personally brilliant - one that can be debated not just from an agenda, but from the musical cradle it both fills and rocks. In Ghost Colours may not be very practical - it’s still essentially an electronic/dance record with both an atmosphere and audience box to check - but surely the apathy that marks any hipster has never sounded so inclusive. Or been so danceable.

♫ Official Site
♫ Buy In Ghost Colours

I realized I haven’t nearly hyped/talked about/referenced Yasutaka Nakata nearly enough, so I thought I would mention Perfume’s upcoming, debut album, to be released next Wednesday on the 16th. Yasutaka’s cute trio of dancing teens aren’t any strangers to the world of music (they’ve released singles on indie labels since 2002 and a best collection in 2006), but their Yasutaka makeovers seem to be complete - they’ve got gimmick, they’ve got groove, and now they’ve got GAME. The first album track off the LP, a funky, uptempo electro number you wouldn’t mistake from a Yasutaka production anywhere has been released with an accompaning PV, “Secret, Secret.”

The girls attempt to interpret their secret secret by vogueing.

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March has proven both the most and least productive example of the ‘08 (so far). Not to say a lot of stuff hasn’t been released, just that most of it has been hasn’t even been worth listening to. American released singles are harder for me to keep track of, never being able to tell what’s brand-new and what’s just album re-hash and foreign discs were just lackluster (see: MY LITTLE LOVER, Yuko Ando, alice nine., etc). Even so, I must admit the ratio of successful singles to duds is significantly higher than past months (February - 1:4, January - yeah right, like I’m done getting through all of those).

Mitsuki Aira has been a fascinating study in trend-spotting and I’ve been keeping my eye on her since well, August 2007, when she released her first single COLORFUL TOKYO SOUNDS No.9 because of producer Terukado Oonishi’s bid to become the next Yasutaka Nakata and cash in on the electro chip-tune that is currently making groups like Perfume and capsule some huge, unexplainably brilliant phenomenon that we can only hope isn’t a phenomenon at all, but a long-term investment in the music industry’s all too low-brow, jazzy, big band-saturated environment. COLORFUL TOKYO SOUNDS No.9 wasn’t anything to write overseas about, but with CHINA DISCOTICA, Aira is finally showing some signs of possible break-through. “CHINA DISCOTICA” tries a bit too hard (8-bit? 24-bit? #-bit overload), but “ROMANTIC ROPE” is just the type of song that can be advertised as Nakata inspired instead of Nakata rip-off. The incredible staccato speed of the chorus, the subtle base of synth enhancing rather than distracting, and the tweaked vocals work in the sort of cool distance the mysteriously aloof maintain without appearing anti-social.

I’m guessing Aira will release at least one more single before an album is in the works (and who knows when that will be - it’s been seven months since COLORFUL TOKYO SOUNDS No.9), but if you’re of the MEG/COLTEMONIKHA type, you’d be hard-pressed not to add Aira to your list.

I tried to do some quick research on DJ Shog, just to see if there was, in fact, some time in the past I’ve heard something of his and simply failed to attach the name - nothing came up except, shockingly, an Ayumi Hamasaki remix of “Depend on you” from the European vinyl. Fact is, I don’t actually remember this remix at all: Depend on you is probably one of my least favorite remix vinyls, and really, I don’t remember anything off of it and I won’t pretend like I do or that there is any significant connection between single “Feel Me (Through the Radio)” and the Hamasaki remix. There simply isn’t any relationship at all; “Feel Me” has a fantastic verse melody, a looping, nonsensical chorus, and an Inpetto Remix to change it up when things get boring, while the “Depend on you” remix is still just a filler track. The other remixes are barely worth a single spin apiece, but “Feel Me” still gets my vote for best trance single of the month (and hey, he lists both Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys as influences, that’s pretty friggin’ cool).

I’ve been playing the ass out of Madonna’s new single “4 Minutes,” not because it’s original or even remarkable (I can’t describe it any better than fourfour: “She’s so far past telling us what’s cool (back in the day, when she showed the world the Lower East Side and vouging) that she’s now telling us what we already like”), but because it’s amazing how such an ambitious song negates itself with its own ego - but does a successful Madonna/Timberlake/Timberland collab need to be ambitious or is it just a given? Wouldn’t want the song to rest on its celeb laurels but pointing out its lack of pop aesthetic and thin melody is moot - it’s all about the hook.

Namie Amuro / 60s 70s 80s / March 12, 2008
01. NEW LOOK / 02. ROCK STEADY / 03. WHAT A FEELING

There’s nothing about this single I can find remotely disturbing, odd enough to say the least, when a triple A-side sampling three different subgenres takes on the epic task of reinventing itself via self-proclaimed Hip-Pop (and now Dancing) Queen. What makes this single so brilliant where it can go horribly awry - it samples The Supremes’ “Baby Love”, Aretha Franklin’s “Rock Steady”, and Irena Cara’s “Flashdance…What a Feeling” - is that instead of liberally peppering the songs with loops, it asks, “What if, in 2008, we just never stopped making that kind of music?” It’s not an update, it’s a whole new perspective (see: lyrical references to Twiggy beside ‘LOL’ and ‘OMG’ in 60s inspired “NEW LOOK”) that manages to sound captivating instead of condescending - or worse: nostalgic. Taking three of America’s best selling singles from three of music’s most successful decades can seem a bit intimidating, but if there’s one person who can pull it off, it’s probably Amuro.

Then again, maybe I shouldn’t offer all the credit to a pop star with a boatload of promotion and a dynamo set of dance skills but with little nerve to claim any of it; it’s the production and arrangement that flawlessly tie the three decades into a fantastic overview of the hypothetical, first with sweet-faced “NEW LOOK,” a tribute to Amuro’s (marketed) passion for fashion, maybe not so much glam but definitely glitz, “ROCK STEADY,” a genre Amuro’s probably most familiar with on a contemporary level, but humbly bidding tribute to its origins, and “WHAT A FEELING,” the show stopping hybrid of fierce dance and femme fatale. Amuro offers little to the equation (still not showing any signs of a pulse, although I’m now attributing it to the hardcore dance routines she memorizes and performs while singing live), but she’s still one heckuva vehicle for Vidal Sassoon’s new campaign. Sure, there’s still a fair amount of stereotyping in the music videos which begs for a few chuckles not from the audience, but from Amuro herself who is way too self-serious to indulge, even a little, but you’re unlikely to find a better representation of sampling-done-right from the original 90’s Japanese chanteuse who came back with a vengeance and refuses to give up the reign again.

You didn’t seriously expect Amuro to come up with anything less after PLAY, did you?

♫ Official Site
♫ Buy 60s 70s 80s

Ami Suzuki / February 06, 2008 / DOLCE
01. FREE FREE / 04. Bitter…

I honestly don’t know why this album hasn’t gotten more press and attention than it has (not to say it hasn’t gotten any; Ami Suzuki is still a veritable avex darling), so rather, the sort of press it should have gotten. This isn’t just another Ami Suzuki album: this is Ami Suzuki plus ten extremely talented artists that, as far as I’m concerned, have single-handedly Lazarused her entire career. Sure, the selection is a bit varied for the “dance” record Suzuki was attempting to pull off (Aly & AJ? Honestly, you’re making me feel bad for liking this), but what it sets out to do, it conquers and what it fails to do, it just accomplishes in another field. Simply put, DOLCE forces Suzuki, more than any other album, to step out of her element and if her vocals fail to deliver (they do, often), she has experienced musicians ready to whip up a musical parachute.

Nakata’s tracks I’ve covered, and to some extent SUGIURUMN, CAPTAIN FUNK, and RAM RIDER can be put in the same camp. Not because they all love the caps lock button, but because their tracks invite the same funky vibe without resorting to club cliches. Well alright, maybe kinda sorta (Suzuki is hardly the first club vocalist to praise the art of music itself and sing about the superiority of the weekend), but their replay value is astoundingly higher than others in the same genre. In that case, I would lump ROCKETMAN, Hoff Dylan, and YO-KING in another group as the tracks I could have done without. Songs with the standard big-band Japanese pop, save an acoustic guitar here or saxophone there, have little merit on an album attempting to build a conception. Admittedly, I like the retro vibe on “Futari wa POP,” but it’s not really something you can half-ass with any degree of success; anything worth doing doo-whopish is worth taking to the nines.

It’s the oddities on the disc that truly make this record work, that fill in the invisible spaces where things get awkward (the last three tracks are dying for an interlude from the following). The “Potential Breakup Song” cover is so ridiculous it works (note: if it hadn’t been infinitely better than the original, its resolve would have crumbled in the first riff) and STUDIO APARTMENT’s work on “Bitter…” is one of the greatest melancholic takes on hope I’ve heard in a long time (Suzuki sings “Tomorrow will be brand new day,” but the violins sing “Forget it, there is too much effort involved in hope“) and this contradiction that could feasibly fall flat works brilliantly almost accidently; in the accompanying DVD, S.A. ask Ami Suzuki to sing it “sexy,” and so Suzuki pretty much sings it the same way she sings everything: stoically. For this same reason, Tomoe Shinohara’s (Fucking Shinorer! Where did this some from? Greatest comeback I’ve witnessed from a pointlessly (non-)relevant 90s icon this decade! [not ashamed to admit I own one of the albums from her crazy(ier) era]) “Stereo Love” fails to work. Love the song, but really, no one can sing Shinohara’s songs except, well, Shinohara. Suzuki just can’t pull it off (stoic vocals), but again, it works (accidental irony), in ways Shinohara’s version would melt the entire structure (passionately, unironically hyper).

But who really wins here? Sub-popular artists get to collab with one of Japan’s most recognizable faces vs. Suzuki gets her reputation back (c’mon, you didn’t really like CONNETTA, did you?) and everyone leaves happy. Except the bonus track “if.” Loser.

♫ Official Site
♫ Buy DOLCE

MEG / MAGIC / March 05, 2008
01. MAGIC

Without a doubt, the person who had the best 2007 was Yasutaka Nakata. Releasing three albums alone for his main project capsule, one new album for a side-project, COLTEMONIKHA, and producing phenomenal girl group Perfume’s new singles and collaborating with Ami Suzuki on my personal choice for 2007’s best single FREE FREE… The dude is infallible. At this point, he could probably write a track for Morning Musume and make them worth listening to. Heck, he’s managed to take MEG, a somewhat mediocre pop singer and transform her music into ear-worthy melodies with the unmistakeable blend of lounge and club reminiscent of Nakata’s early (and arguably present) work (so yeah, that’s the other thing I’ve been doing while I’ve been gone…obsessing over this man).

In this case, the title track is inferior to the c/w track “MIRACLE” and the NEMESIS remix of “MAGIC” is superior to the original…don’t know who chooses these things, but regardless, they’re all fun tracks. Nothing on the single will top year end lists (unless you’re into b-side top tens or sumthin), but if February’s singles are any indication of this month’s, this will probably be one of the best we see in the next twenty-five days. Prove me wrong!

♫ Official Site
♫ Buy MAGIC

You know February has been bad for music when Noriyuki Makihara’s single “Firefly ~Boku wa Ikiteiku” is the best release all month. I mean really. The only work I know by this guy is 1999’s “Hungry Spider.” Isn’t he more of an adult contemporary artist? Jesus. By the end of the performance he looks like he’s going to pass out (but it’s so cute when he claps his hands, it’s forgiveable). Also, he’s not trying to be ironic with the sweater, is he? A brilliant song, though, subtly based on piano and consistently orbiting acousics and heavy drums (fake, real, who cares). I won’t bother debating this great song, it’s probably the one thing I’ve been the most sure about in the past four weeks.

So is it “Firefly” or Hikaru Utada’s “HEART STATION” that gets top billing? I honestly couldn’t tell you. The thing about Utada’s single is that it was leaked about five years too early for it to matter too much come February. That doesn’t necessarily dispute its greatness, it was just greatness a month prior. Lots of soulful crooning and breathing on the title track, plus a stunning piano loop on “Stay Gold;” I couldn’t ask for much more in my art-pop diva. Her album by the same title comes out later this month and it’s one of the few releases that are sure to make a splash this March (aside from Cut Copy’s In Ghost Colours, which won’t make a splash anywhere, but which I’ll spend far too long gushing about anyway).

Best trance single this month is, by far, Adam K’s “Long Distance” (look, a shitty non-video). I don’t have words to back this up, and why should I? It’s an instrumental track that speaks for itself. First time I’ve heard harmonica (palatable harmonica) in a trance title without wincing. This paragraph now officially serves as nothing except proof that I listened to other singles besides Japanese pop this month (Son Ho Young is Korean, so there).

I’ve watched this video for Namie Amuro’s upcoming single 60s 70s 80s approximately three hundred times and am still enamored. I’m convinced; the self-proclamation of “Queen of Hip-Pop” and “Dancing Queen” aren’t attempts at being immodest, they’re just the truth, in a time when self-proclamations are usually good for nothing more than 10 second polite chuckles.

Once again, my one consternation is that Amuro refuses to stop the touch chick act and just smile or enjoy the moment. Infact, I wager this is the one of those songs that demand a bit of self-humor; what only hurts the song is the inability to take the piss out of the (extremely) liberal sampling of Irene Cara’s “Flashdance…What a Feeling” and that Hammer Time! jacket that elevates it to the level of We Mean Business rather than, This Wouldn’t Be So Fun If It Wasn’t So Equally Preposterous.

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Hikaru Utada has been hyping her new single HEART STATION for the past month already and the looming February 20 release date is creeping up slowly…ever so slowly. The world finally gets a glimpse of the PV tonight and all I can offer is a disappointed sigh. The song is brilliant, that much is for certain; Utada has been incapable of releasing anything less than “pretty good” since Deep River in 2002, and this is coming from someone who used to hate the woman. It’s art-poppy and nostaligic in the saddest, most brilliant possible way, with minimal synths and breathy vocals, the same season Ami Suzuki is releasing “Bitter…” to promote the upcoming album DOLCE and at what point does it stop being coincidence?, and frankly, I’m just satisfied those whiney winter ballads are finally out of the way (thanks denominational holiday). But for a song so rich in elegance, wherefore art thou meaningful promotional video?

Utada is depicted wearing white amidst a crowd painted black to resemble shadowed, non-entities. Ooh. Symbolismmm.

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