Guess That Disco
Yasutaka Nakata is probably my favorite musician/producer/DJ/overall badass working in Japan right now and most of the J-pop world agrees: after seeing a slew of releases from his own work, side projects, and work with girl groups and female vocalists of all kinds, Nakata’s sound has been replicated, copied, bastardized, and inspired the world of Japanese pop desperate for a piece of the electro house pie. The following are seven songs paying homage to the wonderful world of disco (of course, not disco in the Western sense of disco) either written or produced by Yasutaka Nakata or one of his desperate doppelgangers. Can you spot the faux discos? Answers beneath the cut.
Perfume: ONE ROOM DISCO
Mitsuki Aira: CHINA DISCOTICA
80_pan: Disco Baby (song not featured on YouTube)
Ami Suzuki: can’t stop the DISCO
capsule: Robot Disco
Perfume: CHOCOLATE DISCO
pLumsonic!: Sentimental Disco (at 1:09)
Above & Beyond’s “Sun & Moon”
Above & Beyond / Sun & Moon / March 21, 2011
01. Sun & Moon
For one month in January, all of East Asia agreed: keep your head down. That the song, another take on the inexhaustible template of bad break-ups, was so popular it was performed for several weeks on South Korean music shows, translated into Japanese, hit number one on the Oricon, and then sputtered out as if it never existed, is just another demonstration of how pop music brings together so quickly and fades away twice as soon. There is obsession, followed by post-partum, followed by an even lengthier indifference. But “Sun & Moon” is not pop music. There is no moving on. There is only the courageous acceptance that you will never move on; you will never get over it.
It’s ironic that the album featuring this single is titled Group Therapy when the music video effectively exhibits how being alone with the music can take on brief, but therapeutic results. But the overarching genre of trance is meant to be played in large venues for huge crowds and it’s this ambitious title that shows Above & Beyond’s progression from helping to create the genre, to defining it. After all, in terms of function, the term “group therapy” is practically as self-explanatory as drum and bass in defining their particular brand of trance. It’s this ability to highlight the group’s astounding achievement in dance music without breaking the formula that makes “Sun & Moon” a doubly compelling narrative: if Anjunabeats had a tumblr, its tags would consist entirely of #trance for beginners, #brutally simple but effective lyrics, #oont oont oont, #dance music to cry to. Here’s another one: #dance therapy.
On my tumblr, the tags are simply #perfection, #everything I love about trance.
Hey Munni!: Dabangg, item songs, and the reinforcement of gender stereotypes
Before we get to the soundtrack that’s been sweeping the award ceremonies, let’s talk, for a minute, about how overwhelmingly masculine Dabangg the movie is and about how we are witnessing some seriously conservative gender values as Salman Khan pays homage to the archetypal Southie hero by employing brute violence and ordering around his heroine, a lifeless Sonakshi Sinha who eventually falls in love with Khan because…well, who knows why, maybe it’s the way he plans her future without her consent while smugly patting himself on the back for allowing her a few paltry lines of resistance before she caves. Of course, no sexy item numbers for this heroine, let’s leave that to item girl Malaika Arora, who Munni Badnaams her way through raucous revelry before Salman Khan shuts that party down. Buzzkill, ya’ll. It’s obvious I’m not a huge fan of this film as a whole (it has its moments), though not just because of its weak female characters (hey, this movie is a spoof, it is irony, and we are laughing with them and at ourselves, ha ha yes, Indian action films are funny, aren’t they? and to tamper with the formula too much would ignore the historical representation of female characters in the very rich Indian film industry altogether; you don’t have to like The Rules, but you should at least understand them. After all, this is the type of cinema where Khan is going to fly up a staircase Crouching Tiger-style and magically flip his sunglasses into his back collar).
The music so effortlessly highlights these gender disparities, outlining the way the audience is supposed to look at and connect with the characters. Opening track “Hud Hud Dabangg” is the rough-and-tumble track that sets the scene: a crowd of male dancers accompanied by an ominously thrumming guitar chord, the low grunts and deep vocals of Sukhwinder Singh offsetting the silhouette of Salman Khan strutting in slow motion through the admiring crowd, just man enough to bust a move as long as those moves involve showing off his strength via punching and adjusting his belt suggestively. This is what the movie is all about: one male hero who will avenge his wrongs through physical strength, carefully selecting a nemesis who is tough enough to make it look difficult but not impossible, and who will win the girl through witty, sometimes insulting punchlines. It’s all there, down to the song where he stalks her and we’re supposed to sigh and think about how romantic it is as he gazes in rapture at her innocence.
The qawwali “Tere Mast Mast Do Nain” captures this montage featuring the iconic image of neon hearts reflected in Khan’s aviators. In this picturization, he swaddles the crown of her head as she silently pays homage to the gods and steals coy glances. Further on, “Chori Kiya Re Jiya” accompanies what is a painfully optimistic celebration of monogamy, setting the film’s central romantic sub-textual ideal as one boy/one girl/one entire life (though it is totally acceptable for the man to ogle and flirt with other women in full view of his spouse, naturally). We perceive the character of Roja not only through these significant actions, but through the soft tones of traditional Hindi love songs.
Contrast this with “Munni Badnaam,” item number of the year, as Arora descends to spice things up in the second act where it would be unacceptable for the heroine to do so. Both the song and item number are lighter, somewhat hedonistic affairs that, in keeping with the film’s po-mo atmosphere, name-drop both female and male movie stars in reference to their popularity as sex symbols (“A figure like Shilpa [Shetty]‘s / Bebo [Kareena Kapoor]‘s attitude”) or masculine ideals (Amitabh Bachchan is simply referenced as “the tall guy”). It’s all fun and games for the large participating audience as long as we acknowledge this celebration is for the film’s antagonists and Robin Hood Pandey does not approve. This scene parallels the earlier all-male dance party of the protagonist with “Humka Peeni Hai” when as the female lead, Sonakshi Sinha as Rajo, dares to bust a move, all the men but Khan must avert their eyes. These two opposing celebrations reiterate the madonna/whore complex of female characters from more vintage Hindi films, practically demanding the question: are you a Munni or a Rajo?
I don’t mean to point out the film’s inability to translate the magic of the soundtrack as an indictment to the flaws of the music itself: as far as Bollywood film soundtracks go, this one has a fair amount of interesting things happening with a host of traditional playback singers neatly tying the loose dance strings of “Munni Badnaam,” easily the most catchy item song of 2010 (“Sheila Ki Jawani” aside), but an oddity nestled between “Tere Mast Mast Do Nain” and “Chori Kiya Re Jiya.” But the soundtrack is far from “Best Album of the Year” status and nowhere near a completely satisfying musical experience simply on its own; the hysteria surrounding Dabangg seems to be the album’s highest selling-point, where it otherwise would languish among other half-formed Sajid-Wajid projects such as Veer or Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai that never seem to propel the music directing duo into the ranks of Vishal-Shekhar or Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy territory. “Munni Badnaam” was composed by guest director Lalit Pandit, so the credit to Sajid-Wajid is dubious anyway: take away the film’s pairing of virtue and femininity with the softer tracks and its opposites, and “Munni” becomes all the more rebellious outside of context, the real winner in a deep pool of stale roles for both men and women, roles which the film’s spoof-narrative never quite successfully criticizes.
DBSK’s “Wae (Keep Your Head Down)”: A Defense
DBSK / Wae (Keep Your Head Down) / Jan 03, 2011
It would be easy to sit here and poke fun at the promotional video, one of the ugliest in the history of pop music, but there’s so much going on musically here that I’m going to ignore the ridiculous costumes and the fake fire and the persistent, eerie trope of male solidarity via face-offs between the two surviving members and talk about the song.
The structure: there is none. I listened to this song for an hour straight at one point and I still have no idea what’s going to come next at any moment: a verse, a chorus, some rap, perhaps a marching-band interlude? Like any relationship experiencing pent-up frustration, it’s messy and made up entirely of visceral reactions, a scribbled laundry list of grievances and accusations meant to inflict as much hurt and damage as possible.
This month we’ve been seeing a lot of puppy-love pop songs, stuff about shy boys and visual dreams, but this is one of the rare aggressive songs to come lumbering out of SM Entertainment. There are no tears here: no pining, no pleading, just hatred from the gut and raps with enough spite to fill that massive bass. There’s a notable repetition of rhetorical questions, the restless need to go over the same territory again and again until it resembles a broken record of resentment. Finally he bids her goodbye, this two-faced, lying, immature woman who made him the bad guy before he even knew she left and wishes her happiness, by this time a sarcastic, poisonous farewell, a promise of revenge he would carry out if she wasn’t already dead to him.
There’s only two of the five members left now and that’s what makes this all the more an oddity, maybe, that it’s possibly a message from the record company to the three members who filed lawsuits, that it’s the best song DBSK ever released, and that there’s an 85% chance this group will never release anything as relatable or as real as this again.
Top 10 albums/20 songs of 2010
Another year, another list. After putting this together, I’m far too lazy to do short write-ups for each of the albums. If you’d like to read some of my random thoughts on the year in music, please read this lengthy list I typed up, complete with overdone tumblr hipster-lingo and two bullets reserved just for Ayumi Hamasaki.
As far 2010 goes, this has been a very lackluster year of solid albums and I’m hesitant to name any of these as exceptionally noteworthy aside from the top three, but a Top 3 Albums of the Year list just didn’t have the same ring to it. I think it’s safe to predict that whenever Kent releases an album, that album is going to be the best album of the year. That being said, this is one of Kent’s weaker albums, lacking any consistent musical narrative. Goldfrapp’s Head First was the most underrated (that and I think people had a problem with it because it was sincere), but there’s a song about rockets on it and that moment in “I Wanna Life” when the music fades and then comes back full volume is probably my favorite musical moment of the year. Hurts’s and Kylie’s albums are complete opposites, but I like them both for their commitment despite the fact that they are best taken in small doses. Volume Two by She & Him was cute, right? The rest of this list was a matter of looking at how many tracks stood out on an album, so you can probably stop reading at that point.
This is the first year I’ve felt confident enough to add a list for the Top Ten Indian Film Soundtracks and the subsequent Top Twenty Filmi Songs to cover cuts that weren’t on significant albums. This is a maybe-temporary list that could fade due to lack of interest one year, as you can expect that this will probably be the last year I put together a Top Twenty Trance/House list. R.I.P. 2007-2010, etc. What’s awful is how undeserving of the incredible music so many of the films have been. Aside from Band Baaja Baaraat and Ishqiya, the films these soundtracks were in were terrible, from the messy 70′s-flashback Action Replayy, to the listless story of two suicidal NRIs in Anjaana Anjaani. But the songs, unlike the movies, have interesting things happening, whether it’s remixing traditional Punjabi wedding songs or showing off the talent of playback singers like Sonu Nigam who are capable of producing sixty different voices for one song.
For more, see Musical Consumption, 2010: 50 Incomplete Thoughts.
01. Kent: En plats i solen
02. Ellie Goulding: Lights
03. Goldfrapp: Head First
04. Hurts: Happiness
05. Kylie Minogue: Aphrodite
06. Marina and the Diamonds: The Family Jewels [ read full review ]
07. She & Him: Volume Two
08. Katy Perry: Teenage Dream
09. ARIA: MUSIC AND THE CITY [ read full review ]
10. Polarkreis 18: Frei
Hikaru/MEG Leaving Music Behind Indefinitely Maybe: A Meditation on Going Away
“Get out of here and move forward. This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.” -Don Draper
“Half of life is fucking up, the other half is dealing with it.” -Henry Rollins
There is something very romantic about leaving it all behind and starting new somewhere else. Artists have engaged in metaphorical rebirth and image overhauls and anticipated comebacks since the dawn of expendable income. Bands have split, have reunited, have gone on hiatus, and have engaged in solo projects so often it’s practically a necessary cycle for emotional band-culture cred. Perhaps, more so than the leaving, than the indulgent, narcissistic dream of holing up somewhere in Paris or a remote nook of the United States, perhaps taking up a craft or learning a new skill or just lazing about reading books and visiting museums or having really long, indulgent conversations fueled by cheap beer and bad decisions or whatever your idea of “human activities” versus “artist activities” is, or the words you want to use for “not being held accountable for shit for a while,” is the coming back. Because somewhere in the leap between gone and not-gone is the illusory fable of cocoon-and-butterfly and the joyful embrace by eager garland-holders ready to be obsessively forgiving in the wake of your absence. The idea of starting all over again is enriched by the impossibly high standards thrust upon vacations and sabbaticals, created by those who are afforded the excesses of doing nothing in particular.
Our contemporary culture is filled with narratives of forged identities and reinventions, from Christina Aguilera, who doesn’t want to be herself tonight, to our own glamorized Don Draper, nee Dick Whitman: liar, cheater, and, to millions of viewers, overall bad-ass. Our books and movies are littered with small-town folk seeking greener pastures in metropolitan high rises and dozens of makeover shows that desperately seek to unite the outward metamorphosis with inward overhaul into a reconciled new and other. Better. Regardless, it always boils down to the single notion that in going away (physically, mentally, spiritually), one will come back different, changed, restored, whole. New.
And so, some sort of mythological restorative power has been granted the hiatus, nevermore so than for artists and other self-proclaimed creators. And why should Hikaru Utada and MEG be any less susceptible? Two highly successful women in their chosen labels (pop star, eccentric-electro singer cum fashion designer cum tweeter), both Utada and MEG probably have some serious questions about Life they’d like to go and think about without worrying about crafting the perfect crossover. In an ideal world, we’d all be afforded the luxury of going away, far away, and in that span of dead space, doing more than catching up on sleep, or sleeping to forget, or sleepwalking through all the important things we think we should be doing with our free time but are really just distracting us from the pain of coping and dealing and healing in any useful kind of way. Half-drugged on the hope of transformation, we yearn to return as corrected versions of our former selves and sometimes entirely different selves that look better, speak better, and write songs better. Dealing with it might be a little too far-fetched for us right now, not something we can handle; we’d rather just cover up or sweep aside and move on, step into our inner Sasha Fierces and accomplish all the amazing things the skin we wriggled out of wouldn’t let us carry out. We will put on costumes and become heroic, kick-ass vigilantes and then be disappointed that we’ve spent so long crawling on our bellies only to be faced with the reality of our navels.
But hopefully there is some sort of unspoken agreement on the disappointment when the alluring fiction of running away and not ever coming back reveals the catastrophe of our personalities have not become beautiful again, or even beautiful to the ones that matter, but just about the same to everyone but ourselves. Let’s not expect that this will somehow make us monumentally different or better human beings, that it will or should mean anything to anyone but ourselves. Let’s fuck up only if we promise to deal with it. Then let’s move forward like it happened.
T-t-t-T.O.P.’s “Turn It Up” PV
If you have not seen the music video for T.O.P.’s “Turn It Up,” it’s worth an admiring glance. Lovely, moving photographs that beg me to forgive the egregious placement of women as literal instruments (guys, the objectification is so uninspired, it’s almost like offensive), scattered like other luxurious paraphernalia throughout (the car, the canine, the couture). The black and white is an interesting choice, most likely done for aesthetic purposes that draw the eye towards all those figures in the foreground against the practically clinical high contrasts. This is consumerism at its most exposed and ritual. He’s “the official pimp T.O.P.” and he’s got a clean business to run here, you know? And a pistol to point at nothing in particular and a car he will never drive to stand in front of and beautiful women he must put muzzles on. That’s just how he rolls, bro.
ARIA’s “MUSIC AND THE CITY”
ARIA / MUSIC AND THE CITY / April 28, 2010
05. BE MY STAR
Typically, an aria is one of the highlights in an opera, if only because it allows a vocalist to do what he or she does best: sing. It’s only fitting, then, that Japanese singer ARIA is named after that moment, not because she herself embodies any of the characteristics that make up the beautiful and intricate melodies constructed by sheer will, but because her album does. Finding a niche in between the Ayumi Hamasakis and Namie Amuros of the world usually push Japanese female vocalists into the acoustic pop niche where they linger somewhere between spokeswomen for stereotypes or hyper-genki para para girls who transform anime rock into digestible four minute monologues on schoolgirl woes. If they’re lucky, they get to try their hand at some urban pop, where, if successful, they take advantage of their limitations to channel attitude and personality through otherwise average talent. As someone signed to the same label as Koda Kumi, did we expect anything less from ARIA?
But rhetorical questions are weak forms of arguments, so let’s back up and examine why MUSIC AND THE CITY is such a musical success, even as its release was accompanied by little promotion and even less exposure (go ahead! Try to find more than three YouTube videos related to MUSIC AND THE CITY!). ARIA shares more characteristics with AI than any of her immediate peers, even as one begins shuffling through the album’s tracks and senses way more dance music than is probably appropriate for someone (believably!) marketed as an R&B artist. “YES ROBOT,” for example, is a complete receptacle of all things pop: heavy on loops, vocals that can’t decide whether or not to rap, croon, or simply use calculated inflections to emphasize how fun words for the sake of sound can be. The following track “SPOT LIGHT,” heavily influenced by funk and disco in a way that only several links in a chain eventually lead to Lady Gaga, is one of the most fun tracks, utilizing Japan’s more recent preoccupation with rhymes, itself a redundancy with such a vowel-based language.
When focusing on these strengths that make ARIA’s sound such a successful conduit of enjoyable pop, the album pushes her into developing a very interesting blend of pop far removed from her electronic contemporaries, with a focus on how vocals can be more than just accompaniment to really awesome music-making machines. Indeed, much of the music is structured around highlighting the vocals, as in “COUNTDOWN” when melodic emphasis is raised only at pivotal moments of vocal pitch that exit during verses to make room for ARIA’s rare moment of auto-tune that attaches like velcro to an already very computer-driven song. As in “Moonlight Journey,” these moments of robotic vocals actually distract from the overall course of the album, taking away what makes ARIA’s album otherwise so unique, even as stripping down the melodies would rob it of much of what makes it so interesting: the inherent safety net of very loud, very pervasive electronic production. In fact, where MUSIC AND THE CITY begins to stray is when it wallows in its own human-ness: the last three tracks end up being the album’s weakest moment as it tries to develop something of a sedate atmosphere on an album far too deep in its own modernity to survive.
Still, as one of the most surprising albums to come out this year, MUSIC AND THE CITY is a nod to how great pop music can be when it admits its weaknesses: sometimes our vulnerabilities are the most interesting things about us.
Five Quiet Disasters of f(x)’s “NU ABO”
Because this song is already critically lauded by just about the entire Asian pop community (finally! Our first consensus! If we had our own Singles Jukebox, this would surely crack at least an 8.00+), I’m not going to bother sitting here and talking about how great it is (it is!). Like 2NE1′s “Try to Copy Me,” it’s just about the apotheosis of everything wonderful about Korean pop groups. And as f(x)’s first mini-album has a bit of competition from girl group 4minute, who released their first Japanese single, the girls have had to come up with some extra special material, which is mind blowing in its own right – aside from the two slower songs at the end of the album, NU ABO is hand-picked for supremacy. From the title track, to “ME+U,” the album manages to be fun, with more than a hint of indulgence in its own genre.
The video for “NU ABO,” too, has the requisite mix of street-dancing and clothes so loud, it could only take a unique combination such as f(x) to wear them before they wore f(x). Regardless, this mix also means giving in to some of the more absurd fashion choices. The following five are a few of the worst:
Subculture: Rockabilly and American Alternatives in East Asia
Recognizing a subculture is easy when it reflects aspects of your own mainstream culture; defining rockabilly wouldn’t just be redundant, it would be a disservice to Americans who’ve heard any music released in the mid-twentieth century. Just as equally would be the predilection to interpret visual kei or gothic lolita to a country with the city of Shibuya, a sprawling metropolitan mecca of commerce and style. Either way, subcultures and countercultures are one of the more fascinating areas of study, particularly when they’re intricately connected to or directly descended from music culture. Dick Hebdige, one of the leading writers on subculture, examined punk rock in the 1970s through a distinctly subversive lens in the undergrad-staple Subculture: The Meaning of Style. But as countless critics of his work have later noted, the text was incredibly narrow in its scope and ignored numerous aspects that affect and contribute to the creation of subcultures, particularly the role of women. But rather than reexamine the text through a different lens (no need! already been done), I’d like to open discussion on another unique situation: distinctly American subcultures appropriated by Eastern teenagers.
If we define rockabilly as a unique combination of country, R&B, and rock and roll, we’re essentially recognizing its inherent American-ness. As the lyrics contain themes central to the American experience (both real and fabricated), it’s interesting to note that rockabilly has had a revival not just in the West, but in Asian countries who have at least managed to adopt the look and sound, even when they may not be able to authentically replicate the meaning (think hip hop, another subculture worth considering). Operating under the assumption that rockabilly is a nostalgic salute to a quaint slice of Americana fails to grasp both the appeal for contemporary individuals, as well as its appeal to cultures that at best, were content to cover “Jailhouse Rock” and “Be-Bop-A-Lula” in their native languages in order to put an appealing, recognizable face on a foreign entity. Still, the originals never went unacknowledged and the basic idea behind the cover would seem to expose the oft-made argument that everything from physical attributes to musical trends are coveted by foreigners. Ignoring the incredibly pervasive influence of any genre of the West on popular Eastern music is highly unlikely, though I’m hesitant to put such a bold face on the fact when my entire critical pursuit of Eastern music is to show just how remarkably fluid the influences are mixed with its own styles.
In addition, it’s easy to to wrap things up by justifying the existence of rockabilly in Japan simply for its aesthetic or aural appeal. Korea, too, has its first self-proclaimed rockabilly revival in The Rocktigers, who since 2006, have switched from a more punk sound to a full-fledged embrace of the Jerry Lee Lewis variety. But why does this particular subculture seem to resonate in this particular time and place? We can examine several factors, from the widespread influence of the Internet that nurtures the most niched interests and communication with others who share those interests, to the simple appeal of its message (whatever that is for its audience). For despite academic studies on consumers, people are still hard-pressed to explain exactly why they like something, particularly when it just happens to appeal to their emotional psyche. And since I’m no Hebdige, nor have access to a community who lives on the other side of the world to question, I have no neat answer. Nor is why necessarily the correct question to begin with.
But if Jennifer Greenburg is anywhere near succinct in her remark that rockabilly is “a subculture of people who mostly turn away from the horrors of contemporary American culture to focus on family, friends, music, and culture,” then perhaps the topic is worth further examination as it applies to a particular non-American culture (even beyond the idea that America’s influence is so expansive as to essentially make it everyone’s culture). Or perhaps as the subculture today is evoked by those too young to have ever experienced it itself, it appeals in the same way as it does for those who can’t count it as a national landmark: a distinct worldview that happens to coincide with personal ideals and taste. After all, who doesn’t like family, friends, music, and culture, terms so broad and generic as to strip it of any exclusive significance? Maybe the study of other Asian subcultures, such as ganguro and aristocrat fashion, and their influence by traditional American and European styles would make a compelling dissertation. After all, stumbling around theories is one thing, but physical interaction with a community is a whole other beast; in my post about Go Go 70s, I managed to look at the movie from an angle beside the “American music frees Koreans” angle, mostly because I’m not sure the type of music had any significance beyond the obvious idea of time period, but also because I have no way of knowing how people responded to the type of music at that time. In fact, soul could probably have been replaced by acid rock or disco when the whole point was that music, man, it’s pretty awesome.
Indeed, perhaps the logical conclusion at this moment is not to look at how much everyone wants to be American (which is condescending and not true), but how much musical styles and fashion are appropriated by all areas outside of the country because it happens to strike a particular audience at a particular time, whether or not the original intent behind the movement has any current relevance. Subcultures provide other options in places where the mainstream can become overwhelmingly homogeneous or unappealing. Perhaps rockabilly provides just that outlet with no connotations to the political or ideological atmosphere from which it stems: maybe it’s just because bands like The Rocktigers are incredibly talented individuals who provide an alternative to the omnipresent and inescapably commercial sound of Korean pop.
