Big Bang’s “BIGBANG”

Big Bang / BIGBANG / August 19, 2009
01. GARA GARA GO!! / 04. MY HEAVEN

The boy band is more than an East Asian staple, it’s a perennial tradition. Where the Western mass of dancing, lip-synching, and be-costumed man-children have long since grown up, discovered sex, and reaped the benefits of young teenage girls’ expendable incomes only to devolve to made-for-TV C-list movies and the hope of a lucrative reunion, East Asia has clung to its boy bands like the last lifeboat on a sinking ship; V6 is turning fifteen years old, but instead of politely handing the torch of chart dominance to its more youthful offspring, they have donned the mod-suits, angled haircuts, and dour temperaments of the serious, refined (but still hip!) gentleman in their latest promotional video for “GUILTY,” their neutered, mostly-in-synch dance steps the only traitors in their quest for relevance as they shimmy to their graves.

Though the turnover rate for boy bands isn’t as large in the East, there is the occasional competition.  With a flood of overseas Asian pop finally invading the shores and record stores of Japan, a large number of these contenders are Koreans, keen on sharing a piece of the second largest music market in the world’s pie, and eating it, too. Big Bang, formed in 2006 by YG Entertainment, may have everything you need for a successful boy band (edgy, occasionally bizarre fashion choices, requisite staple “personalities,” attractive mug shots), but they also have the least important component on their side: quality music. Quality being a relevant term, that in this case, denotes a straddling of the line between surprisingly good and not completely horrible.

Their second full-length Japanese-language album, BIGBANG, teems with all the correct formulas: there’s the fashionable auto-tune, shouts and catcalls that mark the backbone of the genre, usually by G-Dragon (the loudest and most popular disposition who has finally been given a solo outlet to perhaps quiet his roaring ego), occasional harmonies, raps, and a distant smattering of quasi-italo disco vibe (“Bringing You Love” in particular) that renders the hip hop safe, fun, and accessible, curving the average “danger” level of tracks like “Emotion” and “Top Of The World” that try to be hard and somewhat threatening, from mild to lukewarm. That’s not to say the tracks aren’t good – when you throw everything at the wall of music crazes, things will eventually stick. As a result, the arrangements hit the pulse of tail-end 00’s pop without leaving any tricks hidden up their sleeves.

To say the album isn’t “classic,” that in fifteen years it will simply be a product of its time, a sort of early 21st musical fossil, is tired and useless; whether classic or kitsch, every album inevitably bears the mark of its production year. In fifteen years, the most important thing won’t be if this album has aged well, but that we remember Big Bang at all, before they were dressing in smart suits and crooning stuffy ballads.

♫ Official Site
♫ Buy BIGBANG

the Time is Now, my revolutionary Western music critics

Ian Martin recently interviewed Yasutaka Nakata, one of the most prolific Japanese producers, as well as song-writer, DJ, and overall badass, for The Japan Times Online, and what strikes me as most important about the advertorial for capsule’s upcoming greatest hits compilation is the things he has to say about music criticism:

“Especially in Tokyo, [...] someone who knows a lot about music, they play something and people think, ‘OK, this must be popular now.’”

“The power of music critics is less in Japan now. [...] And partly this is because they’ll talk about music saying that ‘this’ or ‘that’ is really fashionable, but the [sic] themselves obviously have no sense of style, so people react like, ‘What? Why should we listen to this guy?’”

“In Japan, [...] if something sells really well, the singers will be all over the TV and everywhere, but no one cares who made it. But overseas, when they hear the song, they think, ‘Who made it?’ not ‘Who’s singing it?’ Not just songwriters, but also the arrangers, the sound engineers — they respect all the people who are involved in making the music.”

I’ve been working on an essay this past week (it will be finished and posted eventually) about the (non-existent) state of  serious Japanese music criticism in the West, and this just reinforces all the points I’m making in three tiny blurbs: that Western style of music criticism/journalism is extremely respected, well-informed, and important, while the Japanese style is a joke and treated more like an almost pure hybrid of marketing and payola (and it’s no secret!), and that this respected, well-informed, and important style of music criticism has yet to be adapted to Japanese music (or East Asian pop in general). But I’ll save the rest for the essay.

Most profiles are generated with a desperate sense of summary and little original content, crafted to promote an artist and filtering sense or meaning out of what little a pop artist has to say, which is usually nothing about anything. But Yasutaka Nakata is addressing something that I think is fundamental to the English-speaking J-pop revolution.

Music critics of America, are you listening?

Friday night Oricon (August 17, 2009)

An every Friday in a while look at the weekly Oricon Top Twenty Singles Chart.

Summer has always been the de facto best music release season; there’s just something about warm weather that motivates the song writers of so many idol groups. Indeed, in Japan it brings nothing less than shame to an artist who dare not release a ballad or something of sentimental value during the winter, and so it is The Summer Single that I anticipate to effectively wash away the grime of winter coats and snow boots that still cling like crusted salt to less than warm springs.

But though I admittedly enjoy the riff after the chorus, B’z’s “Ichibu to Zenbu”/”DIVE” (#1) is pretty unfulfilling. I’m tempted to play the irrelevance card, or even the age card, but the fact is that you really aren’t ever too old to rock, there just comes a point when you stop doing it as well. Let’s put it this way: if I went to see B’z play live, I would politely tolerate “DIVE” so I could hear “Easy Come, Easy Go” and “BAD COMMUNICATION.” And so it goes.

This is the second week EXILE’s “THE HURRICANE ~FIREWORKS~” (#6) is on the charts, and listening to it again only solidifies my opinion that this song had a lot of potential before something went horribly awry. The whole traditional Japanese instruments against a contemporary beat is a bit overdone in the frenzied, happi-wearing, Japanese  masturi summer, but it’s a conceit I don’t hate as long as it’s done well (a personal favorite is 10nin Matsuri’s “Dancing! Natsu Matsuri!” – and by the way, I just watched that PV for the first time ever today and I feel really embarrased for them). I don’t necessarily hate EXILE, but it’s worth noting that they have released thirty-one singles and I have liked zero of them.

Speaking of zero, that’s how much potential GIRL NEXT DOOR has. There’s a sort of euro-dance vibe to “Be your wings” (#4) but the song is fatally flat. This group is relatively new, but as cool the PV was, I’m not holding out for anything spectacular.

I do like Alice Nine’s “Hana” (#8), though there is something desperately abingdon boys school about it. I haven’t listened to much Alice Nine since a few years ago and it’s kind of like, where did the VK go? I mean, the song is so tame, it’s almost housetrained. While suits don’t make guitar solos sound better, they do make you look classy in ways leather shorts and checkered uber-belts can’t, especially if you’re singing in front of a really large staircase on some old-timey estate. Even so, it’s like Sherlock Holmes without a pipe, or Joseph Chamberlain without a monocle; something’s just missing, you know?

On that note, my favorite single on the chart this week is STRAIGHTENER’s “CLONE” (#15). I’m not going to pretend that I’ve ever heard anything by this band before, because I haven’t, but this song is more than adequate. There’s something about the way the insistent drums belie the overall melancholy state that made me do a double-take. The guitars are a bit much, but it’s still the greatest song ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION couldn’t pull it together to write in the past three years. It may not have been the summer jam I was expecting, but at least it doesn’t rely on past glories or a gimmick.

(10) years of summer: Ranking Ayumi’s singles

Sincer her debut in April of 1998, Ayumi Hamasaki has released forty-six singles. Though the frequency and popularity has certainly dwindled, the months of June through August are still some of Hamasaki’s fans’ most anticipated musical celebration of all the most banal elements of summer: free-time, sunshine, friends, and exotic locales. With the exceptions of 2000 and 2008, years which saw the absence of any reference to fun or sun, the summer single has gained momentum from a tepid drive along the coast to its crescendo in 2005’s fairyland, a single whose music video now ranks as one of the most expensive of all time. To celebrate the release of her newest summer single Sunrise/Sunset ~LOVE is ALL~, here is appears’s ranking of Hamasaki’s ten summer singles.

10. glitter (2007)

Released as a short-film starring actor Shawn Yue, “glitter” and “fated” are my least favorite of Hamasaki’s summer singles. Located on GUILTY, the worst album of her career, the songs try far too hard to grasp the significance and ingenuity of “fairyland” and “BLUE BIRD,” but with unsuccessful results. Barely tolerable, the short film/music video was a rehash of Hamasaki’s increasingly paranoid obsession with her own fame, a music video that was also ironically (or depending on how you look at it, hypocritically) meant as a vehicle to gain her superstar status in the overseas Asian market  – plummeting sales on home ground had now forced Hamasaki to venture into territory outside her comfort zone. glitter is not only a testament to her slipping grasp of the title Empress of Pop and a nod to the bloated gimmick that had become the staple of her career, but also a very large, very loud tree that fell without a soul to hear. And nobody cared.

09. Sunrise/Sunset ~LOVE is ALL~ (2009)

On the cover of Hamasaki’s newest single, the singer appears inhuman: she’s staring with eyes glazed over, unnaturally long hair extensions resting upon a plastic, photoshopped body, in front of a computer-enhanced background that doesn’t even try to look authentic. Though it could be this blatant fiction that makes it one of the worst covers in her career, it’s really the lack of effort that stands out: is Hamasaki running out of ideas, or did this really seem like a great idea at the time? The songs are adequate enough, though they really bring to mind the same  grasping strain of glitter, and the coupling track, a song that features the same lyrics and melody but different composition, is really a poorly masquerading remix. The single suffers from sheer neglect on all accounts, though it’s the megamix that really hurts: even Sunrise/Sunset ~LOVE is ALL~ is reminiscing.

08. Trust (1998)

Her third single of all time, Trust, alongside Boys & Girls, was never released expressly as a summer single the way anything released between June and August now are; instead, it was just another somewhat mediocre single that followed the lackluster sales of her debut and follow-up singles. Regardless, “Trust” manages to capture what summers were like before Hamasaki hit it big; they were spent alone on rainy days, contemplating the world on beaches in overcast, sepia days, and driving along the coast – fast forward ten years and Hamasaki is still driving along the coast, but these days, it’s in classic muscle cars with the budget to invite friends and dancers, and when the Hawaiian dream-hut catches fire, they just take to private islands and super yachts. What a long, strange trip it’s been.

07. Boys & Girls (1999)

A concert favorite, Boys & Girls, is probably the first true summer single, before the phrase became ubiquitous: a light and fluffy catchy pop tune, the single was the first ever of Hamasaki’s maxi-singles, featuring a handful of equally entertaining remixes. Hamasaki’s vocals still retain that gloss from vocal lessons, with all the innocence and candor that would be lost by the time vogue was released. Though the music video is somewhat mundane, the song remains a concert staple for a reason: it has the sheer arena-pop quality that so many of Hamasaki’s songs now take for granted. Plus, you can sing, dance, jump, skip, add a guitar solo and ad lib to it, all without robbing the song of any of its simple inculpability.

06. H (2002)

When a song like “Boys & Girls” becomes huge, promoters take notice; enter the first official summer single. Geared specifically to play at large concert venues, the song features a full chorus that mimics the audience heard in the intro, hand claps that demand participation, and a formidable, bubbly BPM that keeps the pace from dawdling. The single features two other tracks, “july 1st,” a slightly more subdued summer anthem that features acoustic guitars and light breezes, and “HANABI,” a ballad that would prove just as popular for perhaps everything the first two tracks were not. H, released at the tail-end height of Hamasaki’s popularity, sold so many copies that a special limited edition was released to commemorate all three of the collectible covers. And with songs that ran the gamut from hopeful to pessimistic, the single would be the last of its kind to truly capture the zeitgeist of Hamasaki’s career.

05. fairyland (2005)

Though H may have run the spectrum, fairyland stands out for its sheer zing: an incredible, high energy pop song coupled with a dark, vengeful rock song, fairyland was one of the last singles to truly showcase Hamasaki’s versatility while transcending the genre-specific niche of her contemporaries. In addition, the music video was the first to truly sink into the summersploitation that was fast becoming the hallmark of her career. “alterna,” though already a return to the fame-paranoia trope Hamasaki began experimenting with in “Dearest” and would continue to throughout her career, is still one of the best rock songs Hamasaki has recorded.

04. BLUE BIRD (2006)

The last great summer single, BLUE BIRD rode the coat-tails of its predecessors without succumbing to the complete photocopy that later singles would resort to. The music video was shot in Guam and features the same cast as “fairyland,” though nothing catches fire and there’s a huge yacht involved. The video, which never reneges on these pedestrian themes associated with summer, reflects the song itself, though the song is somewhat less literal. Even with a somewhat dull coupling track, the title track stands on its own as the last of its kind.

03. & (2003)

By the time & was released, triple A-sides were no longer novel; its merit depended on the substance of the disc. And aside from the bizarro, unsettling delusion of “ourselves,” the somewhat impractical luster of “Greatful days” and the better-than-the-original sequel to “HANABI,” Hamasaki delivered a gorgeous, traditional piece as the theme to the avex summer festival a-nation. That’s not to dim the spotlight on the three triple A-sides, which were fantastic – the PV for “ourselves” may have been a Christina Aguilera rip-off, but the song is one of the first where Hamasaki actually used the sound and texture of words to create the eerie, possessive world of the song, “Greatful days” is exuberant without falling into the banal trap that so many Morning Musume songs do, and “HANABI ~episode II~” is both lovely and wistful without just being a total tear-jerker – but the real charm of the disc lies in the fourth track that gently steals the attention without even trying. “theme of a-nation ‘03″ is elegant, graceful, and totally different from anything Hamasaki had done and would ever do again.

02. INSPIRE (2004)

INSPIRE may not have been the best single (it only boasted the two tracks, plus instrumentals, a veritable dull staple for Hamasaki fans) but the content was quite different. “INSPIRE” would be the last of the rock-oriented pop singles Hamasaki would release before her rock atmosphere became a lot less fun and much more bitter. “GAME” sort of set the precedence for this with its spooked, reverberating piano and a music video that took Hamasaki’s relationship with pleather to new heights. Even so, the song is potently entertaining, with a wonderful mix of synth and guitar for the interlude – Hamasaki may have already been trying to re-capture formulas that worked so well in the past, but she still managed to do it competently.

01. UNITE! (2001)

Pink Wota appropriately called I am… Hamasaki’s Sgt. Pepper; the album spans several genres, showcased Hamasaki’s first attempts at songwriting, and was the only album to sell 4 million copies in Asia. Debuted at her insanely successful 2001 DOME TOUR, “UNITE!” was the fifth single composed by Hamasaki and highlights all the elements that would become her signature: a slow, subdued intro followed by messy, distorted drums and guitars. The haunting piano loop is revisited at times throughout the piece, highlighting the somewhat mournful sentiments that haunted much of Hamasaki’s personal disposition at the time. There may not have been any music video accompanying the single, but I sort of prefer it that way; UNITE! was released when Hamasaki’s music and image were still constantly evolving, without eluding to signs of desperation; it was released when things could still conceive to be building instead of dissolving; it was released when Hamasaki was still taken seriously as not just an entertainer, but as an artist. When singles like Sunrise/Sunset are being released, UNITE! is the summer single I look back on fondly, knowing that, unlike most nostalgia, I can honestly say I was there and it really was that awesome.

Meisa Kuroki’s “SHOCK -Unmei-”

Meisa Kuroki / SHOCK -Unmei- / July 22, 2009
01. SHOCK -Unmei-

It had recently occurred to me that Namie Amuro has not released a single since March’s Wild; looking to fill this gap, I turned to Okinawan Meisa Kuroki, who released her debut album hellcat in April. The album may have lacked lyrical depth, but it was a likely successor to where Amuro’s PLAY left us in 2007 (though admittedly, most of the tracks actually sounded like outtakes from the Queen of Hip-Pop sessions). While in most cases I would be disappointed by the overt lack of vicissitude, innovation is hardly the key to amassing an audience and what Kuroki lacks in originality, she makes up for in sheer determination. You know, in a weird, submissive sort of way.

While writhing on a bed in undergarments and peering at the camera with half-lidded, soulful eyes behind an alarming array of hair extensions may be the way to capture a tepid audience’s expectations for generic over genuine (and most of the album’s tracks pander to the lowest common denominator, exemplified best by a track that simply goes under the title “SEX” in all caps), it wasn’t the music videos or television appearances that got me; it was the way these tracks aren’t actually bad. Perhaps more a sad, telling indictment of my own fallible tastes, hellcat was the first Japanese hip hop album of the year that didn’t have me taking cover in my copy of the AllMusic Guide’s Required Listening: Classic Rock, or worse, perusing Amuro’s recent releases again with a magnifying glass and sentimentality. In the end, I liked a majority of hellcat’s songs and looked forward to hearing Kuroki infuse the Oricon with some healthy competition. Unfortunately, SHOCK -Unmei- is not that competition.

Almost desperately pandering to commercial success (literally – it’s featured in Kirin’s Cola Shock ads), the song lacks any of the impact it’s purporting to carry. While I have no problem with commercial tie-ins, the song has the same effect on me that Chris Brown’s “Forever” did in that it asks just how fine that blurry line between commercial success and commercial sellout straddles (I mean, I’m cool with songs being used in promotions to sell products, but what about when a company pays to have a song specifically written for it/about it – can we treat it with the same pop-minded respect and diligence, or do we build a new category for these tunes, perhaps appropriately dubbed Promo Pop, and imbue it with a whole new set of critical criteria? And what would that do to pop stars, who could go from a loosely endearing term of the word “artist” to literal musical vehicles?).  In addition, the track samples a piece of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, but it doesn’t take advantage of it nearly enough – and whether or not it’s some sort of really clever homage to patrons of the art and how even classical geniuses couldn’t escape music’s commercial verve (Kuroki asks, “Who’s the puppet? Who’s the master?”), the orchestral vibe never reaches its full potential, being bogged down by repetitiveness and weaker, competing synths (the composers probably should have studied S.H.E.’s “Yu Zhou Xiao Jie” a little closer). Regardless, “SHOCK -Unmei-” is more involved than most of its Oricon contemporaries, and the c/w track “Wasted,” in an attempt to round out the single, infuses something more natural on the disc with a simple melody and sparser arrangement.

But stepping back to examine what I think it’s satirizing (intentionally or not), I do find myself wondering if I just talked myself into liking it a little more.

♫ Buy SHOCK -Unmei-