The mystery is the message: Memoir-pop and Namie Amuro

There are times when a musician or performing artist’s work is irrevocably intertwined with their personal life in a way that makes it impossible to ignore, and also comes at the cost of understanding or enriching their work. Many celebrity-singers working today actively nurture and exploit their personal lives, capitalizing on tabloid gossip and Reddit rumors to craft a sort of extended Nonfiction-pop Universe, rather than using them in service of a song that is then tweaked to feel universal and easily grafted onto any listener’s life — the thing that makes popular music so popular. This isn’t anything new, and rather extends from a tradition including Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, and Alanis Morrisette, but it’s taken on a certain recent vogue with the superstar ascendancy of Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift’s entire musical body of work is a literal memoir — to ignore her personal life is at best, to deny yourself a fully three-dimensional song, and at worst, leaves you totally perplexed. While you can theoretically enjoy the songs on their own, “Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version)” is not a song about the confusion, jealousy, and resentment left at the end of an on-and-off relationship where you’ve both casually dated others and realize you’re not cut out for that, it’s about Taylor Swift and Harry Styles breaking up while on vacation in the Virgin Islands, after which she was forced to leave alone, sitting on a boat in a blue dress. “The Boy Is Mine” is nominally a song about the heady and forbidden thrill of being The Other Woman, but it’s mostly about Ariana Grande feeling triumphant about being a homewrecker. Jennifer Lopez not only wrote a whole album, but created an entire film about her second time around with Ben Affleck. Maybe you feel a connection to a song that is about an all-consuming love taken for granted, but probably “Call Out My Name” is just about Abel Tesfaye nearly donating his kidney to Selena Gomez before she dropped him for Justin Bieber. Likewise, some J-pop stars also funnel personal narratives into their art, like Ayumi Hamasaki, who has written the lyrics to all of her songs from day one, and often uses her own experiences and those of her friends for inspiration, though only more recent work was explicit about it (and in ways that nearly demanded second-hand embarrassment).

But you never caught Namie Amuro using her songs as a platform to address gossip or work through personal trauma. Namie took the term “professional” to new heights, often content to serve as a conduit, completely divorcing herself from her music, which she often left up to other writers and producers, like Tetsuya Komuro, who created almost all of her solo work in the 1990s. Treating it like the job that it was meant that fans often knew very little about her, especially in the later part of her career where she continued to shun personal interviews and ignore the increasingly informal and open nature of social media networks. This was one woman who was determined to be nothing more than a hard-working fiction, a canvas in the tradition of pop music’s highest aspiration. This was even in the face of heavy personal drama that almost begged to be publicly addressed.

For example, in the late 90s, she had to admit that she was taking a brief hiatus from the industry after a quick marriage to Masaharu “Sam” Maruyama of J-pop group TRF, followed by the birth of their son less than eight months later. And in an even more dramatic and inescapably public arc, she made a tentative return in 1998 with the subdued single, “I HAVE NEVER SEEN,” hoping to put it all behind her and move forward. She then released a follow-up, titled “RESPECT the POWER OF LOVE,” on March 17, 1999, twenty-five years ago today, which happened to be the day that her mother was brutally murdered by Namie’s uncle (a news article from AP published that day states that she “was run over several times and possibly hacked with an ax” though other web sites say that she was run over and beaten with a pipe, or sometimes a hatchet). Her uncle was then found dead by suicide later that day (again, some reports state he was still alive when located, and died later in the hospital — you will never find Namie answering these questions). But  believe it or not, while Namie did cancel all of the promotions for the single, the music industry soldiered on and just four months later, she released “toi et moi.”

“RESPECT the POWER OF LOVE” became forever linked with the horrific incident, and it’s now sometimes hard to consider the song on its own terms, mostly because the pop song itself stands in such stark emotional contrast to the events. It’s also not much of a coincidence that Namie began working with new producers and writers on subsequent singles, perhaps in an attempt to distance herself from the series of tragic events that saw her sales and popularity decline, and which culminated in a 2002 divorce.

“RESPECT the POWER OF LOVE,” one of the last singles Komuro would ever write for Namie, sounds very much like a typical TK song, one that looks backward, perhaps for continuity’s sake in regards to her recent return to the industry. But unfortunately, by 1999, TK’s sound and popularity was also drying up, and this is reflected in the somewhat paint-by-numbers approach here. You get all of the signature keyboards, drum machines, and TK’s own elbowed-in vocals, accompanied by a straightforward, if low-key anthemic chorus. But none of it feels punchy where it should, instead lacking the essential element of genuine belief in the song’s message. Simply put, it was retreaded material, the kind of thing Komuro would normally have thrown to a lesser singer as a one-off favor, or on one of those late-stage Tomomi Kahala albums. It’s not a bad song, but it lacks the conviction and commitment of both its writer and performer, hinting at what had become a stale working relationship amid a rapidly evolving musical landscape. It didn’t help that it was thrown out on the dawn of an event that made it seem tentatively inappropriate and tone-deaf. The single also features a halfhearted remix titled the “NYC Uptown remix,” which also doesn’t do much — it gives the song more of an R&B, hip-hop edge, eliminating the poppier parts of the original, but as the melody and vocals itself lack much teeth, a remix isn’t sufficient to give it enough energy.

Clearly Namie needed a reset across her whole life, as did music listeners. Fans, meanwhile, have made peace with the fact that there will be no juicy tell-alls — Namie will always be remembered as the woman you went to for escape, projection, and untouchable, blemish-free myth-making. You cannot study her interviews to find hidden meaning, or peruse her verses for Easter eggs, or discuss theories about telltale clues. “toi et moi” was not about coping with horrific trauma. “think of me” was a moving song about a broken relationship, but it was never definitely and specifically about Namie’s marital dysfunction and looming separation from Sam. Everything personal stayed personal. Nothing was confirmed or denied. Any attempt to breach the surface or invite speculation could be ignored, covered up, or lasered off. Like all of the world’s best pop music, the song plays, emotional connection is established in many different, brilliantly varied hues, touching you in a personal way that feels almost as if the singer has crawled into your heart and head to project outwards, and the song ends. It does not require footnotes or a feverish investigation board. It asks very little of you, except your undivided attention and willingness to engage. It is about everyone because it is about no one.

Notes [ Image in header edited from the original at Namie Amuro Toi et Moi. ]