3 posts tagged “j-pop”
After renting Mr. Children's Q album from the public library, I find myself addicted to a batch of songs (tracks 9-11), including this one.
This is yet another example of me having yawned through several (hundred) appearances of this band on Japan's "Hey Hey Hey" music program only to discover how fantastically melodic and diverse they are, hearing other songs.
There's also an English subtitled video of "Road Movie" (Youtube), for those Nihongo impaired like me. Are these guys' lyrics always so full of detailed and philosophical? That's for me to find out, I guess.
(Silly me for misreading ムービー as "ma-a-bi-i" instead of "mu-u-bi-i." That will make your Googling for translated lyrics that much harder.)
A shimmering monochrome rainbow in a sky full of crows.
A zoo where no one is smiling.
The streetlights show me a future 2 seconds ahead.
The motorcycle races
to a pleasure of passing the darkness laid out in even intervals.
Speed up a little more now.
Racing on to the next future.
I'm pretty sure there's a goal line somewhere along this road.
I bring that vision with me.
Isn't it great when you find a band (or anything, for that matter) that gets you excited and fills you with longing for more? Simply energizing. Revives your belief that there are so many pockets of beauty out there; you just have to keep rummaging. The fun is doing it among the sales items or (as in the case of Japanese music CDs at your local library) the rentables and those available for free.
On my second trip to Japan, I stumbled across this fantastic singer Bird [her site | my fan page]. Primarily known as a soul/R'n'B singer, she also belts out songs dipped in many flavors - bossa nova, salsa, electronica, folk, jazz. For the first part of her career, she was under the wing of super-producer Osawa Shinichi. But from what I understand, he parted ways with Bird after three popular albums. But showing gumption, Bird - still with Sony - stood up on her own, putting together a stripped down, organic album called "Double Chance." After that came a return to high production with "Vacation" and her latest "Breathe" (2006), which - from the clips on her website - is electronica-fueled dance pop.
These two songs are from her eponymous debut album, both ballads. They are more J-R'n'B than J-electronica. But the beats are chunky and the melodies strong.
This is indeed the best part of waking up. Dusty Springfield’s “Just a Little Lovin’” was written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and it’s basically an open call to have sex in the morning.
Now if that’s not a platform on which to win the presidency, then I don’t know what is.
Just a little lovin’
Early in the mornin’
Beats a cup of coffee
For starting off the day
Just a little lovin’
When the world is yawnin’
Makes you wake up feeling
Good things are coming your way
I wish I had a copy of it for I’d post it here.
Instead I have a cover of it by the Fantastic Plastic
Machine, the playground for DJ Tomoyuki Tanaka. He drops most of the original
lyrics, adds some others and includes an intro of radio-dial nonsense, which means we have to work up our excitement about this version for other reasons (like the beat).
Tanaka, from older pictures, looked more like a preppy comedic actor than an innovative producer. But here, he’s looking tight.
By the way, lovin’ is one of my favorite words that I don’t use all that often. It’s a fairly innocuous word. But once you add a slight Elvis (or would that be Elvisian?) twang to it, people know exactly what you’re talking about.
