Stuck In A Pagoda With Motoko Aoyama

A couple of weeks ago (the first week of June, to be exact – Hello! Online only posted the translation a few days ago), Morning Musume were asked this for their Pocket Morning Weekly Q&A:

If you were asked to release one Morning Musume song overseas, which song would it be?

(Presumably, this question is being asked of the band regarding the musical merits of their songs, perhaps also disregarding language issues under the admittedly utopian, but still refreshingly open-minded belief that no one really gives a shit what language a song is sung in. The language issue is another column entirely.)

Some of the ladies had their own answers. Eri Kamei suggested MoMusu’s ska-punk chestnut “Koko ni Iruzee!”, citing (for obvious reasons) the line “A song passing over borders” and adding the reason, “Because it’s a very powerful Morning Musume song.”

Sayumi Mishichige picked “Aruiteru”, a song she acknowledges as one of her personal favorites, also citing an appropriate line of lyric in what she refers to as “the second refrain” (actually, it’s the first prechorus) of the song: “We’re at the distance where the we can hear the songs of the whole world.”

Koharu Kusumi picked “Joshi Kashimashi Monogatari” for a more personal reason: “It’s the song where I introduce myself, so I want to introduce myself like: ‘This is me!’” (Presumably, she is referring to “Joshi Kashimashi Monogatari 3″, which closes out Rainbow 7.)

Li Chun went old-school, picking without explanation the MoMusu standard “Furusato”. (Is JunJun looking to cut a solo version of the song for the next Best Shot DVD?)

Reina Tanaka had two choices, both personal favorites. One was “Shadondama”, which she had already picked as her top favorite Morning Musume single in the 17th installment of her CDData column last October. The other choice was one she shared with the rest of the band: “Resonant Blue”.

Risa Niigaki and Qian Lin both cited a similar reason for picking “Resonant Blue”: The fact that (as of this writing), “Resonant Blue” is the band’s current single. Gaki-san wants overseas fans “to see the recent us” while LinLin “want(s) more and more people to hear (the song)”. Aika Mitsui picks the song as an example of what she calls “the cool Morning Musume”, while Ai Takahashi gives no reason whatsoever for picking out the song.

Admittedly, I’d pick out “Resonant Blue” as an introductory American single myself, simply because it’s such a solid song and performance. Longtime readers of this blog already know my affection for the song, so I won’t risk boring anyone with a recap.

According to iTunes, “Resonant Blue” is already the most downloaded Morning Musume song on the American iTunes service. The young ladies of Morning Musume just might have something there. It also makes me wonder, yet again, how aware Morning Musume and Up-Front Works are of the band’s non-Asian cult audience. That, of course, is another column entirely… maybe part of a certain ongoing series.

RI-SA.J
“Sexual Night, but…”
(Next Records)
Availability: CD single, iTunes Japan, HearJapan.com
[Rating:4.5/5]

R&B music here in the United States has gone right down the commode since about 2002. I could easily say a specific date – say the day Lisa Lopes died in that car wreck – but I won’t. But I will say without a doubt that in the wake of TLC’s subsequent breakup that the quality of R&B/urban music in America has been lacking. Most songs in the genre are just plain monotonous, built along a lame hook, lame-ass “in da club” lyrics, and less than average vocals. I swear to god, if I ever hear Rhianna’s “Umbrella” song again, I’ll take that umbrella, shove it up her ass, and…

*IM beep*
reina_t_1111: Breathe, Ceej, breathe. Skip the details and get to the CD you’re reviewing.

Looks like my muse has spoken.

Anyway, some great urban contemporary-influenced sounds have been coming out of Japan over the past several years that I’ve been following that country’s output – Mai Kuraki’s first two albums, many of Hello! Project’s R&B experiments (see the tracks used on the second episode of The Pagoda Podcast as well as the show notes for good examples), and much of Koda Kumi’s output come to mind. So it’s probably no surprise that, thanks to the site HearJapan.com and a Japanese indie label called Next Records, I should stumble across a trio that makes the best modern R&B songs that I’ve heard in years.
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Well, almost. ^___^

Came across this while looking for a different Whiteberry video entirely (unfortunately, no one has “Jitensha Dorobo” on there, at least not as of this writing). From one of the last episodes of Uta-Doki (I should start collecting the DVD’s), MoMusu 5th gen member Risa Niigaki performs “Natsu Matsuri” (mainly by way of the song’s original artist, Jitterin’ Jinn) with a more full-bodied and mature-sounding voice than that of the then-15-year-old (at the time Whiteberry recorded their version) Yuki Maeda. Eri Kamei, acting as MC for the episode, apparently couldn’t resist grabbing a mic and joining in.

…to all the mothers everywhere… especially these two new Morning MILFs:

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And to paraphrase Brother Ray, it wouldn’t be Stuck In A Pagoda without throwing in a different set of Mothers for good measure:

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SCANDAL
“Space Ranger”, “Koi Moyo” and “Kagerou”
(Kitty Inc.)
Availability: CD single and iTunes Japan and US
“Space Ranger”: [Rating:4/5]
“Koi Moyo”: [Rating:5/5]
“Kagero”: [Rating:5/5]

I have a weird musical fetish, and it involves Japanese girls playing guitars. Shonen Knife may have kicked up the dirt, but it was Whiteberry who planted the seed back in 2001 that eventually grew into my chest-deep interest of Japanese music. Unfortunately, while there have been plenty of Japanese girls with guitars and drums winning my heart over the years, nothing has been totally perfect in this little wonderland. Whiteberry called it a career in 2004 after 2 albums, an EP and countless great singles. ZONE lasted three studio albums and over a dozen great singles. Nakanomori Band are on a short forced hiatus due to their lead singer taking six months off after having surgery on her vocal cords. Akiakane are touring the world but have yet to hand new material to Mike Park at Asian Man. You get the idea.

This past March, four schoolgirls from Osaka flew over to the United States as part of a package tour of independent J-Rock artists called “Japan Nite US Tour 2008″. No one knew what they really looked like. The band was called SCANDAL – spelled with all capital letters, and absolutely no relation to the 80′s American band fronted by Richard Hell’s ex-wife. (Yes, my friends, the “Love Comes In Spurts” guy was married to the “Goodbye To You” chick once upon a time…) Their website only had a short biography, manga/anime caricatures of the four members, some web animation, and the plan to release three one-song singles through the independent label Kitty Inc. in three months, as well as their US tour plans. I heard the four “demo” songs that were on their MySpace page. Their only available PV at the time was an animated video that was cut short to serve as an advertisement for the Japan Nite tour. I was both intrigued and skeptical.

Some of my blogging brothers at YODC witnessed their set in San Francisco and came away raving about their opening set and wanting more of these four young ladies. They weren’t the only ones, as Son of Gigan reported that every copy of their first two CD singles sold out at the merchandise booth. Yikes.

Fortunately, their tunes recently turned up on iTunes in both Japan and the US, with their second single becoming a Free Single Of The Week on iTunes Japan. Suffice it to say, thanks to the availability of iTunes Japan gift cards through Peter Payne’s JList.com, I went right over and nailed both songs. Of course, a week or so later I would discover that they were on US iTunes as well. Bad for me, but good for every American J-Pop fan that hasn’t dared get a Japanese iTunes account yet.

Now that their third single has been released (on CD on May 5th, and on Japanese iTunes on Tuesday evening [ETA: "Kagerou" turned up on US iTunes early Wednesday morning after I first posted this... argh!]) and that there is plenty of video of them available on YouTube, I can safely say that these four girls are for real.
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Apparently, the sudden change in the name of The Pagoda Podcast’s feed host has had an undesired effect on episodes showing up in iTunes’ directory. Simply put, the second podcast hasn’t shown up in their listing since podshow.com changed its name to mevio.com. The feed as given to Apple uses the older podshow.com XML url, which is probably already defunct at this point; getting the correction done is apparently a major adventure in itself.

The proper working feeds for iTunes, Winamp, and other podcast-compatible software can be had on this site’s own podcast page as well as at its own Mevio page.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Well, folks, the reaction to the first Pagoda Podcast was pretty good and very encouraging, so that means I’ll be giving these a shot whenever I have a good idea for a track list or concept. I especially want to thank Vee for the support and Henkka for the shoutout he gave on his own fine debut podcast. It’s pretty cool to learn that my own work here in the J-Pop Blogosphere is having an influence on folks. I’m happy to officially announce that this here podcast can now be both subscribed to and searched out through iTunes – just type either “Pagoda Podcast” or “CJ Marsicano” to find it. Oh, also, apparently the host company for the podcast has changed its name since I uploaded the first podcast there. Instead of Podshow.com they are now Mevio.com so the new URL for the podcast is http://pagodapodcast.mevio.com. The other one still works but that shit threw me off a bit. That’s showbiz!

Direct DL | Show Page @ PagodaPodcast.Mevio.com

I admittedly wasn’t planning on doing a new Pagoda Podcast so soon but given what today is, I had to do a particularly special episode. Six years ago today I woke up to learn the horrible news that Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes from TLC had died in a car accident in the Honduras. I forget how the accident happened but I do remember hearing that she went through the windshield and died instantly, which was doubly creepy because D. Boon from the Minutemen had died in the same manner on 12.22.85. Vibe magazine would later compare TLC’s large shadow over R&B/urban music and the loss of Lisa Lopes with the impact the Beatles had on rock and roll and the death of John Lennon in 1980. I certainly do not disagree with that assessment one bit.
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Leave it to my favorite blogger in the IW blogosphere, Vee Hoffman, to give me the excuse to finally sit on my ass and do something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile. I have to apologize in advance for the slightly shitty microphone I used on this debut podcast, as I had plugged into my $1700 Windoze Blister laptop a $2 microphone I’d gotten on the spur of the moment via a “cheap deals” link Tara had hipped me to. This was slightly impromptu, but if the reaction is good to this experiment, I’ll try to outdo myself on Episode 2 (and get a better microphone). Enjoy!

Direct download:

Episode 1

ETA 4.20.08 6:02 PM. Apparently Odeo.com, which is hosting the stream and RSS feed of this podcast, has briefly gone kerplotz. My apologies, but that part of the equation is unfortunately out of my control. Good thing I put the direct DL up, huh?

ETA 4.21.08 10:48 AM. Since Odeo.com is proving rather unreliable, I’m hosting the show through Podshow.com now and have removed the Odeo.com flash stream. You can stream or download the show, or grab the RSS feed for this and future episodes through this URL:

http://pagodapodcast.podshow.com

I’ve also put this new location’s RSS feed through iTunes for those of you that like to download podcasts in that manner; I’ll let everyone know when it becomes available soon as I get an update from Apple.

ETA 4.22.08 8:29 PM. The Pagoda Podcast is now available through iTunes. Click here to subscribe!

Playlist:
“The American Invasion” (intro) / CJ Marsicano / WMX8 EP
“Pinch!” / Yui Horie / Ho?!
“SwEEt dREAM” / Tommy February6 / Tommy Airline
“Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)” / Parliament / Mothership Connection
“Hello Orange Sunshine” / Ai+BAND / Hello! We Are Ai+BAND!
“Yumi Wo Mimashita” / Yukki / Sotsugyou EP
“Mrs. Robinson” / Natsumi Abe & Yuko Nakazawa / FS5 Sotsugyou

PERFUME
GAME
(Tokuma Japan)
Availability: CD only
[Rating:3/5]

Perfume, a three-piece J-pop girl group (the members – Nocchi, Kashiyuka, and A-chan – all use nicknames professionaly a-la TLC), on outward appearance do not seem to have much to distinguish themselves from other, similarly sized girl groups. Yet, with several singles to their name (all of which appeared on a compilation that preceded this album), this is only their first proper studio album. And it debuted at #1 on Oricion’s daily album chart this past Tuesday. What’s the deal?

Musically, Perfume are backed by arrangements heavy on all manner of analog synthesizers – often presenting harsher textures that recall early Polysics – and digital keyboards, married mostly to house and slower Eurobeat rhythms. That is the good part – all 12 of the songs on GAME are well written and well arranged, sometimes cleverly (the sequencers on “Bufferfly” easily evoke the winged creature of the same name) and its easy to see why songs like “Baby cruising Love” and “Polyrhythm” have made the pop charts in Japan. However, the instrumentation does not vary until the closing track, “Puppy Love”, comes in with a “Linus And Lucy” left-hand bass line and a choppy, artificial-sounding acoustic guitar.

Vocally, however, Perfurme are marred by heavy use of vocoders and other ProTools plug-ins. Used as a compositional device on the appropriate song (think Buono!’s “Internet Cupid”, Bob Mould’s “(Shine Your) Life Love Heart”, Panic! At The Disco’s “Nails For Breakfast, Tacks For Snacks”), or even in select places within a song (think Cher’s “Believe” and Snoop Dogg’s “Sensual Seduction”), it makes for variety within the confines of an album. Used heavily on every track without a break… well, think of current American R&B sensation of the moment, T-Pain, and his heavy reliance on vocoder-like vocal effects (a recent live TV performance that circulated on YouTube revealed how poor of a singer he is without the ProTools plug-ins).

The end result? An otherwise good album is marred by a production that casts doubts about the talent of its vocalists. They may have a number one album and a couple of hit singles to their credit, but on subsequent trips to the studio they’ll have to leave the vocal plug-ins deactivated in ProTools and use more varied musical arrangements if they even expect to see Morning Musume’s taillights from at least eight blocks away (by which time Morning Musume will have probably racked up another five or ten Top 10 hits). Like George Clinton sang on Parliament’s “Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk”, “Better luck next time.”