Thus begins my countdown of the issues and topics I feel were most substantive to the year in Asian music appreciation for Pink Wota. I have a lot more to say on certain topics, a lot less to say on others. I’ll be presenting ten topics, then offering a year-end Top Ten list of musical releases. All from a purely subjective point of view, you understand. Let’s begin!
Contemode is pretty much the opposite of “something new” in the world of J-Pop, but this year a lot of attention was turned on mastermind producer Yasutaka Nakata with Perfume’s ⊿, an album that drew as much ire as it drew love. I can break it down easily in my mind with one simple phrase, and it’s pretty much the same thing any of you can use to rest your minds when I sigh and shake my head over Morning Musume: Haters Gonna Hate. Though the standard allegation that “Perfume aren’t real singers” is incredibly easy to disprove, the image that Contemode has marketed only furthers this misperception.
Look at these GQMFs
Watching them in concert doesn’t really help if you’re one of the people who thinks that singing ability is the only thing that defines an artist. A Perfume concert, no matter how magical and well-executed, is pretty much 100% playback. Never mind the great, always perfectly synchronized and certainly physically challenging dancing, the never over-the-top acting, and the absolute fierceness of A-chan, Nocchi, and Kashiyuka. Let’s just throw all that out of the window and say that songs like “Edge”, “NIGHT FLIGHT”, and “love the world” just don’t count because of how much production went into the vocals. Never mind that Nakata basically took all the best parts of artists like Oakenfold, the Chemical Brothers, Erasure, Kraftwerk, and to a pop idol extension Kylie Minogue. He threw those parts in a blender and added a decidedly Japanese dash of eccentricity. Toshiko Koshijima of capsule was Lady Gaga before Lady Gaga was in junior high. Now Perfume are accused of not being real because they don’t sing live.
(more…)
