Currently Listening To...

[Inseu]

Originally Posted by TurtleFu

I remember from my deep dark days as an idol fan a little group made up EXCLUSIVELY of pre-pubescant girls. Most of them were 10 when the group started.

When Morning Musume started, which was 1997, there were five girls, and their ages at that time were:

Nakazawa Yuko: born 1973, age 24
Ishiguro Aya: born 1978, age 21
Iida Kaori: born 1981, age 16
Abe Natsumi: born 1981, age 16
Fukuda Asuka: born 1984, age 13

Most girls from other generations start around age 14-15, which is...quite normal for idols (Momoe Yamaguchi started when she was 13).

Nobody was 10, and only few were "pre-pubescant", unless you were referring to some other group.

And here is a Cure song I enjoy.

Cure - Why Can't I Be You

[deadgrandma]

Originally Posted by Superficial Fan

I love this new Yamantaka//Sonic Titan single:

http://pitchfork.com/features/update...a-sonic-titan/

Already preordered the vinyl of the new album (cause I'm super hip)...

Though, that album cover, ugggggh, looks like a teenager drew that shit



I'm seriously doubting from the sound of the single (which face it, if you were to take out the "traditional Japanese elements (if that's what they actually are)" sounds more or less like like a messier The Joy Formidable) that this will be up to the high-class-almost-KZK-like-genre-defying standards set in YT//ST but I'm sure it will be a decent listen anyway. I'm hoping that I'm wrong (it certainly has a big, overblown, perhaps pretentious concept to go with it that suggests another album album- as in, to be listened to as one piece), but at the very least at least have a bit more re-playability than the first album that to me is definitely a mood piece.

Has anyone seen this band live btw? I'd like to think that they are quite the experience...

Anyway, CLT



ORESKABAND: Hot Number

My god what is it with me and digging this kinda stuff this year? It just really gets me feelin' good. Very tight, talented musicianship, fun mixture of hardcore SKA and pop... a surprising/random find for sure. Parts of it admittedly remind of Jihen and/or SAPS (BTW, The track Walk on here is soooo Marounichi Sadistic (Expo/Jihen versions) that it's not funny...) and even maybe a bit of Belle and Sebastian is creeping in there too; but that's not to say that it doesn't have it's own flavour too. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but it is a great little album if you have the patience for how 'sweet'/happy it is- or if you have an appreciation for SKA music in general.

Props to the album cover too, it's a really nice photo.

[Tokyo Jihad]

I think the YT//ST art is pretty tight.
I'm all for a messier Joy Formidable sound seeing as the real Joy Formidable were too clean for my taste this time around.

[Tokyo Jihad]

Ooh right, I wanted to comment on all the idol talk, tangentially anyway. Here's what bugs me, people here and in other communities will defend and praise the "merits" of j-pop and k-pop starlets, but then someone accidentally mentions they like the new Katy Perry song -- that's over the music cred line. The same people that pedestal one commercial, vapid, disposable pop act call out another act for being commercial, vapid and disposable.

[Superficial Fan]

Originally Posted by deadgrandma

Already preordered the vinyl of the new album (cause I'm super hip)...

I haven't ordered shit because I'm super broke.

I'm seriously doubting from the sound of the single (which face it, if you were to take out the "traditional Japanese elements (if that's what they actually are)" sounds more or less like like a messier The Joy Formidable) that this will be up to the high-class-almost-KZK-like-genre-defying standards set in YT//ST but I'm sure it will be a decent listen anyway.

I'm not very familiar with the Joy Formidable but what I've heard of theirs has never made this much of an impression on me.

I think some of what we are hearing on this single is drawn from Canadian Native American culture, not that that makes a meaningful difference in your description. I really like this single, though I think it gets boring at the end. What's being repeated isn't interesting enough to hold up that long.

At some points the lead vocals are reminding me an awful lot of the old psychedelic band the United States of America.

[Inseu]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Jihad

Ooh right, I wanted to comment on all the idol talk, tangentially anyway. Here's what bugs me, people here and in other communities will defend and praise the "merits" of j-pop and k-pop starlets, but then someone accidentally mentions they like the new Katy Perry song -- that's over the music cred line. The same people that pedestal one commercial, vapid, disposable pop act call out another act for being commercial, vapid and disposable.

Commercial yes, vapid and disposable, maybe 90%.

From Perfume's Laser Beam to Katy Perry's The One That Got Away, there's a huge quality slide. She's more in the Koda Kumi level of J-pop.

[TurtleFu]

Right, absolutely, Jihad. I don't blanket-hate mainstream idol pop the same way I don't blanket-hate all mainstream pop from the Anglo side.
I have met real-life people who listen to idol crap because they think it has more musical integrity than something like Katy Perry. Yeah, ok, idiot.

[Inseu]

Kara - Mister

Never in music I've seen such honest display of sexuality, which is rare in k-pop, and more real than all the western mainstream music such as Lady Gaga.

[deadgrandma]

Originally Posted by TurtleFu

Right, absolutely, Jihad. I don't blanket-hate mainstream idol pop the same way I don't blanket-hate all mainstream pop from the Anglo side.
I have met real-life people who listen to idol crap because they think it has more musical integrity than something like Katy Perry. Yeah, ok, idiot.

It all really depends. Katy Perry is a bad example cause I can't stomach anything by her whatsoever, nor have I heard anything that's been outstandingly prouduced.But I also think that there is quite a big difference between Asian idol pop and western idol pop too.

Have you ever seen a western girl do Jpop? Something just doesn't sit right. Take for example, this latest PV by "Beckii Cruel":

Beckii Cruel- Future Fantasy

It's damn cringeworthy. I know this is a really horrible/Japanese equivalent of Friday (as one comment I have read pointed out) but musically, its Jpop, and there is a massive difference than that and say, Katy Perry's lame anthem "Fireworks". Both styles of mainstream pop are flimsy in their own way, and both will have exclusions that stand out and last the test of time, just a matter of which is your poison.

It's not just mainstream music that is 'disposable', how many indie or alternative bands end up being a flavour of the month to be lost in the sea of talented but unfocussed hence longterm unsuccessful bands that get brought up on music blogs etc?

I don't think being mainstream or non-mainstream has anything to do with how long you're gonna last in someone's playlist.

Oh, Inseu... there's a difference between being sexy and having an 'honest display' about sexuality. From the top of my head- see Pagan Poetry PV by Bjork for a real example of that.

[Tokyo Jihad]

On disposability, I don't mean disposable to the listener. I think its pretty rare for there to be a song or artist that a listener will be done with and never want to revisit. When I think of an artist being disposable I think of an artist in the money-making big media commercial machine. We can split hairs all day as to where that line between mainstream and non-mainstream lies (like, what about Vampire Weekend? or Arcade Fire? or Kendrick Lamar? or someone like Macklemore?) but usually the non-mainstream artist on the small label means more to their label (as pitchfork-popular or bandcamp-obscure as they may be) and is less likely to be cast off outright. Also if the big studio act stops selling, the big studio will move their A-list writers and producers to the next act. If Grimes wakes up unpopular tomorrow, her creative output isn't as intertwined with popularity as Selena Gomez.