SONG FOR THE DUMPED (JAPANESE BONUS TRACK)

Listen to SONG FOR THE DUMPED (JAPANESE BONUS TRACK) by Ben Folds Five.

The world of purchasing music in Japan was a bit backwards. Surprisingly, the cheapest option was to buy the imported CD which cost $20-$25. To get people to buy the Japanese release which ran about $30, the record company would add the fabled "Japanese Bonus Track". Unfortunately most of the good additional tracks were already available on the UK imported version, leaving the band having to come up with something new for the Japanese release. The result was typically a poorly recorded demo version.

Love them or hate them, you've got to give Ben Folds Five credit for recording what to my knowledge is the only Japanese Bonus Track actually recorded in Japanese. You'll notice that the curse words are still in English -- sadly, there is an insufficient amount of swear words in Japanese!

Well, that does it for my week of Japanese music. My exposure to the Far East music scene ended five years ago -- maybe Amy can shed some light on some current J-Music!

Photo: Japanese Wires (5).

TANDEMU (VERSION 1)

Listen to TANDEMU (VERSION 1) by Halcali.

Japan is the land of the one hit wonder. Other than a handful of supergroups, there is a revolving door of groups producing the flavor of the week. My town had only one radio station which strangely played mostly Reggae. Believe it or not, my source of exposure to new music came mainly from the music playing over the speakers in convenience stores. If I heard a song I liked, I'd have to find someone that knew which one hit wonder it was or I was out of luck. In the days before Midomi and Shazam, I was forced to attempt singing the song to one of my students, often to no avail. What was a guy to do? The answer: randomly rent CDs until you find the songs you want!

That's right, my local media rental store had a section for VHS tapes, a section for DVDs, and a section for CDs. New CDs were $4 for a week and old CDs were $2. It was a fantastic way to sample new music. I came to know "Tandemu" (which means motorcycle passenger... as in, tandem) in just such a fashion: 1. hearing it in a convenience store, 2. making a fool of myself in front of my students, 3. finding it as a rental.

I still don't know why there aren't CD rental stores in the states. If only the library had a bigger selection...

Photo: Japanese Wires (4).

STROBOLIGHTS

Listen to STROBOLIGHTS by Supercar.

Supercar (スーパーカ) has the distinction of making the soundtrack to my favorite Japanese movie: Ping-Pong. The film is very similar to Shaolin Soccer, revolving around a normal sport with fantastical elements popping up here and there. Supercar's light-hearted electronica fit perfectly with the quirky underdog tone of the movie.

Photo: Japanese Wires (3).

THESE DAYS

Listen to THESE DAYS by Love Psychedelico.

The Japanese baby boomer generation possesses a universal love of The Beatles that borders on obsession. As a Westerner, any conversation I had about music inevitably involved the Fab Four and/or Yoko Ono. Many of the Japanese teachers of English that I knew said they first got interested in learning English to understand the lyrics of The Beatles.

It is, therefore, not surprising to find a lot of Japanese bands influenced by The Beatles and marketed directly for their fanatics; Love Psychedelico is one of those bands. "These Days" is the most folk/country influenced song off their eclectic first album (ingeniously named "The Greatest Hits"). The seamless joining of Japanese and English lyrics are sung in a way that conveys the meaning even if you don't know half of what she's saying.

Photo: Japanese Wires (2).

FUNKASTIC and IN THE PLACE WHERE THE LILY BLOOMS

Listen to FUNKASTIC by Rip Slyme.
Listen to IN THE PLACE WHERE THE LILY BLOOMS by Dragon Ash.

My year of living in Japan taught me the basic tenet of Japanese music: it's heavy on corporate influence and light on originality. J-Pop was mostly a washed out assortment of Disney theme songs or second rate Mariah Carey ballads. J-Rock was still trying to be punk. Even Enka, Japan's traditional folk songs, seemed to be made for karaoke. Everything sounded five years behind the times. J-Hip Hop was the only real standout. (Yes, you just add a J in front of it and it becomes a Japanese genre!)

Aided by Japan's loose copyright laws, Rip Slyme and Dragon Ash sampled from a wide range of oft-unheard Western sources and brought Hip Hop out from underground status in Japanese culture. Both groups rap mostly in Japanese with a smattering of English, though you get a feeling that they don't understand much English that they are using.

Like many Japanese bands, Dragon Ash took the nonsensical English word route when naming themselves. Rip Slyme, however, is a play on the Japanese use of the same syllabary (リ) for both L and R sounds, making a tongue in cheek (as it were) reference to the phrase "Lips Rhyme".

Photo: Japanese Wires (1).