In late September and early October I did something I didn’t think I would ever do again in my life.
I spent three weeks in Japan.
Having lived in Japan for two years, 15 years ago, and working in the travel industry, I honestly never thought I would take an extended trip there again. Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE Japan – but just, having lived there and having so many other countries on my list, it just didn’t seem like it would ever be a top travel priority again.
Well, call it serendipity, luck or a combination of the two, I found myself with an option to do the country again that I could not turn down.
The trip was incredible – Tokyo, Takayama, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Koyasan, Nara, Kobe and my adopted hometown of Osaka. It was a combination of everything you want from Japan.
Weird robots:
(Not my video but this was posted just two months before we were there and the show was the same.)
Temples and cultural centres:
History:
And some of the most peaceful, tranquil places you would ever want to be:
It was a fantastic trip filled with new places, new experiences and an overwhelming sense of nostalgia I haven’t felt in a very long time.
But this is a music blog, not a travel blog, so let’s move past the pictures and trip review and get to the heart of the matter – Japanese music from the early 2000’s.
In documenting the soundtrack to my life, my years spent in Japan deserve more than just this one post and so I will just touch on a few key songs that still make their way onto random playlists to this day.
First of all, we were lucky enough to have made quick friends upon arrival with a group of musicians who ran their own recording studio and who had their own band, Death Pizza. Death Pizza then became World Defense Lovers and they existed on the cool outer edge of Osaka’s alternative music scene. Heavily inspired by, and not sounding entirely unlike, The Cranberries, World Defense Lovers could rock hard and then almost make you cry at how beautifully they blended celtic sounds with modern rock.
I have the signed CD here in my house, but online there is not much to find save their official website, circa 2004. Download and listen to February for a taste of what this band offered.
http://wdl.fc2web.com/framepage2.htm
In more mainstream fare, Hip-Hop was only just in its infancy in Japan and yet it was everywhere. Blending Western sounds, classic alternative rock samples and mixing Japanese and English fluidly, Dragon Ash was at the top of this scene.
In one of their most popular tunes, Grateful Days, the band sampled and looped the guitar opening from Today by Smashing Pumpkins to awesome effect. This was just one of many Pumpkins’ links the band had in their repertoire and to hear those licks blended with Japanese rap is not as sacrilegious as you might at first think. Give it a listen.
By far their biggest, inescapable hit at the time was Life Goes On. This song played on TV commercials, in shopping centres… this is the title track to my Japanese soundtrack of the time. I called them the Japanese Sugar Ray as the parallels between Life Goes On and Fly are numerous.
It’s amazing that after all these years singing along as best as I can, today is the first time I’ve ever watched this video with the lyrics embedded.
I have been singing so many words wrong all these years. Still though, a fantastic song that brings me right back to 2002.
Rip Slyme was another big player in the burgeoning Japanese hip-hop culture at the time and what I liked best about them was their use of horns and funk. Less English than Dragon Ash but some awesome instrumentals. Have a listen to Funkastic for the best example of this.
Rakuen Baby was another inescapable song of theirs.
There are so many other bands and songs to look at, but I’ll leave you with just one more.
First of all, the band’s name is just awesome in its ability to be just close enough to an English saying to evoke some meaning but still retain some Japanese oddness.
Kick The Can Crew have a song called Sayonara Sayonara that has had the most staying power on my playlists over the last 15 years. Put simply, the switch from the minor key in the verses to the major key in the chorus makes me just about as happy as any song can make me.
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Japan gave me so much creatively while I was there… it was in Japan that I first started blogging, where I wrote my first novel and where I branched out musically and went to some of the craziest shows and concerts of my life.
And now I say it again, it’s unlikely I’ll ever spend an extended time in the country again in my life. There’s a lot of world to see.
Or, in 15 years, the things I love most about the country might just pull me back again.
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Further Reading – An Intro to Japanese Hip Hop
These songs above were based on my time and my experience in Japan and the one thing I am loving about this blog is that as I write from my own history, memory and experience I find that I start asking the Internet questions to get a broader picture on the topics I touch on.
This article gives a ton of new perspective to me as well as a number of artists and songs I haven’t even heard of.
This isn’t just further reading for you; I’m going to just leave this link here as a reminder to myself that there is a heck of a lot more good stuff to uncover.
