11 Comments
User's avatar
G Jetson's avatar

"the toothless, moonshine-drinking, barely literate Japanese live, like my in-laws"

Damn, tell us how it really is!

Your article here provides an overwhelming amount of detail and insight into a world that is mostly obscure to me, and I like it. I had no idea we'd be receiving another installment so soon, and I dig it. You have opened a lot of avenues for exploration, and I intend to see where some of them go.

MD Streeter's avatar

I spent an hour trying to find the article here at ACF where someone in the comments section totally dumped on Gunma (because of Subaru, I think). My in-laws still have their teeth and can all read AND write. In fact, my father-in-law has had his poetry featured on NHK.

Sobro's avatar

I clicked the link to Ado's “Yukue Shirezu” (“Missing”) expecting shiny happy pop, not screaming, growling, and shrieking from both the singer and the band. Not a style I could get used to, but interesting nonetheless.

Thanks for the link and the write-up.

MD Streeter's avatar

Some of Ado's other work gets... difficult to listen to. She recently did a performance of her breakout "Usseewa" on a Japanese youtube music program called "The First Take" where singers perform their song live without any post production alterations. She went way too hard on it and I couldn't finish it.

Gianni's avatar

Looking forward to your post on Eleki.

Speed's avatar

ado has incredible pipes especially for someone that age but even in general

how does hatsune miku work into this? also a vocaloid no?

MD Streeter's avatar

Yes, the vocaloid thing is all computer-generated voices, so Hatsune Miku doesn't actually exist except as 1s and 0s. There are real people writing the music, though. I don't actually know much about them outside of the songs I listen to that Ado and Yoshino sing.

Bonus fun fact: "Singer" in Japanese is the kanji for "song/sing" and the kanji for "hand." For pros, it is pronounced "kashu." For amateurs who are attempting to sing (utatte miru) it is "utaite." I guess I could have worked that into the article somewhere but I was approaching email limit, so not everything gets said.

-Nate's avatar

That's weird music .

-Nate

Wyatt LCB's avatar

Quite interesting stories and songs, MD, thanks for sharing even more with us! That being said, I still think I prefer the retro city-pop style from Anri, Miki Matsubara, Tomoko Aran, Minako Yoshida, and the like.

MD Streeter's avatar

I have an article written up about them. Matsubara Miki's story is very sad, actually.

Wyatt LCB's avatar

I'll be looking forward to it!

I've read a short summary about Matsubara before, very sad indeed.