By Claire Zhang,
Judging from the names of recent popular Japanese indie bands you might want to ask, “Why so much surf-pop?”. We all know that Japan is an island country but you don’t see so many bands with “waves” or “beach” in their names in, say, England. I’m not sure if it is a coincidence, but current trends in the Japanese indie scene have seen artists increasingly seeking inspiration from the ocean. Yogee New Waves, with their latest release, “Waves”, seem to mark the pinnacle of the heavy use of these concepts.
Rather than “surf pop”, I would instead include Yogee New Waves in the AOR (Adult Oriented Rock) genre, which is similar to the early Japanese city pop of the 80s. The same applies to recent Japanese indie bands such as Never Young Beach, Mitsume, Lamp and Ykiki Beat (now disbanded). They all use surf culture as their surface image but incorporate city pop influences which manifest themselves in the form of ballads, psychedelics or even reggae as their real core. As one of the leading vanguards of the city pop revival, Yogee New Waves might well be the least creative but one could make the case that they are the easiest to accept as they sing about what the young people are familiar with, while adding a grain of something dangerous, just enough for the masses to feel special but not alienated.
One thing about the latest album is that the band have put all the best-selling songs at the very beginning. This is a phenomenon widely seen among record companies these days due to their decreasing confidence in music listeners to make it to the end of the whole recording. Understandable then from a marketing standpoint, but as one who is particular about album song orders, this is just boring. The first three songs, “Ride On Wave”, “Fantasic Show” and “World Is Mine” are typical tunes that you would hear a lot in record stores; lighthearted, funky and modern, which might be one of the reasons for the album to make the Oricon Chart Top 10. The band may have borrowed a few riffs from fellow artists quite unnoticeably and made them sound like their own thus they blending seamlessly into the whole song. I mean, as long as you are not boldly copying the whole paragraph it’s acceptable to me. After all, there aren’t that many different guitar chords available.
I am not accusing them of being basic. I like the way that they name the interlude as “Intro”, or it actually is the intro but just placed in the middle of the album. These small tricks always hook me up. The following tune, “C.A.M.P” carries on the soothing pace until suddenly assuming a more jolly rhythm. The refrain reminds me of “Globe”, whereas the tune fades out with a trace of “Spiritualized”. The album ends with "Boys & Girls I (Love Telephone Remix)" with lead singer Kengo Kakudate softly humming you to sleep.
From the album “Waves”, it’s easy to tell that the band have quickly grown out of the social isolation and loneliness they displayed in “Paraiso”. “Waves”, being a happy and more mature album, ironically proves to us again that unlike what they claimed, the emptiness of the younger generations can be cured simply by a new JS surfboard or a pair of limited-edition canvas shoes. Well so what? Isn’t this what being young is about? As long as we’ve got 20 bucks for tonight’s gig and beer, who cares about the 6-dollar-an-hour, 8-12 convenience store shift?
Tracklist:
- Ride on Wave
- Fantasic Show (album ver.)
- World is Mine
- Dive Into the Honeytime
- Understand
- Intro (horo)
- C.A.M.P.
- Like Sixteen Candles
- HOW DO YOU FEEL?
- SAYONARAMATA
- Boys & GirlsⅠ(Lovely Telephone Remix)
