I get the same weird vibe when I see the video. I've read that she's hot of the Harajuku-girl meme, but what you see in the video really comes off looking sort of tacky. But that's us, living here, knowing more than the average American fan.

hmmm. i guess the obvious thing is cost (but if you're miss stefani/mrs rossdale whatever i'm sure they have plenty of money to throw at you). yeah, seriously, standing in the middle of harajuku would make a great photo shoot. why not?

i don't know the appropriate theorists, but cultural things get re-interpreted into something that more fits what the audience wants to see. kinda like chop suey, if you get my drift.

can i also add that authenticity is not the issue here, hence asian models are sufficient to become allies of gwen stefani.

hard to say more without having seen the photo shoots. what magazine were they in?

It goes like this, see. Me and Keigo and the gang invented Shibuya-kei in the early 90s. Marxy and some other cool Americans heard about it five years later, round about when Raygun covered it (1998). Less cool (but more numerous) Americans are now catching up. (News travels very slowly in America since they decided to close their ports.)

Marxy continues to refuse to deconstruct his homeland, but by tagging along a decade later on the shirt-tails of Shibuya-kei, American pop deconstructs itself. What more confirmation do you need that Japan runs about ten years ahead of the West? Set your watch accordingly.

"But the song is a saddening bore, cos I wrote it ten times or more," sang David Bowie. I wrote this paricular Gwen Stefani song in 1999. In Japanese:

http://sg1.allmusic.com/cg/smp.dll?link=p5l3i9pepajnnhcvrawzwyv&r=20.asx

wasn:t it YOU who were tagging along, nick?

>but by tagging along a decade later on the shirt-tails of Shibuya-kei,

>Me and Keigo and the gang invented Shibuya-kei in the early 90s.

Me and Keigo and the gang invented Shibuya-kei in the early 90s.

Wasn't Shibuya-kei already a thing before you got to Japan? I had no idea that you and SDP were a creative team.

I do understand your digust with me "riding the coattails" of Shibuya-kei, but this is like the Romans being upset with Gibbon. I wasn't a part of it, and although I've been greatly inspired by it, my job now is only one of adding historical perspective. I personally have been trying to get distance from SK with my own music, and the bands I like have taken the SK ideas one step farther into a new direction. I can't listen to any of the P5-clones nor P5 anymore.

Momus, you wrote a song in Japanese? Is that the appropriate word?

If you really think me deconstructing American pop will someone save the world, I will try my hand at it, but as I always say, every other single blog on the Internet is doing that. Call it free market blogging, but everytime I write something about anything other than Japan, no one responds.

And I know you're all mad at me because I didn't want to just passively take your bullying, but wouldn't you also have blasted an article about how current Japanese Harajuku girls are inauthentic? I can't win.

Oh, oh, this seems to be turning into the deconstruction of Momus. Am I
witnessing a collision of British irony and American earnestness?

Marxy and some other cool Americans heard about it five years later, round about when Raygun covered it (1998).

Minor point but the date is way off. My first concious exposure to Shibuya-kei was Chris Douridas of KCRW (Santa Monica public radio) interiew of Konishi san on his show, Morning becomes Eclectic. That was '95 or '96. I think they had just released Live in the USA. Around the same time there was a special issue of Raygun devoted to Japanese bands like Melt Banana, Buffalo Daughter etc...

And for the record my first exposure to Momus was in 1998 when an intern from France dubbed me a CD of KK. The combination of twisted lyrics and sophisticated lolitapop was a puzzle to me until I stumbled on the Momus web site sometime in late 2000 or early 2001. I think it was a google search for KK.

>Momus, you wrote a song in Japanese? Is that the appropriate word?

i:ve been saving this one for quite a while, and it looks like the perfect time to use it, so...

i bet that nick couldn:t even write the word 'shibuya-kei'(a style he seems to have "co-created") in japanese even if his life depended on it.

and of course now i:m sure he:s frantically googling around right now trying to find that darn kanji...

あいつは算盤も出来ないだろー。

i bet that nick couldn:t even write the word 'shibuya-kei'(a style he seems to have "co-created") in japanese even if his life depended on it.

cheap shot, r., wouldn't you say? you've been saving it up? exactly what is your problem with Momus?

It's obvious that he made a significant and memorable contribution to Shibuya-kei. That is certainly beyond dispute.

this kind of thing used to be common on usenet. it was called a flame-fest.

I'd rather not have this site be anti-Momus, nor anti-Marxy if possible.

In the end, we are all inhabited by the fierce hubris of the West, all trying to outdo each other and be the "one who understands Japan the best." We will all come up with rhetorical justifications for our lack of language skill, lack of experience, lack of literacy, lack of historical knowledge, etc, but we'll always battle the other foreigners with claims on Japan, whether defending or attacking the culture. Japan is "dumb" - not stupid, but silent - and we all use this hermeneutical vacancy as a way to endow meaning to our own existences.

The ultimate goal, however, is not oneupsmanship but understanding: what is Japan and why does it matter? As being one of the younger members of the clan, I obviously will naturally move towards denigrating experience and early arrival, but is the point of all this "who got there first" or "what does it mean"?

>cheap shot, r., wouldn't you say? you've been >saving it up? exactly what is your problem with >Momus?

this isn:t a cheap shot...
why? because of this for one thing

http://glitchslaptko.blogspot.com/2005/02/take-walk-on-wild-side.html

but even if it was, who says there is anything wrong with not taking a 'harder shot'?

nick sets HIMSELF up for this kind of crit with his essays on why i don:t speak japanese...

and anyway i:m sure he secretly gets a kick out of it. probably keeps him on his toes.

>It's obvious that he made a significant and >memorable contribution to Shibuya-kei. That is >certainly beyond dispute.

'significant contribution' and creating shibuya-kei (as he claims to in the comment above) are a little different, no?

>exactly what is your problem with >Momus?

actually, i really have a lot of love for nick. i:m happy he was born. glad to have the chance to study his writings. the music hasn:t been too much of an influence, but that doesn:t bother me that much.

http://glitchslaptko.blogspot.com/2005/02/take-walk-on-wild-side.html

i think i can just about understand that gobbledygook, which is a frightening thing.

time to get a life. or some sun, at least.

later dudes,

>I'd rather not have this site be anti-Momus, nor anti-Marxy if possible.

i concur! up with people!

>We will all come up with rhetorical >justifications for our lack of language skill, >lack of experience, lack of literacy, lack of >historical knowledge, etc,

who is this "we"? aren:t you being a little too judicial, david? i don:t see you for one busying yourself by coming up with rhetorical justifications for anything. i see you busy getting down the the nitty gritty of learning all you can about this place by any means available. you are trying as much to make japan A PART OF YOU as you are trying to make yourself A PART OF JAPAN. that is a pretty good model in my book.

>The ultimate goal, however, is not >oneupsmanship but understanding:

but that isn:t saying a little understanding may be found thru oneupmanship, right?

your thoughts?
r.

Marxy credit where due: actually, I was impressed at the tone of this entry. It questioned GS for using inauthentic models, rather than questioning her for coming late to the feast, or denouncing the tackiness of Harajuku 2005. At worst, we could accuse Marxy of "Japan Rockism" for this emphasis on authenticity. Because getting the details right is not very pop. Pop is not really about accuracy or authenticity. It's about candy bubble synthesis, myth, belief, glamour.

Also, credit to Sparklig for "Am I witnessing a collision of British irony and American earnestness?" Any comment I start with "It goes like this, see..." and in which I claim to have invented this or that, is probably playful and ironic. That's because I'm popist and not rockist.

And sure, the song in Japanese is a collaboration between a British person, me, and a Japanese person (Riho Aihara, as a matter of fact, with inspiration supplied by Akiko Masuda, the song's subject). It is, like all our impressions (and like the Shibuya-kei movement itself) a candy bubble synthesis of cultures.

nice save

btw, while i was enjoying the cold but sunny afternoon as well as a couple of exhibitions at the Koto Art Museum, I was feeling a bit worried that r. might take my remark about 'gobledygook' the wrong way. If so, please note that the last time I used that term in this blog was to describe McLuhan's hot/cold nomeclature. So at least you are in good company. And you are probably well aware that many people make a good living spinning cryptic prose. They're usually found in places like film studies programs and the like, where it's unlikely they will do any serious harm.

cheers,

Just to clarify, that Raygun issue on Japan (which accompanying CD) was from late 1996. A lot of the songs on there weren't exactly Shibuya-kei, though. I seem to think a CD with larger impact was the Sushi 3003 comp.

...along similar lines, I ran into an interview of the pop artist Ludacris while browsing through random fashion and art magazines at tower. (I am too ashamed to actually subscribe to fashion/photo/art mags) All the pictures in the article are of him "hanging" in tokyo with the locals, while NOWHERE in the article was there a mention of why he was there.

The asian girls were all dressed as cheerleaders on a recent Letterman gig. She apparently hired an authentic marching band too.