Tycoon To$h Children Of The Radiation
Tycoon To$h was a Japanese musician who started out as a member of the early new wave group The Plastics, but later worked as a rapper later in his career. One of his very first songs was “China Syndrome,” a track protesting Japan’s reliance on nuclear energy, rather prophetically calling the idea of building nuclear power plants in a country prone to earthquakes as something so stupid “even a child can understand.”
To$h sadly passed away from cancer in 2017, but before he left us, he cut one more track. And just like “China Syndrome” it was an incendiary attack on Japan’s nuclear power program. As the title suggests, it’s an interpretation of T. Rex’s classic “Children of the Revolution,” with new lyrics lambasting nuclear energy.
I’m no going to get into the pros and cons on nuclear energy here. I got conflicting feelings about it. But I’m sure as hell not going to debate with a Japanese anti-nuclear activist about it – I feel like their views on radiation are a bit more valid and worthy of attention than mine.
I will comment on this song though, it’s fucking rad. It’s basically “Children of the Revolution” re-recorded with really angry lyrics. Get down with that.
T. Rex Megarex 2
And it got my in the mood to listen to more T. Rex. You know who was dope? T. Rex.
I bought a strange T. Rex remix album in 2017 called, predictably T. Remixes. It got a lot of shit from hardcore T. Rex fans, who saw it as a shameless cash-in. Yeah, they were probably right about that, but it was a pretty good shameless cash-in. Most modern remixes of classic tracks suck, because they try too damn hard to rework the tunes into EDM club bangers. But that album features remixes in the more classic sense of the term, reworkings that are focused more on creative interpretation of the source material than making a track that’ll light up a dance floor.
Anyways, it wasn’t even the first time that T. Rex got the remix treatment. In the mid-80s, two “Megarex” megamixes were issued on vinyl and CD. Why? I have no idea. Maybe it was an anniversary of some T. Rex event. Maybe it was a shameless cash-in. Maybe it was both. Regardless, just like T. Remixes, it’s not bad, especially as megamixes go. The Japanese version of the second mix, which is the one I have, also had a really rad cover. Check out that cover. See, it’s rad.
Sorry for the rather random and poorly researched post tonight. It’s just been a while since my last post and I wanted to get something out. I actually have something a bit more ambitious planned later this week. Of course, like my massive Steve Hillage post, it features an artist that literally almost no one cares about. Hopefully that literally almost no one and the literally almost no one who reads my blog have an overlap! In the meantime, merry Christmas to those who celebrate it, and happy Monday to everyone else.
Steve Hillage is a guitarist whose work has spanned over 50 years, but I hadn’t heard of him until this year – when I stumbled upon his work in one of the most backwards ways possible.
Earlier in the year I was in a record store in Kichijoji when I happened upon this. The album is by Daevid Allen, and it’s called Divided Alien Playbax 80. I knew nothing about it when I saw it, but I was immediately attracted to the cover. It had a crazy vaporwave vibe to it, despite the fact that it came out in 1982. I gave it a quick listen, decided that it was properly weird, and at 400 yen (about four bucks) I decided to pick it up.
Unfamiliar with Allen when I bought the album, I learned that it’s a remix album of a prior release by Allen’s previous group, New York Gong. That group would breakup after it’s sole 1980 album, but the group (sans Allen) would continue as the influential no-wave dance outfit Material. Turns out I accidentally bought an album with Bill Laswell on it (that happens a lot). New York Gong, as its name would suggest, was a New York offshoot of Allen’s original group, Gong.
From there, I decided to give Gong a shot and ,long story short, several months and I don’t know how many albums later, I have become obsessed with the group. They’re utterly mad, an the most obvious example of “music made on drugs to take drugs to” that has ever been committed to wax. Not too soon after discovering the wonderful world of the flying teapot (look it up) I started to seek out solo albums by members of the group, starting with Allen and then moving onto Hillage.
Allen’s solo work is…something else. Sometimes great, but often a bit too insane for my tastes. But Hillage turned out to be right up my alley. Much of his stuff is spacey drugged out insanity for hippies, no doubt about it, but he shows a bit more restraint than his fellow Gongers. His songs sound like actual songs, and not dug-induced hallucinations set to something that kind of resembles music. I’ve bought nearly his entire solo discography now, and can recommend all of it without reservation, he has something for everyone. If you like spaced-out Hawkwind-style guitar work, then you can’t go wrong with his amazing debut Fish Rising, or it’s excellent follow-up L. But I really think Hillage came into his own with his 1978 record, Motivation Radio, where he expands his sound to include even more electronic effects and influences. He continued on with that sound for his next release, Green, which I’ve learned most people cite as pinnacle of the man’s 70s work. However, I actually prefer his 1979 follow-up Open, it’s eclectic as hell, and I feel it’s a perfect amalgamation of guitar-driven prog rock and the synth-pop sound that would define the following decade.
As a solo artist though, Hillage would only release one more proper studio album, 1982’s For To Next. I don’t know how his fans responded to it at the time, but I can’t imagine that many of them liked it. While his previous work always straddled the line between pop and the avant-garde, between progressive rock and synth-pop, this album didn’t just jump over into the pop spectrum, it pole vaulted. Hillage’s amazing spacey guitar sound is still there, but as part as synthesizer-heavy pop numbers, many of which could be mistaken for Gary Numan tracks. It goes to show that Genesis and Yes weren’t the only prog acts looking to synthpop to reinvent themselves in the 80s, that’s for sure.
As much as I like For To Next, I do think that’s its probably Hillage’s weakest effort next to his purely ambient 1979 Rainbow Dome Musick, which is too mellow even more my Tangerine Dream-loving ass. It’s simultaneously not synth-pop enough and not prog enough. I feel like he had to move more in one direction. Either embrace his proggy side, or dive head first into pop ala Inivisible Touch.
After working mostly as a producer in the 80s, he’s since committed himself solely to electronic music. Today, he releases music as System 7, alongside his partner Monique Giraudy. They have a prog rock side to them, but they’re much more ambient than anything else. Think The Orb. I sadly don’t have much by them yet, but I’m still listening to his solo stuff so much I’m in no hurry.
Anyways, I’ve blathered on for nearly 800 words without even mentioning the songs I’m sharing tonight! These four numbers come from 12″ singles taken from the For To Next album. The original versions of “Alone” and “Kamikaze Eyes” are on the album proper, while the other tracks are B-sides. “Alone” has a good riff, but it’s the weaker of the two. “Kamikaze Eyes” is a banger of a track, I hope it was the lead single for the album, it’s by far the best number on it. Catchy as hell, good beat, good guitar solo, good lyrics. Great all around. Definitely should’ve been at least a minor hit.
Both “Timelines” and “Before The World Was Made” are instrumentals, and good ones at that. Again, while For To Next isn’t the best album, I really wish Hillage would’ve experimented more with this style, he could’ve had something.
Anyways, if you’ve read all of this (congrats) and you want to know a good starting off point for Hillage’s solo stuff, I say you can’t go wrong with L, Green, Open or Motivation Radio (Fish Rising is good too, but a little rougher around the edges). Also, his Live Herald and Dusseldorf live albums are good starting points too, as they both feature a lot of his best work. He was also a member of the group Khan, and their sole offering, 1972’s Space Shanty, is some good prog-ass prog if that’s your scene.
And if you’re thinking about getting into Gong, well, that’s a bit trickier. I’d say either start with You or Flying Teapot. If either of those albums don’t drive you insane, then you’ll probably dig the other stuff by Gong proper. Be warned there are two Gongs. When the band broke up, it was reborn as Pierre Moerlen’s Gong and they are way more jazz fusion than prog. Seriously. You’ve been warned.
I really, really (really really really really….really) cannot express in words just how great that album is. When I reviewed that album in 2010 I thought “this will probably be the best album of the decade.” Now, here we are, nearly nine years later, and I’m still standing by that. And here we are, nearly nine years later, and I still can’t find the words to properly describe it. I think the best I came up with at the time was something like “one part screamo, one part Queen, and one part a kick in the genitals.” I guess that’s still the best I can do. But if you don’t like screamo (I sure as hell don’t) still give them a chance. By the time of their third album, that element of the group had definitely been put on the backburner. It was still there, that’s for sure, but the glam and classic rock influences had more than taken over.
Of course, as their self-titled album is in-print (and I’m actively encouraging you to buy it) I can’t share tracks from that. Instead, above are a few of my favorite Foxy rarities, taken from various sources. The first two numbers, “Born To The Devil” and “Sky In A Room” a bonus tracks to the Japanese edition of their second album, the oddly-titled Introducing. “Born To The Devil” sounds a lot like the other tracks on that (awesome) album, a bizarre combination of howling and yelling with a strong piano base, whilst “Sky In A Room” is a solo instrumental number by the keyboardist Sky. Low-key and pretty.
Their bewildering cover of “Drain You” is taken from a 2011 online-only Nevermind tribute album, put out by Spin Magazine. That album is not very good. It has Amanda Palmer butchering “Polly” as only she can, and other ill-advised reworkings of Nirvana classics. Midnight Juggernauts are a good band. Their electropop cover of “Come As You Are” is bad. The only solid tracks on it are The Vaselines’ cover of “Lithium,” EMA’s take on “Endless, Nameless” and this insane reworking of “Drain You” by Foxy, which all but deconstructs the song entirely into something else. If you’re coming to this hoping for a faithful rendition of the Nirvana song, you’ll be let down. But if you’ve ever wondered what Nevemind-era Nirvana would sound like as if sung by Freddie Mercury and with a horn section, then hey, this cover’s got you covered.
The final two tracks are, at least from what I can gather, vinyl only B-sides. “I’ll Be Home…” serving as the B-side to “I Like It,” and “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” the B-side to “Oh Lord.”
“I’ll Be Home Soon Mother Earth” finds Foxy in full classic rock mode. If you told me this was a track by some long-forgotten 70s has-been act that was oddly proto-screamo I’d believe you. It’s a good number, but it pales in comparison to “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” which I still think is secretly Foxy’s best damn song. How the hell this ended up as a vinyl-only B-side will forever remain a mystery to me. Not only should this have been on the album proper, it should’ve have been the lead fucking single. This track is a distillation of everything that made Foxy the powerhouse they were. Amazing vocals as always by Eric, fantastic work on the keys by Sky, a boundless energy that demands you get up on your feet, and absolutely incredible lyrics of self-reflection that rival Aerosmith’s “Dream On.” Fuck. This song kills me. If Foxy reformed tomorrow and released this track as the lead-off single, I bet it would chart better than any of their other tunes.
So, if you like anything I’m sharing here tonight, I implore you, with all my heat, buy Foxy Shazam. Buy it on vinyl if you can, but hell, pick it up on iTunes or even on CD if you want. It’s best album by the best band of all-time. And keep on the lookout for Eric Sean Nally’s solo album! He keeps alleging it’ll come soon. I hope it does. Dude made Macklemore sound cool, he can do anything.
Magic Marmalade America (America Tribute Mix) America (Hot Chill Mix)
This song consists of basically four elements:
1. A vocal sample from “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life”
2. A chorus shouting “go go up the road again”
3. A dude in a heavy German accent scowling “AMERICA!”
4. What sounds like someone having s seizure on synthesizer
And repeat.
So what I’m saying is, it’s pretty good. Strange how a dude yelling “America!” following by a vaguely menacing melody works as a shorthand to describe how I feel about the state of the union in 2018. Funny or sad. Whatever.
I guess I should talk about Magic Marmalade (sigh…that name) but I really don’t know who they are. Discogs’ profile for the group is literally nothing more than “Italian project.” That’s it. Dudes don’t even get a “An.” The four Italians in the group are unknown to me, but I’m sure if I put forth the effort I could Kevin Bacon at least one of them to a Goblin offshoot in less than five steps. From what I can gather, they never put out an actual record, just a series of singles followed by a compilation. If there are any Magic Marmalade (god…that fucking name) superfans out there and you wanna share a deep cut, let me know in the comments. And if anyone from Magic Marmalade (….) is reading this, let me know what the fuck is up with your name. Cuz damn.
John Carpenter The End (J. Anthony Scratch Mix)
Okay, I’m going to use this opportunity to rant about something only tangentally related to this song. I apologize. Okay, not really, it’s my blog after all and no one is forcing you to read it.
The new Halloween movie came out a few weeks ago, any of y’all see it? Was it good? I heard it was good. I, being a die-hard Halloween fan who even owns the one with Busta Rhymes, really wanted to see it. Only one problem, it never came out in theaters here in Japan. Why? No fucking clue. No one knows. My boyfriend even did a bit of digging in Japanese and couldn’t find anything aside from angry Japanese fans wondering the same thing.
Now, you may be thinking “hey, that’s just how international release dates are.” And you’d be right, if it was 1978. It’s 2018. Shit’s changed. Halloween was nearly simultaneously released in about 40 countries. Forty! You know who got to see Halloween the week of Halloween? The Ukrraine! Sri Lanka! Poland! Kuwait! Turkey! Kazakhstan! What the fuck? You’re telling me that the studio had time to negotiate a release and subtitle the movie in…whatever they speak there (sorry) but not do the same in Japan?
Japan isn’t getting the movie until April. What the fuck they gonna do, rename it Easter and play up the whole resurrection angle?
One thing that I’ve really started to notice ever since I moved overseas is that media companies are woefully behind when it comes to adapting their product and sales strategies for an increasingly shrinking/international audience. They create these artificial restrictions and releases for reasons that no doubt make sense to them, probably financial ones. But they fail to realize that the people who really want to see the movie/TV show/whatever that’s being locked away for whatever-the-fuck reason sure as hell are going to find a way to watch it. Legal or not. And all that means is less money for them.
When MST3K announced a new season, I was hella stoked. I didn’t back the Kickstarter, but I figured I’d be able to watch it easily when it came out, especially when Netflix announced that they picked the show up. To this day, the show has never shown up on Netflix here in Japan. And sure, I get that it would probably be hard to translate to a Japanese audience, but they could’ve just put it up as is, with a disclaimer. It’s not like doing that is going to piss anyone off. I wanted to watch it, so I just fucking stole it. Fuck them. I pay for their fucking service. Why the hell should I feel bad when they withhold their own product from me without giving me any option to view it legally. I stole that shit guilt free. And if they do the same with season two I’ll probably swipe that too.
America is probably already facing a brain drain, if not, it will soon. As more and more Americans immigrate abroad to escape dire political oppression/climate hell, they’re still going to want to consume their favorite media once they settle down in their new home. And if they can’t pay to get what they want. They’ll just steal it. Why the fuck shouldn’t they?
Anyways, “The End” is the theme to Carpenter’s classic Assault On Prescient 13. It was kind of a club hit back in the day, no doubt due to its electro sound that made it well-suited for breakdancing. I had never heard this particiular version though, which I found off of an oddly-named 12″ single that featured it, and a terrible track called “Waiting For A Train” by an act called Moonbase as the B-side. I’m not sharing that because it’s really bad. Seriously. I know I share a lot of “bad” music but even I have my limits. And considering I watched Cannonball Run and Congo this weekend, that’s really saying something.
If anyone under the age of 25 is reading this, they might think it’s silly of me to even ask that. But there are plenty of amazing songs that tackle such topics. There’s the entirety of Bruce Springsteen’s back catalog, for starters, not to mention songs from artists as diverse as Phil Collins (“Another Day In Paradise”), Nena (“99 Luftballoons”), Ultravox (“All Fall Down”), and even Frankie Goes To Hollywood (“Two Tribes.”)
Of course, it’s not entirely fair of me to say that artists aren’t making socially-conscious music. They are, it’s just that people aren’t listening to it all that much. Billboard made a list of their favorite protest songs of last year, and the overwhelming majority of those tracks were not hits, save for the Pink song and Jay-Z’s amazing “The Story of OJ.” But it’s hard to say if people don’t want these songs, or of the outlets covering music/the radio aren’t trying hard enough to get these songs out there. Chicken and the egg. I still think that if the song is good enough, or if the artist is big enough, the message can get out there. That’s why it’s a shame that artists like Bruno Mars, Imagine Dragons, and Taylor Swift are fucking up and skirting their responsibilities as some of the biggest artists in the world.
Michael Jackson knew he had the world’s ear, and that’s why he wrote songs like “Man In The Mirror” as these two tracks that I’m featuring tonight. When you’re the biggest star on Earth, you can turn a cry for social justice into a Top 10 single if you try hard enough. “Black Or White” was considered cheesy by some even at the time, but I’m never going to mock a message of peace and racial harmony. It’s a simple song, that’s for sure, ignoring the broader social issues that led to racial divides, but hey, it was a different time. This came out after the Rodney King beating (but before the riots), there were a lot of calls for racial harmony at the time. We were still a decade or so away from more people addressing the larger issues that were keeping that from being a reality. Gotta start somewhere.
“Earth Song” is, duh, a song about the environment, a topic that is crazily barely ever talked about in the media, let alone music, these days. That’s insanity. Literal insanity. The environment should be the number one issue on all of our minds at all times. The world is on the brink of an environmental collapse. Like soon, like, within most of our lifetimes. But you really have to dig deep in the media to even find mention of this, and it’s 100% absent in our pop culture. The pop stars of 2018 could actually help raise awareness about this dire issue. But they aren’t even trying. The world as we know it could end relatively soon. You think someone out there would try to right a fucking song about it.
Can a song literally save the world? I don’t know. But it could at least try.
These tracks are new to me. The original versions first appeared on the Batman soundtrack, which I still haven’t bothered to pick up, one of the more embarrassing Prince-sized holes in my record collection. I found this single for just a couple hundred yen so I figured why the fuck not.
As I’ve never heard the original versions, I can’t compare these remixes to them. If what I’ve read is any indication though, the mixes are pretty different from the album versions, especially “The Future” which is transformed into a straight-up house track thanks to the remix work of William Orbit. Geez, remember that five minutes when he was the hot shit producer? He did some great stuff with Madonna, but I don’t think his work has aged particularly well, especially his solo stuff. Although to be honest, I think a lot of it wasn’t all that great the first time around. I had a friend who kept a copy of one of his albums for years, specifically because there was a song on it that she thought was so bad that it was hilarious. That’s some cold shit.
Anyways, yeah, Prince. He was cool. Fuck. I sure miss Prince. I was just getting back into his music when he died. Yo, Plectrumelectrum is a damn good record. I really recommend it, especially if you dig this remix of “The Electric Chair,” it really reminds me of that album’s groovy guitar funk. I hope Donna Grantis, the guitar player on that album, goes on to do some more work soon. She fucking slays man.
As much as I dig Prince, I remember that Batman was one of the first times I wasn’t 100% up with what he was putting down. I didn’t really dig the Batman movies as a kid all that much, I guess. I mean, I liked them. But they were a little too dark for my tastes. God, if 10-year-old 1990 me thought that Tim Burton’s Batman was too dark, he probably would’ve pissed his pants and crawled into a fetal position if he had seen any of the Dark Knight movies. Burton’s Batman movies are absolutely day-glo happy fun times compared to those flicks, which I have kind of grown to despise because of their grimdark bullshit wankery And even my 10-year-old self could tell that Prince schilling for Batman wasn’t exactly cool. “Batdance” is a stupid, stupid fucking song. And the video is just as dumb. Holy hell, speaking of shit that didn’t age well.
Come to think of it, Batman kicked off my cold spell on Prince. While I dug “Gett Off” (not understanding what it was about) I didn’t like most of the other tracks off of Diamonds And Pearls, and when Prince went full symbol on us all I (along with most people) dropped off completely. Coming back to a lot of those albums now, I really do enjoy them. But I think they would’ve bored grunge-era teenage me to death. Best I avoided them at the time.
Whilst I was complaining that the Michael Jackson estate hasn’t given the fans what the want, the Prince estate seems to slowly getting their shit together. Did you know that earlier this year they put TWENTY-THREE out-of-print Prince albums on iTunes and various streaming services? Yeah, sure a lot of them aren’t exactly great (although Emancipation is fucking rad as fuck) but hey, at least they’re out there now. Prince’s estate even curated a special digital only best of that encompasses his 1995-2010 work, which has historically been very hard to dive into thanks to its eclectic nature. My next vacation I’m going to have to buy all of this and just spend a week in Prince World.
Prince World is great, everyone. It’s all purple (duh) and all the clothes are custom-made to fit out that day, just as Prince would’ve wanted. And absolutely nothing is on high shelves.
I’ve bought this on vinyl at least twice, and both sounded like shit in the exact same way, even with nearly identical scratches! I can only imagine there was some kind of problem with the original pressing. I’ve had that happen with other singles in the past. No matter how many times I buy “Right By My Side” by the Eurythmics, for example, I have the same problem.
Anyways, that’s a problem no more thanks to the wonders of digital music. CDs are underrated! Seriously! This vinyl boom is getting ridiculous. Why you wanna buy music on vinyl? What’s the point?
I know that sounds funny coming from me, proprietor of Lost Turntable, but I’ve long said that the main reason I got into vinyl wasn’t out of nostalgia, but because a lot of what I buy just isn’t easily available on CD or digitally. Of course, that was much truer when I started this blog 12 years ago than it is now. Truth be told, I buy a hell of a lot more CDs these days. And the vastness of iTunes digital library has literally saved me hundreds of dollars on formerly out-of-print CDs and LPs. Did you know that Prince’s Crystal Ball is on iTunes now?! Thirty songs for twenty bucks! You know how much that fucker goes for on CD? More than twenty bucks, I’ll tell you what.
But these remixes still aren’t on iTunes. Hell, most MJ remixes remain insanely out-of-print. A decision that is just utterly baffling. It’s not like the demand isn’t there. Why they hell are they sitting on these? Are they waiting for another anniversary so they can re-sell us all Thriller, Bad, and Dangerous again? I mean, I’ll buy them, I don’t mind. Assuming the remixes are included and sound good.
“Smooth Criminal” is the best shit. A while back Todd In The Shadows did a hilarious video profiling Alien Ant Farm and their cover of the track. In that video, he posits that, as dopey as that cover is, it helped cement “Smooth Criminal” in the popular lexicon as one of Michael Jackson’s best. He might be right, it certainly gave it a boost. But to me it’s always been one of his best, if not his absolute best, track. Everything about “Smooth Criminal” is just as on-point now as it was all those years ago. Top-notch production, dope AF bassline, and, of course, some of the best vocals that Michael ever graced the world with.
And of course, there’s the video another of MJ’s best. And definitely an early inspiration for my…*ahem*…interest in men in suits. That video just gives me the vapors I say.
All of these remixes are ass-kickular fan-fucking-tastic. Even the dub, which is really just a pure instrumental, is killer. It lets you hear just how dope that bass is. And the “A Cappella,” whilst not really an a cappella mix (it still has the drum beat), serves as an absolutely stellar showcase of MJ’s amazing voice. You put this shit on at a club and people would dance to it. You don’t even need that bassline (dope as it is).
More MJ soon. And some Prince too. Fuck it. Let us worship our fallen 80’s idols so they may be resurrected and save us from our accursed reality.
Of all Madonna’s early singles, “Burning Up” has the most convoluted release history. The song was originally released in the states as a 12″ single in March of 1983. That version is a 12″ remix, about six minutes long. The album came out a few month later, and featured a 4:48 version that is similar to the 12″ remix. But at some point, there was a switch, and the album version was replaced with a different version that’s 3:45 long and sounds drastically different, with different synthesizer and guitar parts.
But in addition to those versions, there’s also at least one 7″ single version. While America never got a 7″ single for “Burning Up,” other countries did. It’s nearly the same length as the replacement album version, and is actually an edited version of the 12″ single version.
I don’t know how many different 7″ edits/versions there are. According to some, the Japanese single is different than the European one. I have no idea one way or the other, as the Japanese version is the only one I have. I would hazard to say that if there are any differences between the Japanese version and 7″ versions found elsewhere, they’re probably minor.
The story of “Physical Attraction” is a lot more simple. It served as a B-side to the original US 12″ single, but that version was just the album version with no changes. This version is a 7″ version that was exclusive to 7″ singles. Neither of these versions have been made widely available since, save for a massive 40 CD singles collection that came out in Japan a few years back. So finding this single for less than ten bucks was a pretty good score for me.
I almost went an entire calendar year without posting a Madonna remix! Thank god we were able to avoid that.
My neck is killing me and my brain is broken but if I don’t write about stupid Japanese synthpop that literally no one on earth cares about, WHO WILL?
Shohjo-Tai Forever 2001 Flamingo Island Space Magic
I’ve been working here in Japan for nearly five years now, time flies. But in that time, I’ve rarely had any of my students recommend any music worth a damn to me. Very early on, someone suggested Capsule, and I got way into them. But most of the time, in the rare cases that students do want to talk about Japanese music, they only bother recommending acts like Mr. Children or Yellow Monkey, who are both fine bands I guess, but just sound like bland rock to me: Japanese Coldplays.
But I was teaching an adorable housewife a few weeks ago who knew that I dig older music, and she was all excited to recommend to me this band. She explained to me that her friends who like “techno-pop” all like this group, even though they never registered any major hits. She assumed I would like them too. And she was very much correct.
Shohjo-Tai somehow released eight albums/EPs in just five years. The general consensus seems to be that their best release is From S, a mini-album that features an assist from Haruomi Hosono and Koshi Miharu. Of course, that one’s a bit harder to find so I haven’t picked it up yet. I did find some good stuff though, especially the tracks from this single, which originally came out in 1985. Both “Forever 2001” and “Flamingo Island” are hella fun, bouncy tracks that probably weren’t hits only for the fact that the Japanese singles market was absolutely flooded with tracks like them at the time. The instrumentation is fantastic on both of those tracks, synthesizer saturation all the way, but with some depth as well. “Forever 2001” features some pretty solid guitar, and “Flamingo Island” is booming with dope bass.
This single was produced by Akihiro Shigematsu, a person whose name I had not heard before. According to Discogs, he didn’t do much, but that might just be because his page lacks his full production discography. Hell, he’s not even credited on Discogs with this release. One fairly notable artist he did work with was Junko Ohashi, another lesser-known idol of the 80s whose work has vaulted back into the spotlight thanks to that strange “City Pop” resurgence.
The final track of the three, “Space Magic” is a bit different than the first two. It’s a dance track first and foremost, with the vocals almost secondary. When I first heard it, I was reminded of Koshi Miharu, so I wasn’t surprised to find that she did, in fact, write and arrange the track. It’s a fantastic tune, and could be mistaken for a YMO b-side thanks to its excellent production and electronic arrangements. The girls of Shohjo-Tai are actually barely present on it, just showing up for a smidge of vocals halfway through and then again at the end. It almost sounds like an instrumental remix of another track, but I can’t find one with more vocals anywhere, so I guess this is it.
If you dig this music and want more Shohjo-Tai, check out YouTube, people have uploaded a lot of their best stuff there. And if I can ever get my hand on From S, you bet your butt I’ll be sharing it here. Gimme that Hosono.
I can’t believe I found this in a used records bin for 300 yen. This thing goes for close to a $100 online these days.
That’s of course, not because of the song’s quality (which I’ll get to in a bit) but because of the new romantic looking dude on the right. That would be Rick Gervais. As I’m sure many of you know, Seona Dancing was Gervais’ early attempt at stardom, but they only managed to release less than a handful of failed singles before fading into obscurity (save for the Philippines, where they are legendary one-hit-wonders). Do a YouTube search of the group and you’ll uncover countless uploads of their few songs, as well as bits from various talk shows where the hosts drudge out clips from the group in an effort to embarrass Gervais, who has no doubt long gotten sick of the joke by now.
I wonder if any of the talk show hosts who play these clips realize that the few songs that Seona Dancing put out were, actually not that bad? Sure, they’re very dated and not entirely original, but that goes for a lot of fantastic music from that era. You’re going to tell me that “More To Lose” is somehow an embarrassing relic while songs of similar quality by B-tier acts like General Public, Spandau Ballet, or any other act featured on a John Hughes soundtrack are any better?
“More To Lose” should’ve been a hit. It has a fantastic feel of melancholy, the opening piano melody is a hell of a hook, and Gervais’ early-80s Bowie impersonation is spot on. For me, it’s evocative of “Don’t You Forget About Me,” only slightly less epic and far less annoying. (The only people who are more sick of that song than me are Simple Minds.)
“You’re On My Side” isn’t as good, and a far more obvious Bowie knock-off. It’s way too minimal, with zero hooks. It’s just some drum beats, two keys on a keyboard, and Gervais’ howling, which is where the faults in his voice become a bit more glaring. Still though, is it any worse than any other mid-level synthpop song of the time? Not really.
There are dozens of rips of these tracks online, but most are: A) On YouTube and B) sound overly compressed or scratchy. I’m sure I’m not the first person to provide high-quality rips of these online, but I must be the first person in a while, as I can’t find any right now. I doubt that it’s going to get re-released anytime soon. Someone I was talking to on Twitter suggested that Gervais’ is crazy for keeping this out-of-print. But I highly doubt that he owns these tracks. London Records (now part of Universal I believe) probably has better things to do than pull this one out of the cellar, even if they could find the masters, which I doubt. And maybe with Gervais’ recent move to “I’m going to offend you AAAAAH” style of comedy, maybe they just don’t want to deal with any baggage a re-release might entail.
Shame, it’s one of the best things that edgelord asshole ever did.
Update: Okay I know yinz mean well by pointing out the other blog that has these songs. And I’m not mad at anyone who did that. But that other blog posts often posts (not so good) rips of legally available music. Additionally, that other blog routinely PLAGIARIZES written content without proper attribution. I refuse to link to them, or name. I hope it burns to the ground.
This blog is intended to shine light on music that has been unjustly lost through the years. If you can find the stuff here, buy it. Songs are only available for a limited time.
If you own the copyright to anything here, email me at lostturntable AT yahoo DOT com and I will have them removed.
RANT
For the love of God don't leave random requests in my comment section. If I have it, I'll post it here eventually, nothing you say is going to make me buy a record you're too damn lazy to find yourself.
