Episode 77: Down the Rabbit Hole with Patrick St. Michel

Previous guest (episode 42) Patrick St. Michel (of the Make Believe Mailer on Substack and Japan Times) is back to talk about his experience at Coachella and the current state of J-Pop more generally. The playlist of the episode should give a pretty good primer for those looking for a quick catch up on J-Pop.

Some of the things we talked about were:

• Mrs. Green Apple has emerged as the new Ikimonogakari; if that sentence makes no sense to you, just listen to one of their popular songs to get a sense of their normie-core appeal. K-Pop fans might know them because Ohmori Motoki wrote a song for TxT that happens to sound exactly like a Mrs. Green Apple song.

• Listening back to the episode I realized we teased Number_i but never really discussed them. The TL;DR is that STARTO group King & Prince used to have five members but three left the group and reformed as a trio under Tobe. On the surface it feels similar to the TVXQ split where three members left and reformed as JYJ while the other two continued as TVXQ (and you can check out my four part series on TVXQ for more information on that) but what I found interesting is that unlike TVXQ who came back with the absolute rage filled banger “Keep Your Head Down” as their first two person single, two person King & Prince came back with a perfunctory double A-sided single of two drama theme songs. Meanwhile, Number_i announced their presence with the swaggering “GOAT,” an absolute buzzsaw of a song that I would have thought was a hard sell to a normie audience but apparently Coachella was into it! For the record, my favorite King & Prince song is “Magic Touch.”

• Miyawaki Sakura from Le Sserafim is discussed in more detail in episode 57. The context here is that Le Sserafim went viral because of their poor vocals at Coachella. What I find so interesting about this is that the Le Sserafim defenders are coming from a more J-Pop idol fan point-of-view (e.g. “They did their best!”) versus the more traditional K-Pop fan point-of-view where a certain level of vocal skill is both expected and appreciated (e.g. SHINee’s Onew & Jonghyun or BigBang’s Taeyang.)

• I bring up the contracting of the K-Pop market as well as the growing awareness of K-Pop album bulk sales. A lot of this is really coming to a head with the Hybe-Ador battle that is currently in progress. I wrote a little on the current drama here but I’ve been on the overvaluation of Hybe and K-Pop more generally for a while. You can also check out my appearance on the New York Times Popcast!

• Anime theme songs have become a huge driver of popular hits. We talk about “Idol” and “Bing-Bang-Bang-Boom” but there are so many examples. Veteran rock band 10-FEET had a hit this year with “Dai Zero Kan” from the anime The First Slam Dunk and people might also remember the RADWIMPS hit “Zenzenzense” from the film Your Name (and, of course, who can forget the legendary theme from NEON GENESIS EVANGELION). And while it didn’t do “Idol” numbers, the ending theme to Oshi no Ko was also quite popular: “Mephisto” by Queen Bee. I’ve talked about how mainstream anime has become in America in my post “K-Pop in Not Popular in America.” You can buy anime-themed T-shirts at Target now. Anime: It’s not just for weebs!

• Japan is the last hold out for mainstream rock music. We don’t get too deep into it but if you’re a rock fan, you need to check out what Japan has to offer.

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The songs played are:

1. “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” by Creepy Nuts (Official MV; Live on First Take)

2. “Otonablue” by Atarashii Gakko (Official MV; Live on First Take; Live at Coachella)

3. “No Bra” by Yayoi Daimon feat. Akko Gorilla (Official MV)

4. “Bad Bitch 美学 (Remix)” by Awich, NENE, LANA, MaRI, AI & YURIYAN RETRIEVER (Official MV; Live at Coachella feat NENE, LANA, MaRI, and YURIYAN RETRIEVER)

5. “Idol” by YOASOBI (Live at Saitama Super Arena June 4, 2023; Official MV; Live at Coachella with Atarashii Gakko)

6. “Feels” by Nissy x Saweetie (Official MV)

7. “Watashi no ichiban kawaii tokoro” by FRUITS ZIPPER (Live on First Take; Official MV)

8. “Rabbit Hole feat. Hatsune Miku” by DECO*27 (Official MV)

9. “Tell Your World” by livetune feat. Hatsune Miku (Official MV; Live at MIKU EXPO 2024)

10. “すみっコディスコ” by Perfume (Official MV; dance version)

11. “Mezmerizer” by 32ki feat. Hatsune Miku & Kasane Teto (Official MV)

12. “Bye-Good-Bye” by BE:First (Official MV; Live on First Take)

13. “ヒッピー” by SKY HI (Official MV)

14. “To The Top” by Psychic Fever from Exile Tribe feat. DVI (Official MV; Live at Siam Music Festival 2022)

15. “アンセム” by SixTones (Official MV)

16. “Click” by ME:I (Official MV; Live on Korea’s M Countdown)