My January column for The Japan Times was about legendary 90s pop producer Tetsuya Komuro, who has a new album coming out and who, since his unceremonious plummet from the limelight, I’ve been finding myself feeling a bit more affection for than I used to at the pinnacle of his 90s ubiquity.
You can read it here.
I mention a few of his songs in the article, but you probably don't need to spend that much time with them unless you really are a fan of 90s J-Pop (in which case you probably already know everything you need to about Komuro. I can enjoy him nowadays as nostalgia, but it is also interesting that he (and the Avex Trax label) was so willing to try out forward-thinking ideas from overseas in massive mainstream pop productions.
OK, so obviously "Only You" is terrible if you judge it as a drum'n'bass track, although David Bowie's attempt a couple of years later (yeah, Bowie, way to stay ahead of the curve when J-Pop producers are getting there two years ahead of you!) was hardly a career highlight either, although admittedly it is better than I remember it being at the time.
And as I mention in the article, Yasutaka Nakata occupied a similar role, incorporating Western dance music into J-Pop, most effectively with Perfume, although he struggled a bit with drum'n'bass as well.
For all I go on about how daring some of his musical appropriations were, however, the real joy of Tetsuya Komuro is probably still in his deliriously cheesy 90s dance-pop anthems. It's terrible, but like a cheap, discount store vodka, it gets you there.
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