I haven't pulled out this disc for quite a while. After getting hooked onto Perfume's "Polyrhythm" (ポリリズム), thanks to that TV ad about recycling, I ended up getting their 1st album "GAME" soon after. Then it wasn't too long after that I decided to pick up their 7th major single, "love the world".
Released in June 2008, "love the world" sounded a bit less funky than "Polyrhythm" but I still enjoyed that bass synth beat anchoring everything while Kashiyuka, A-chan and Nocchi went full throttle on their vocoders and strutted around in the video as they played around in the hall of mirrors and Rubik cubes. Of course, Yasutaka Nakata（中田ヤスタカ）took care of music and lyrics. Listening to this one and some of the tracks from "GAME", at the time I felt that Perfume was about to walk on ground that Yellow Magic Orchestra had once broken some decades back.
In fact, Kashiyuka, A-chan and Nocchi pulled off something with "love the world" that even Haruomi, Ryuichi and Yukihiro hadn't done in YMO, and that was to be the first technopop unit with the highest-ranking single in Oricon history according to Wikipedia and J-Wiki. YMO had possessed the record back in 1983 when their "Kimi ni Mune Kyun"（君に、胸キュン）got as high as No. 2 on the charts. Not surprisingly, "love the world" is so far Perfume's most successful hit. It would end up being ranked No. 47 in the yearly charts as well as being certified Gold. It also became one of the tracks on their 2nd album from July 2009 "⊿", also a chart-topper and the 20th-ranked album for that year.
"love the world" also got its own debut in a commercial...this time for Sharp.
Hi, J-Canuck.
ReplyDeleteWell, while "love the world" was certainly a #1 hit, and ended being Perfume's highest selling single, I'd say the hype around the group after GAME's release surely helped the song a little bit.
Based on that, I wouldn't call it their biggest hit. In fact, they don't perform it very much nowadays. Even old b-sides or
album songs receive more love from the group during their concert tours.
As for the song itself, I find it very interesting with all the sparkly synths. Also, it was one of their more restrained songs back in the day. Besides Nakata's usual
heavy synth work and vocal manipulation, it could pass as standard J-Pop.
A couple of hours ago, I was listening to Perfume's most recent album "COSMIC EXPLORER", which was released last month (in April). Personally, while it's still a good collection of songs, I didn't enjoy it as much as I did with "Triangle", "JPN" and "LEVEL3" ("GAME" was my favorite for a brief period of time... when their discography was comprised solely by it and "Complete Best"). So, I took a listen on the good old "love the world" now, and it was a great reminder of Perfume's sound during their breakthrough phase. Time surely flies.
Hi Marcos.
DeleteYeah, I was reading some of the reviews for the new album and they haven't been quite so glowing. I have got a feeling that things may be getting a bit stale with the unit. Not quite sure where they could go in terms of a new direction, though.
The last album kind of showed an interesting path for the group in the title track "COSMIC EXMPLORER" (many critics agreed its space sound would be a great sonic theme for this album). It's not a frantic tune like we're used to in terms of Perfume, but Nakata took some clues from progressive rock, space disco and early 80s synthpop, while still mantaining Perfume's freshness on it.
DeleteUnfortunately, the other new songs he wrote for the album were things you could easily listen on any American or European radio. It seems like he's trying too hard to emulate what's popular in terms of electronic music nowadays.