I've stayed in a few hotels that were expensive and stylish enough to offer that rain forest shower head option in the bathroom. Well, I mean, I'm sure that they were very good for the environment and all, but I still prefer the old-fashioned type that can jet blast me clean.
Speaking about gentle showers, I've got this "Gentle Shower" track from the atmospheric City Pop/AOR band Piper's 1983 album "Summer Breeze". I first wrote about the title track from the album back in 2014 and lamented to one commenter that I hadn't heard of any remastered CD releases by the group, but what a difference six years make. It looks like CD Japan has a few copies by the band on its site right now. Ah, the decisions that I have to make...
Anyways, "Gentle Shower" does start out like the equivalent of the rain shower option in a hotel bathroom before jumping up a bit into a jauntier beat with songwriter Keisuke Yamamoto（山本圭右）singing the same couple of lines over and over again. There's something very akin to Vaporwave in the repeating and mesmerizing lyrics and melody so I wouldn't be surprised if a Vaporwave or Future Funk version has been put up somewhere on YouTube in the last few years.
This isn't to take any mean pokes at Piper but sometimes when I see those titles of "Summer Breeze" and "Gentle Shower", I wonder whether the marketing departments of air freshener manufacturers derived some inspiration from the titles.
Those descending sequential openings always remind me of Bill Withers' hit 'Just The Two Of Us', although plenty of songs prior to it did the same thing. The Vaporwave association is apt. Seems like a lot of that stuff takes samples of old J-pop (or city pop if you prefer) and loops it ad nausea, which is why I'd much rather listen to the originals. On the plus side, it has drawn more attention to Japanese music. Hey, 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing, right?
ReplyDeleteHello, Michael. Yeah, the whole Vaporwave thing opened up a new portal alongside anime to bring in new fans for J-Pop. Mind you, I think things are finally starting to subside for that genre since I haven't seen anything new in the last year, and Van Paugam even sent out a tweet recently that the powers-that-be have begun to clamp down on videos by Artzie Music who was one of the prolific producers of those Vaporwave videos. All good things and all that, eh?
DeleteCan't say I'm surprised given how strict the Japanese government has become at enforcing copyright, hence why so many videos are made unavailable due to region-blocking and their rather limited commercial availability stateside.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to purchase Kaede's new solo album 'Stardust in Blue' via digital but it's not for sale anywhere. Some streaming services allow you to listen to it but I'd much rather purchase and own the music I enjoy. Practically all of the music from other countries is readily made available for Japan (and more often than not with bonus content). That's just not right.
Can't figure it out myself along with the fact that Tower Records refuses to ship things directly overseas. Maybe they had some bad experiences or something but to pay extra for that middleman service has never been one of my favourite expenses to have.
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