Welcome to March 2022! No, no...there's nothing here that signifies that the first day of the third month has been designated as Donut Day. Supposedly in the United States, June 3rd has that distinction this year. But I did want to show off that box of Krispy Kreme donuts that I brought back for the staff at my last school. Yep, back in the day, Japan went absolutely gaga over these sugar bombs; it was like cats discovering catnip for the first time. From the late 2000s into the early 2010s, Krispy Kreme had about 4 or 5 branches in the Tokyo area alone but the last time I visited in late 2017, there was just the one store in the Diver City mall in Odaiba as far as I know.
The other reason that I came up with the donut theme to start things off for this first KKP article for March 2022 was that I wanted to put up this Perfume song "Sweet Donuts". Yeah, really, it is a Perfume song. In fact, this was the trio's first single as an indies unit in August 2003.
However, I can understand if some of you may have shaken your heads or did double-takes at the above thumbnail for the video and then the actual music video for "Sweet Donuts" below. This was very early in Perfume's career and I guess this can come under the TV Tropes category of Early Installment Weirdness. (Not to say that Perfume was ever weird) There are examples such as Lieutenant Uhura of classic "Star Trek" wearing a mustard-yellow Command uniform instead of her usual red one or the fact that Richie and Joanie actually had a big brother named Chuck in "Happy Days" for the first couple of seasons before he "disappeared" from the series.
The technopop is certainly there as Yasutaka Nakata（中田ヤスタカ）and lyricist Kinoko（木の子）crafted the song; for the former, this was his first work with Perfume. But there was no stylized dancing or dance club-worthy fashion or tons of computer graphics behind the trio. the music video just had the cute teens in summer aidoru-esque wear serenely making the donuts. Make mine chocolate glazed please!
"Sweet Donuts" didn't get into the Oricon charts which is probably another example of that early installment weirdness but it was a track on Perfume's debut album "Perfume〜Complete Best〜" from August 2006. The first pressing of that album hit No. 66 but a subsequent release garnered better results with it coming in at No. 24.
The best was naturally yet to come for Perfume with the next single after "Sweet Donuts" being "Monochrome Effect" that got quite the boost on "American Dad". Also, "Sweet Donuts" also has the cover of "Jenny wa Gokigen Naname"（ジェニーはご機嫌ななめ）which was originally performed by Juicy Fruits.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Feel free to provide any comments (pro or con). Just be civil about it.