My good friend here in Toronto who, along with his wife, has collected their fair share of Japanese pop albums over the years told me about Hikaru Utada's（宇多田ヒカル）"Bad Mode" for a while. He's pretty particular about what he likes in J-Pop, and nope, that doesn't necessarily include City Pop. I've actually had the song in the backlog for a while now; my affinity for Utada was really just in the late 1990s and early 2000s so up to now, I hadn't really been gnashing my teeth to listen to this one song.
But I have seen the light and heard the siren. "Bad Mode" which is the title track from Utada's 8th studio album released in January this year really is a groovaliciously attractive song. As the old Meme Man would say, it's cool and good. Created by Utada and composer Jodi Milliner with production by British electronic music producer and DJ Floating Points, I was struck by that intro which sounded a lot like the introduction to "Deacon Blues" by Steely Dan from their iconic album "Aja". Sure enough, in the J-Wiki commentary for "Bad Mode", that song was directly quoted as an influence with Floating Points having wanted to bring in a little City Pop into the proceedings, although I wouldn't say that the song fits into that genre. It is quite the soulful song and it takes me back to some of the J-R&B which was coming out in the early 2000s.
Utada's lyrics were also interesting and I'm glad that I could see their translations in the above video. At first, I'd assumed that the singer was expressing her desire for a new romantic relationship especially with that suggestion of getting something from Uber Eats (someone in that company must have punched the air triumphantly at the shoutout...Mac n' Cheese for everyone!). But actually, what Utada was singing about was trying to get in touch and being happy with oneself, something that probably has been emphasized especially during the pandemic. After all, there was a saying that I heard in something else many years ago about how in the world a person could love someone if that person couldn't love himself, and that point has also been made clear in "Bad Mode". Heal thyself and things will get better...or so the theory goes.
"Bad Mode" the album hit No. 1 on Oricon. For another song lyrically influenced by the pandemic, you can check out this recent entry by Tomori Kusunoki（楠木ともり）.
Yeah, the whole album is fantastic, I think you'll definitely enjoy it overall. Also, I love the live performance she did for NHK but I cracked up when they got to the part where she sings "hope I don't fuck it up" and they conveniently didn't subtitle that part, haha. Props to NHK for letting her sing it uncensored though.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm glad that I wasn't drinking anything when I first heard her say that; otherwise, I would have messed up the screen. :) I noticed that the lyric got quite a lot of attention from commenters.
DeleteI was actually surprised and impressed that NHK let her sing "Bad Mode" verbatim. I remember for a recent Kohaku Utagassen when one of the singers performed a song in which the F-word had been included, the word was actually changed to something milder.