Official Hige Dandism -- Get Back to Jinsei（Get Back To 人生）

 

About a week ago, I received a comment recommending one of Official Hige Dandism's（Official髭男dism） most recent works as it brings in some of the more upbeat aspects of 80s music. Well, I couldn't really say no to that and once I got the other songs out of the backlog, I decided to check out "Get Back to Jinsei" (Get Back to Life).

"Get Back to Jinsei" is the second track on the band's 3rd major album, "Rejoice", which was released on July 24th as a digital work and then just yesterday on CD format. The album contains seven other tracks that have already come out as singles going all the way back to January 2022, but I was a little surprised that this particular song hasn't yet been given that particular status.

Written and composed by vocalist Satoshi Fujiwara（藤原聡）, "Get Back to Jinsei", a song about getting oneself out of the existential doldrums (most likely cramming for school exams) and back into real life, begins with a boomer of an intro that does bring to mind simultaneously some of the works of 2010s aidoru group Especia and 80s Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）. Yup, some of that City Pop is sprinkled in there and as the song progresses, the arrangement and Fujiwara's vocals then hits me with memories of cool and funky band Sing Like Talking, especially when he hits the high notes and the rock guitar roars in (as with "Rejoice", SLT has also had a habit of titling their albums in English). I could use a song like this to get out of the blues. Many thanks to the mystery commenter especially since it's been a couple of years since I last posted an OHD tune.

Official Hige Dandism -- Hyaku-juu-go-man Kilo no Film（115万キロのフィルム）

As was the case last week with Yutaka Oe's（大江裕）proud "Doronko Taisho"（泥んこ大将）, I also first heard this song by the band Official Hige Dandism（Official髭男dism）through NHK's telecast of "Nodo Jiman"（のど自慢）last weekend.

The participant who sang this particular song did it well enough so that I was interested in getting to know the original better. May I say that I wasn't disappointed at all. "Hyaku-juu-go-man Kilo no Film" (1.15 Million Kilometres of Film) is quite the ambitious title for a sweet and adorable pop/rock song about a young man already "filming" the story of his life with his one-and-only, warts and all, in his head although I think that he thinks that the warts will be kept to a minimum. Still, would like to know how he came up with that figure for the length of celluloid.

Written and composed by vocalist Satoshi Fujihara（藤原聡）, "Hyaku-juu-go-man Kilo no Film" was the opening track on Official Hige Dandism's first full album "Escaparade"（エスカパレード）from April 2018. It was never released as a single although a few tracks were, but according to J-Wiki, on the streaming services, the song was so popular that it actually hit No. 11 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 weekly chart. It was also used in a commercial for electronic parts manufacturer Rohm and was made into the theme song for the live-action movie adaptation of the manga "Omoi, Omoware, Furi, Furare"（思い、思われ、ふり、ふられ...Love Me, Love Me Not） from 2020. As for "Escaparade", it hit No. 15 on the Oricon weeklies.

Come to think of it, wouldn't "Hyaku-juu-go-man Kilo no Film" be the type of song that would be played at a marriage proposal or a wedding reception? One of my old friends actually serenaded his future wife under her window with another song, so it's certainly possible (not sure if his father-in-law-to-be rushed out with a knife, though). The tune also reminded me of an NBC show that's been going on for about six years now, "This is Us".

Official Hige Dandism -- Pretender

 

Into Hump Day we go and it's feeling like a scorcher out there already. We actually activated our air conditioner for the first time this year, and it says something when I have to turn on my fan in the morning considering that I spent 17 torrid Tokyo summers. However, to be fair, our home seems to retain an unusual amount of heat longer while going outside is refreshingly cool.

Anyways, Official Hige Dandism（Official髭男dism）is a band that I've wanted to write about for a while now, and that Airi Suzuki（鈴木愛理）song which I had posted a few weeks ago was actually created by the lead vocalist Satoshi Fujihara（藤原聡）. Therefore I figured that it was time to do so...plus I had always wondered about the origins of the band's name.

First off, the band got together for the first time in June 2012 when Fujihara was attending Shimane University. He met up with a couple of buddies in his music club, bassist Makoto Narazaki（楢﨑誠）and drummer Masaki Matsuura（松浦匡希）, and then another friend from outside the university, lead guitarist Daisuke Ozasa（小笹大輔）. In short order, they held their first live performance the following month with their first mini-album coming out in April 2015. Incidentally, according to an interview through the LINE blog (via the J-Wiki bio on the band), Narazaki was the one who came up with the name of Official Hige Dandism somewhat tongue-in-cheek because he felt that it visually and phonetically created a rather large impact and therefore would be easy to remember. 

Their inaugural single, "No Doubt"（ノーダウト）was released in April 2018 but it was their 2nd single, "Pretender" from May 2019 that put the band on the national route to fame and fortune. The bright pop/rock melody actually surrounds a wail of frustrated resignation from a guy who finally realizes that the woman he loves will simply never reciprocate and it's time to let go. The message by songwriter Fujihara must have hit a chord with audiences since it broke the Top 10 at No. 9 on Oricon and even hit the top spot on Billboard Japan, becoming a million-seller.

"Pretender" also got Official Hige Dandism their first invitation onto NHK's Kohaku Utagassen after which they got their second appearance last New Year's Eve. The song is also on their 2nd full album "Traveler" released in October 2019 which earned the band top spots on both Oricon and Billboard Japan with the album finishing at No. 17 that year and then even finishing 2020 as the 10th-ranked album. 

The song was even used as the theme for the movie "THE CONFIDENCEMAN JP". As for the official music video, that was filmed in Taipei, Taiwan.

Airi Suzuki -- Break it down

 

That was a most fascinating beginning for the music video of "Break it down", a track from Airi Suzuki's（鈴木愛理）"i" album, her 2nd from December 2019. It's a perfectly silent display of a couple of young ladies in tuxes and hats rhythmically shuffling along and pushing a Suzuki-sized pink box along a waterway that may be around Tennozu Isle in Tokyo. Permit me to label it as adorable and strange at the same time, and perhaps something that I would see in a "City Limits" program of the weird and wonderful.

But then Suzuki gets into cool and funky singing mode for "Break it down" and I hear those husky vocals, almost ending up thinking that perhaps she could have gotten some more to do in Masayuki Suzuki's（鈴木雅之）grand "DADDY! DADDY! DO!" the following year. I think she does a great job with the music and lyrics by Satoshi Fujihara（藤原聡）, the lead vocalist of pop band Official Hige Dandism（Official髭男dism）. She's very happy flipping around those words like a happy juggler. And I'm very happy seeing those night shots of Tokyo.

As for "i", it peaked at No. 11 on Oricon. And well what do you know? She also cuts quite the rug for "Break it down", too.