Re: Michiru Akiyoshi

From: Jason Jasberto Batog (jasbat@home.com)
Date: Thu Mar 01 2001 - 01:01:03 CET

  • Next message: Jason Jasberto Batog: "Re: Michiru Akiyoshi"

    > That's an interesting comment. What is their reasoning for saying MM is not
    > an achieving artist?...and actually, MM's native land is the United States.

    I think Japanese people don't think of Monday highly because she isn't J-pop
    or an anime soundtrack. A lot of my Japanese friends who moved from Japan
    to where I am based only know of rough J-pop like Whiteberry, Dreams Come
    True and L'Arc-En-Ciel. But they are very dedicated crowd, one my friends
    has all the Misia releases even on vinyl.

    I heard that most people who buy Monday Michiru's discs are basically people
    in their 25's and older, people who were heavy into the whole Acid Jazz
    scene back then. Too bad there are a lack of artists in Japan that are
    keeping the sound alive. Even Shinichi Osawa has abandoned the sound to
    manufacture plausible pop records that have a bit of underground touch.
    Sometimes Soul Bossa Trio sounds really poppish to me. I'm not going to go
    into details about what is pop and what's not but it's something definitely
    audible.

    I always find Japan very fascinating! Even though they have highly dodgy
    pop music they have the ability to release good music and sell it well!
    Blaze was number one in HMV's Club/Dance chart and Modaji was number one on
    CDNOW's picks for Japan for the R&B/Soul/Dance section. Sony/Office One
    even signed deals with Hospital and Compost.

    Too bad about Nobukazu Takemura, I wish he would bring back his jazzier side
    and leave the abstracity to Brian Eno and Tangerine Dream. It's just mood
    music and presentation rather than structed mood music with emotions. I
    loved his stuff on Bellissima! and then Idyllic. "Elm" off the Brownswood
    Workshop Multidirection was such a huge favourite. Same with "Harmonium",
    at that certain time I thought Nobu was totally ahead of his time!

    jasjasBat



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