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Ohrwurm: Capsule

Yeah, Japanese pop music.

(“Shibuya-kei,” to be precise. Bsides its association with the district in Tokyo, I have no idea what this refers to…)

Most of the songs on the album are a fair bit more ironic than the one below, or, well, maybe I’m mistaking earnestness in a foreign language for an arch tone and ironic sensibility? Anyway, this isn’t the best song on the album, but the only one I found and liked enough to post. This is today’s background music as I work on my most recent installment of my column for Cahoots:

Here’s another video, of the kind that always reminds me of my vague, Golden-Age-SF sense that Japanese entertainment is a pretty good analogue of what aliens would come up with if they tried to create authentically entertaining, comprehensible, and fun TV programs for North Americans. As in, it’s more right than wrong, but more bizarre than really, er, accessible.1.

Ah, and an amusing, remix. Well, the video is more interesting than the remix itself. Clips from the movie Hackers? Japanese pop music? A remix totally underpinned by the rhythmic spelling-out of a curse word? That’s odd

1. Of course, Japanese TV is no more like what aliens would really produce than is American TV as viewed by Japanese viewers. Japanese TV and American TV are both forms of human-made Tv, and alien-made stuff would be much more bizarre, but it’s still a fun comparison, if a bit Golden-Agey.

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