Japanese freestyle

[koganbot]

Japanese freestyle - is there a lot of it? I wouldn't know. Just glad that the style, which is pretty much gone from U.S. airwaves, is still strong in Asia.

( h/t arbitrary_greay, of course)

Tomato n' Pine FAB ("Free As A Bird")

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The rhythm is simply a hopped-up electrobeat, not freestyle's fast twists and breakneck turns, but the melody, at least in the verse,

Comments

[petronia]

Yeah, my reaction to the Tomato n' Pine is that the melody is the kind of J-pop I do like (I don't like the current idol type of tune) and was common when I got into J-pop/anime music in the 90s; whereas the instrumental is more deliberately "80s dance" than you would've gotten at the time**, and reads to me as intentionally retro.

I've mentioned this to Frank before IIRC, but the Eurobeat style was pioneered by ex-Italo disco producers -- that's why it's called that. (This guy uber alles, but I think there were others as well.)

I don't really think Eurobeat has the same kind of melody as the slower, earlier, 80s-inflected stuff, actually. The latter also reminds me of freestyle (or rather the other way around), the former doesn't. (Frank's comment that there's a show music element to it is apt; quite a lot of this stuff would have been TV intro themes, just like a lot current CJK pop singles seem to be cell phone commercials.)

** Specifically, it's a bit acid house, and J-pop never actually did acid house in the acid house era insofar as I know. But a producer nowadays would have access to that "retro" sound, of course.