Another coming out party
Well, I think everyone falls in love. With people or ideas or what have you, and I certainly do.
But every now and then I fall so hard and so unexpectedly for a CERTAIN kind of thing that it changes my track a little bit. Affects my sense of self. And that just happened to me this new year. Really randomly, out of the blue.
I was at this family's apartment in Tokyo and we were watching the big New Years Eve performance on TV. It is apparently an annual variety show-concert. It featured acts like the popular EXILE and AKB48 and Kyaru Pamyu Pamyu and a whole bunch of disneyland characters doing the mickey mouse club march and some traditional japanese music as well and even Pink Martini were televised-in from afar performing in Portland with a Japanese female singer. Arashi, Japan's most popular boyband, were hosting the event for their third year in a row(although women were doing most of the talking and introducing), and I was watching this show with quite a lot of interest because I don't have a TV in my apartment and this stuff was crazy. Most of the acts had an unrealistic number of backup dancers and at least one costume change. This is over the top entertainment. More than three times I took pictures of the television.
And then this song started with five guys dancing in pink pants and blue jackets and I was like, THIS MUSIC. I like this song!! (I keep an ear out at all times for japanese music I like because I feel guilty that I don't listen to any). So I listened for lyrics to look up the song and fortunately the title was being flashed on the pop-art-screen behind them WILD AT HEART, so I googled it (while the performance was still going on) and it immediately came up "Arashi"
Oh. Arashi! I said.
"Yeah this is Arashi. They are hosting the event. They are singing now!" -the dad
Oh, right. Yeah. kay. I said. I hadn't been paying that much attention to the hosts.
The performance was a medley, and it turned into another song that was darker and had reeaaaaally...interestingly weird computer generated effects on top of it. Costume change!
Anyway, later on in life, like, a few days later while I was sitting in my capsule after a day at disney, i finally looked the song up so I could hear it and see if I still liked it, and I found the video from the new years eve thing. "Oh yay I'll just watch that!" I said. And I did and I thought wow this is great. Let's see another version and I found another live version that had the whole song, and they were so cute and boy they like to shoot confetti at people and I like that part when he kicks the microphone stand and i really like when he does that thing with his hand. Does he do that in the other version? I had better watch the other version again. Oh it's better in this one! But the other one is longer. Better watch the other one again.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
The next morning I watched it after I woke up. And I watched it three more times while I was on the train. And I couldn't really separate it. I didn't want to just listen to it, or just look at it with no song. I tried to watch the official PV for it and it was okay, not a great music video. Much too low energy.
Now two days later I have a favorite band member (Nino) and he is on my desktop and I have scoured the internet for another Arashi song I like as much and have failed to find one yet. Or even another one I can remember what it sounds like. They didn't even write it. They are a boy band. They have writers who make songs for them. But they brought it to life with their performance and I fell completely into their trap on new years eve. They brought me into something.
That day I watched it maybe ten times, and I think I watched it more the next day. I'm trying to stagger it and keep it from getting out of control but I am also needing to ingest it. The confetti explodes. And I can understand some of it and the more I listen the more I can understand.
And it's not the first time something like this has happened, of course. Just the first time it has happened in a foreign language--and with a popular boy band.
One of the best examples I can think of in the past would be Mistofelees' song in the video version of CATS. Because it's not just CATS, it's not just jacob brent, it's not just mistofelees, it's not just the filming or the choreography it's EVERYTHING, it's these people, that show, that song, those moments. I wanted to see it over and over on repeat, almost trying to figure out WHY it was as perfect and beautiful as it was, until I could make it mine.
The thing with Jose Carioca last year was sort of similar too. I watched those two songs from Saludos Amigos A LOT when I was falling for Jose. And he is a cartoon parrot.
Spike's Rest in Peace might be the oldest example. It certainly is the moment I fell in love with spike, despite knowing very little about Buffy yet.
The other, very OBVIOUS example, would be Simon and Milo's Get a Clue on the Disney Channel when I was 13 years old. That. Video. I could stop everything to run in and see it, even though I had seen it so many times. I had a VHS tape on which I had taped it over and over again after itself, and I called it "The Binge Tape" and I would, when feeling needy, just sit and watch through it, as awkwardly recorded 3/4 of a song would play one after another. That feels very similar to this.
Well, with Get a Clue, I made the decision to go ahead and get the CD it was on. I was very nervous because I figured they couldn't have any songs I would ever like as much as Get a Clue, and I would ruin my image of them.
That turned out to be pretty wrong. Get a Clue is my baby, that's where it started, but in the end my favorite prozzak songs are probably Pretty Girls, Infatuation, and...a whole handful of other ones. Getting the CD? Good decision.
So that's why I'm trying to dig into Arashi and see what they are made of.
They are a popular group. They do a lot of stuff, they have a lot of fans.
They have been a boyband since 1999. They are tres Japanese.
They have a TV show called VS Arashi that is some kind of game show where people play against them or something. They are actors. The guy I like was in Letters from Iwo Jima. I don't really like most of their style of music, it's so poppy and...soft-rocky, overall...
And in a way none of this really matters or affects me or has anything to do with anything because I'm already in love. I'm just in love with their Wild at Heart.
I feel different now from last year, because, so out of the blue, I fell in love again.
...tl;dr: On new years eve I saw this jpns boyband perform a song on TV and I have probably watched them perform it 30 times since then because I'm in love with it.
STOP BEING SO CUTE.
_
But every now and then I fall so hard and so unexpectedly for a CERTAIN kind of thing that it changes my track a little bit. Affects my sense of self. And that just happened to me this new year. Really randomly, out of the blue.
I was at this family's apartment in Tokyo and we were watching the big New Years Eve performance on TV. It is apparently an annual variety show-concert. It featured acts like the popular EXILE and AKB48 and Kyaru Pamyu Pamyu and a whole bunch of disneyland characters doing the mickey mouse club march and some traditional japanese music as well and even Pink Martini were televised-in from afar performing in Portland with a Japanese female singer. Arashi, Japan's most popular boyband, were hosting the event for their third year in a row(although women were doing most of the talking and introducing), and I was watching this show with quite a lot of interest because I don't have a TV in my apartment and this stuff was crazy. Most of the acts had an unrealistic number of backup dancers and at least one costume change. This is over the top entertainment. More than three times I took pictures of the television.
And then this song started with five guys dancing in pink pants and blue jackets and I was like, THIS MUSIC. I like this song!! (I keep an ear out at all times for japanese music I like because I feel guilty that I don't listen to any). So I listened for lyrics to look up the song and fortunately the title was being flashed on the pop-art-screen behind them WILD AT HEART, so I googled it (while the performance was still going on) and it immediately came up "Arashi"
Oh. Arashi! I said.
"Yeah this is Arashi. They are hosting the event. They are singing now!" -the dad
Oh, right. Yeah. kay. I said. I hadn't been paying that much attention to the hosts.
The performance was a medley, and it turned into another song that was darker and had reeaaaaally...interestingly weird computer generated effects on top of it. Costume change!
Anyway, later on in life, like, a few days later while I was sitting in my capsule after a day at disney, i finally looked the song up so I could hear it and see if I still liked it, and I found the video from the new years eve thing. "Oh yay I'll just watch that!" I said. And I did and I thought wow this is great. Let's see another version and I found another live version that had the whole song, and they were so cute and boy they like to shoot confetti at people and I like that part when he kicks the microphone stand and i really like when he does that thing with his hand. Does he do that in the other version? I had better watch the other version again. Oh it's better in this one! But the other one is longer. Better watch the other one again.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
The next morning I watched it after I woke up. And I watched it three more times while I was on the train. And I couldn't really separate it. I didn't want to just listen to it, or just look at it with no song. I tried to watch the official PV for it and it was okay, not a great music video. Much too low energy.
Now two days later I have a favorite band member (Nino) and he is on my desktop and I have scoured the internet for another Arashi song I like as much and have failed to find one yet. Or even another one I can remember what it sounds like. They didn't even write it. They are a boy band. They have writers who make songs for them. But they brought it to life with their performance and I fell completely into their trap on new years eve. They brought me into something.
That day I watched it maybe ten times, and I think I watched it more the next day. I'm trying to stagger it and keep it from getting out of control but I am also needing to ingest it. The confetti explodes. And I can understand some of it and the more I listen the more I can understand.
And it's not the first time something like this has happened, of course. Just the first time it has happened in a foreign language--and with a popular boy band.
One of the best examples I can think of in the past would be Mistofelees' song in the video version of CATS. Because it's not just CATS, it's not just jacob brent, it's not just mistofelees, it's not just the filming or the choreography it's EVERYTHING, it's these people, that show, that song, those moments. I wanted to see it over and over on repeat, almost trying to figure out WHY it was as perfect and beautiful as it was, until I could make it mine.
The thing with Jose Carioca last year was sort of similar too. I watched those two songs from Saludos Amigos A LOT when I was falling for Jose. And he is a cartoon parrot.
Spike's Rest in Peace might be the oldest example. It certainly is the moment I fell in love with spike, despite knowing very little about Buffy yet.
The other, very OBVIOUS example, would be Simon and Milo's Get a Clue on the Disney Channel when I was 13 years old. That. Video. I could stop everything to run in and see it, even though I had seen it so many times. I had a VHS tape on which I had taped it over and over again after itself, and I called it "The Binge Tape" and I would, when feeling needy, just sit and watch through it, as awkwardly recorded 3/4 of a song would play one after another. That feels very similar to this.
Well, with Get a Clue, I made the decision to go ahead and get the CD it was on. I was very nervous because I figured they couldn't have any songs I would ever like as much as Get a Clue, and I would ruin my image of them.
That turned out to be pretty wrong. Get a Clue is my baby, that's where it started, but in the end my favorite prozzak songs are probably Pretty Girls, Infatuation, and...a whole handful of other ones. Getting the CD? Good decision.
So that's why I'm trying to dig into Arashi and see what they are made of.
They are a popular group. They do a lot of stuff, they have a lot of fans.
They have been a boyband since 1999. They are tres Japanese.
They have a TV show called VS Arashi that is some kind of game show where people play against them or something. They are actors. The guy I like was in Letters from Iwo Jima. I don't really like most of their style of music, it's so poppy and...soft-rocky, overall...
And in a way none of this really matters or affects me or has anything to do with anything because I'm already in love. I'm just in love with their Wild at Heart.
I feel different now from last year, because, so out of the blue, I fell in love again.
...tl;dr: On new years eve I saw this jpns boyband perform a song on TV and I have probably watched them perform it 30 times since then because I'm in love with it.
STOP BEING SO CUTE.
_