Shallow Manufactured Music 2.0
An advert video keeps popping up (very much unwanted, but thats another article) on youtube Japan for an all girl Japanese ‘rock band’ - I wont say their name. The video seemed to be based on The Monkees and The Banana Splits joke type stuff of the 60s, where a bunch of young musicians lived together in a big loft type place. For this Japanese band its set in London. But its so shallow and vacuous it makes The Monkees and The Banana Slips seem like philosopher poets by comparison - and with much better music!
The band are being made out to be cool young people who live together and have fun. There seems to be an image from the punk band Crass on the wall, or possible The Clash, its hard to see it. But either band would throw up to hear the music this band are playing, which is the most shallow version of rock possible. There seem to be 4 or 5 guitarists in the band for some odd reason, through presumably the band dont really play instruments on the recorded music. We get almost no sense of the individuality of the members of how they relate to each other beyond the mock camaraderie. And, of course, the music is cliched rubbish. It makes me reflect on how those manufactured popular bands in the 60s were actually quite high quality, in terms of song writing and musicianship.
Also, its set in London but there is not a single Londoner to be seen in the whole video, not in their loft, not in the streets, no where at all - its totally cut off from any interaction with London life or people. How is it those young attractive Japanese women can live in London without having made a single non-Japanese friend? It seems to speak of Japanese cultural insularity, which has increased rather than decreased over the last 20 years. The 36% decrease in the amount of young students going abroad to study over the last 15 years is a statistical indication of this.
An advert video keeps popping up (very much unwanted, but thats another article) on youtube Japan for an all girl Japanese ‘rock band’ - I wont say their name. The video seemed to be based on The Monkees and The Banana Splits joke type stuff of the 60s, where a bunch of young musicians lived together in a big loft type place. For this Japanese band its set in London. But its so shallow and vacuous it makes The Monkees and The Banana Slips seem like philosopher poets by comparison - and with much better music!
The band are being made out to be cool young people who live together and have fun. There seems to be an image from the punk band Crass on the wall, or possible The Clash, its hard to see it. But either band would throw up to hear the music this band are playing, which is the most shallow version of rock possible. There seem to be 4 or 5 guitarists in the band for some odd reason, through presumably the band dont really play instruments on the recorded music. We get almost no sense of the individuality of the members of how they relate to each other beyond the mock camaraderie. And, of course, the music is cliched rubbish. It makes me reflect on how those manufactured popular bands in the 60s were actually quite high quality, in terms of song writing and musicianship.
Also, its set in London but there is not a single Londoner to be seen in the whole video, not in their loft, not in the streets, no where at all - its totally cut off from any interaction with London life or people. How is it those young attractive Japanese women can live in London without having made a single non-Japanese friend? It seems to speak of Japanese cultural insularity, which has increased rather than decreased over the last 20 years. The 36% decrease in the amount of young students going abroad to study over the last 15 years is a statistical indication of this.
The Monkees were criticised for not playing their instruments or writing their songs. A key thing is that they took such criticism to heart, and the 60s was a time in which genuine creativity and a feeling of respect for art and songwriting etc would make such musicians feel bad about being shallow and manufactured. So The Monkess rebelled and started to write and play their own stuff. The words from the above photo of them is from their very cool film, Head (1968), in which they parody the manufactured image.
Its very difficult to image these young Japanese people even THINKING about doing that, never mind actually successfully doing it. They are several steps more shallow and manufactured than such bands were in the 60s, and this is a very bad thing. A sign of culture having stagnated, of intelligence and genuine artistry decreased. And by that I dont mean just in Japan, but also in the USA and the UK, etc. This is not an attack on the shallowness of Japanese popular msuic - though for the most part it very much is - but to suggest that there has been a general decline in the quality of such music across many countries.
Some will dismiss this as the normal criticism of the younger generation. It would be much better if that was the case, as its a nice simple explanation, and not of much importance. But unfortunately its much deeper than that. The quality really IS down. The shallowness real IS, ah, more shallow. And we should not put up with it, or buy this music or go to see such bands. To have good music is almost as important as having a good diet. We need a broad range of high quality music to be mentally healthy, just as we need a broad range of good food to be physically healthy.
So - demand something better!
What the above part in the video seems to be based on is this bunch below: The Banana Slips (1968-1970, US TV show). Though they look as silly and shallow as can be the differences between them and this Japanese band above are quite large: the individuality of each character shone through, it was good fun, they had some of the wider hippy type culture of the times reflected in the show, and a lot of the music was actually pretty good! By comparison the impression giving over by this Japanese video is of a horribly empty mockery.
Shallow, oh Shallow: how low can you go?