On my YouTube feeds, this pops up. No surprise since the Google algorithm is overheated with my current BABYMETAL foxhole trawl. There's nothing I can say about this clip, other than that it demonstrates the chaos when a supporting cast decides to upstage the performance -- except that this character in the foam suit IS the performance.
Introducing Nyango Star. Apparently, this insanity stems from a dead cat whose spirit is reborn inside an apple. Visually, the suit is, in fact, a mashup of a cat face forcibly grafted on an apple, but where do the mad drumming skills come from? First, apple in Japanese is 'ringo', and the sound a cat makes, 'meow' in English, is 'nyan' in Japanese. So the fusion of Nyan-go for the first name. But Star? There's a big mystery around who the person in the suit could be, as that's never been revealed. While I have no guesses as to who it might be, I can guess the inspiration behind the name and how it all fits together. Do any non-boomers remember the drummer for the Beatles, Ringo Starr? Now think of him as a cat-apple mutant heavy metal drummer. There you go!
I watched a different version of the video I'm sharing here. The one I did watch disturbed me for quite a while because it seemed so dark. We hear the crowd chanting "death" over and over again, and I couldn't fathom any reason for their rabid fanbase to wish them such ill. In the video I watched, SU gets crucified at some point in the item, much to the delight of the audience, and all I could do was stare, mouth agape. What. The. Heck.
The song, if that's what it is, begins with a sombre dirge over a disconcerting projected narration for which I have no translation. The girls enter wielding Sith lightsabres to a sped up execution drum beat. They take strategic points on stage and cheerlead the crowd in spelling out B-A-B-Y-M-E-T-A-L, commencing the "death" chant.
The girls then introduce themselves in turn: "SU-METAL desu", "YUIMETAL desu", "MOAMETAL desu", and then the realization hits. The whole thing is based on a terrible dad joke of a pun. "Desu" (I am) is pronounced "des", and when lisped, "death". That explains MOA's odd way of introducing herself in interviews sometimes, when instead of saying "desu," she sticks her tongue out between her teeth, turning the "s" sound into a "th" sound, which I thought was a bit strange.
It turns out that this song is usually their opening number, and it fulfills a number of functions. First, there are no melodic vocals, which gives focus to the band and its instruments, leaving no doubt that we are at a metal concert featuring blistering metal music. Right from the get-go, the crowd is amped up and already interacting with the performance, setting a pace and rhythm that is easy and compelling to follow. The chant of "death" sets a horror tone invoking the sort of fun, Halloweeny atmosphere this show thrives on.
The girls aren't just introducing themselves with their names, but are ritually casting off their everyday forms of Suzuka Nakamoto, Yui Mizuno, and Moa Kikuchi, and transforming themselves into the powerful beings of SU-METAL, YUIMETAL, and MOAMETAL respectively. Think of it as a dark Sailor-Moon type transformation sequence. Their final pose is crossed forearms over face, fingers of both hands making the fox-sign. Megitsune masks on, they are ready to engage their fans in another butt-kicking 'live' performance.
And in case you are still curious about the crucifixion thing, long story short, it's SU celebrating her 16th birthday like a drama queen. I mean, why not?
To be honest, this song wan't on my list for review, but it triggered an unexpected memory for me from a long time ago that I decided to make a record of it.
This performance of 'Awadama Fever' opens with Kami band's super impressive solos getting the audience hyped and rockin'. Enter the girls, their vocals effortlessly slicing through the thumping beat. The song title translates to 'bubble' (awa) 'ball' (dama), so it's a song about being carried away in a bubble gum bubble. To get around the physics of bubble gum being heavier than air, flight is achieved by unlocking the power of dreams. Quite a Studio Ghibli conceit, and clearly a fun one for performers, musicians and the crowd to create the fantasy together. Ah, yay!
There's a lot more mime I observe in this dance. The girls' arms form the shape of the bubble, their hands shape the secret box, turn the locks, open the door, and I'm sure there a fox and sox in there somewhere too (says the voice of Zeuss). The recurring image is the giant bubble the girls maneuver around the stage, taking it anywhere, or maybe it's taking them as they 'ride on the wind'. They even mime the sensation of being lighter than air during the instrumental bridge.
I'm speculating that 'Awadama Fever' is an updated, upbeat, metallized version of the traditional children's song, 'Shabondama', or soap bubble in English. The two songs have the same idea, of ephemeral bubbles floating upwards on the wind, except that the latter focuses more pessimistically on the fragility of the vehicle and briefness of the flight, while BABYMETAL is more excited about the prospect of flying on dream-powered bubbles, even if it lasts only as long as an hour-long nap. Po! Po!
I'm not sure how far back the 'traditional' song goes, as I believe soap to be a fairly recent invention, but at least old enough for my dad to have learned it as a child, and in turn, he taught it to me when I, too, was little. Learning this song in Japanese school was probably one of my dad's more pleasant memories of the Occupation. It stayed with him at least long enough to pass it on to me, though I had since forgotten it over time. And now I have a reawakened memory, recently unlocked from my secret box of forgotten things. A 'mint-flavoured time machine' indeed.
Welcome to early BABYMETAL, really a reference point as to how much the band has grown up and into the performers who released their fourth album just a month ago. This video release is ten years old, but even then it already features quite some quality production values for its time.
The concept fusing bubblegum pop with heavy metal instrumentation shouldn't have worked. It's crazy making the headline performers be younger than the legal age allowed at the venues they are performing in (assuming alcohol is being served). It makes no sense to have children's voices leading the brutal accompaniment, and definitely no business turning the whole thing into this addictive, cutesy, feel-good fusion of metal, rap, and pop all thrown into this delicious, incongruous sonic rojak (spicy mixed salad) of a song. It works so well, and the big mystery with BABYMETAL and their penchant for experimenting with genres like a mad scientist pouring test-tubes of multi-coloured chemicals into each other to find the most explosive combos is HOW does it work?
In this video, the Halloween theme does a lot to bridge the gap. In the midst of a face-melting opening riff, the girls emerge from the depths, lurching to a zombie rave before reverting to their 'human' selves, singing about how difficult it is to get up in the morning, yet being all excited to grow up and see what life has to offer. Maybe they shouldn't have been partying all night in you-know-where, then.
Musically, the swapping between the genres should have been jarring, if not for the instrumental transitions that skillfully smooth and blend the disparate styles so seamlessly that each has its time to shine. The metal packs a solid punch, the rap sounds bright and light in contrast to the metal, the pre-chorus builds anticipation (musically and lyrically), and the pop chorus lifts the spirit as much as it lifts the feet. This song deserves to be everyone's wake-up alarm -- who wouldn't want a dopamine hit first thing in the morning?
But the secret ingredient that makes the whole thing work is... work. We know the band is already seriously accomplished, but the girls aren't just freshly picked off the street. SU, MOA, and YUI have been in training to be professional entertainers for years even before this video got put together. Naturally gifted, yes, but also putting in hours of after-school training, rehearsals, and performances both 'live' and on music video as members of Sakura Gakuin, which is whole 'nother rabbit hole to explore.
BABYMETAL works because each component member could very well have their own highly successful solo career, but their choice to synergise their strengths instead, learning and growing together over these years, fully committed to developing BABYMETAL as a legit sub-genre in itself is how something that shouldn't work works. And the world is a much better place for it.
Time to give the Kami band some attention. About half this song is taken by the instrumentalists' solos, and each one demonstrates very impressive abilities. Intricate fretwork from the dueling harmonized electric guitarists, and featuring one of a tiny handful of 6-string bass guitarists in Japan, and an incredibly fast drummer double-kicking double bass drums in double time. A very basic but totally skillful metal band without a doubt.
The song is 'Catch Me If You Can', based on the game of hide-and-seek (kakurenbo), except that the girls seem to be playing with an Oni, the seeker, who calls out "are you ready?" in a monstrous growl. The dance is choreographed to be cute and funny. The run movement is exaggerated to look like manga/anime running, taking gigantic steps with the trailing foot high in the air. While YUI and MOA play, SU stands in for the seeker, but when her vocals kick in, she becomes a player too.
Characteristic of BABYMETAL, the J-pop sound over metal is insanely catchy, the chorus yet another of the band's earworms that sticks in the head for days. The combination of feel-good music, plus the entire band's commitment and joy in what they do hits my emotional triggers in ways no other music has before. One song can make me grin from ear to ear, and another brings tears to my eyes, sometimes even both at the same time, and I can't understand why. As SU-METAL likes to say, "don't think, feel". So I suppose there is no explanation for it.
Yet I can't help but think a little deeper. If this were just J-pop, or pop in general, I would have blown it off as cute, but I wouldn't have dwelt on this song as much as I have. It's the metal that puts in the edge, the darkness, giving me a tiny feeling that there's more to this song than it appears.
It makes me reflect on my own mortality. After all, aren't we playing hide-and-seek with Death as long as we are alive? But Death is not scary, just inevitable, and he is patient. He calls out "Ooo... moo ikai, moo ikai?" to which we reply "Madda da yo!", and it's a fun game. As long as we're alive, there's no reason not to have fun. Even if we fall over, we don't cry because we are strong kids, and we can't wait to go another round.
The red shoes SU references are a bit of a puzzler. It apparently refers to a folktale about a child wearing red shoes who got kidnapped by a foreigner and is taken away on a ship, never to return again. To which I interpret as SU's advice to not do anything stupid and invite Death to cut short the game prematurely. An anti-self-harm, anti-suicide message embedded in this cheeky little number, perhaps? Knowing BABYMETAL's positivity, I wouldn't be surprised.
Edit: I hadn't noticed it before, but this song ends on the refrain, "madda da yo", meaning "not yet", and the final movement looks like a beautiful heart seizure over a drumbeat and bass note fading gradually to silence. Nobody is ready to meet their inevitable end, are they? Which makes the point about the red shoes a lot more poignant, now I think about it.
