Aquarium (1997) - Aqua

A few reviews ago, I wrote that while I may come across like an insufferable hipster, my wider taste in music would debunk such a title, and that future reviews would aim to prove this point. Well, that time has come. I'm fully prepared to be stripped of any perceived trendiness, my taste to be questioned and my reputation tarnished, and you should be too. Because I, without the slightest hint of irony or guilt, actually rather like the music of Aqua, and I'm about to tell you why.

In 1997, Barbie Girl hit the airwaves and filtered through to the limited outlets accessible to 6-year-old me, which just goes to show how much of a mega-hit it was. Outside of the local bands, orchestral music and occasional 70's stuff that my parents listened to, I'd heard of Barbie Girl, two or three Spice Girls singles and was aware there was a band called Boyzone - until I started pursuing music on my own, this was really all I knew. And when you're a fledgling music enthusiast, knowing that you want to fly free of the acoustic nest your parents curated but not really knowing what the world has to offer, you gravitate to what little you recognise. I vividly remember being in a charity shop (Scope, if you wanted to know) in maybe 2001 and seeing the cassette tape of Aquarium up on a rack of pre-owned tapes for, I want to say, £1.50. I asked the volunteer to reach it down for me, even though I was taller than her (I knew she had a kick stool but she didn't use it). I was drawn to the bright colours, the band's eerie glow, and Lene's tall hair and bushy eyelashes, and the cartoony logo with the eye motif was very my kind of thing. I checked the back, recognised Barbie Girl and suppose I must have thought to myself, "I understand what this is". And that is the story of how I came to purchase my first album.

Similarly to how I feel regarding OPM's Menace To Sobriety, I don't believe my appraisal of the music is softened by nostalgia. If anything, I have a better appreciation now for the musicality of the more blatant schtick songs, which I definitely shunned quite early into my development, well aware that there was nothing 'cool' about listening to Barbie Girl in the 21st century. Ultimately, it's the quality that keeps me coming back, and you're about to see just how highly I regard it.

1. Good Morning Sunshine
2. Be A Man
3. Calling You
4. Doctor Jones
5. Roses Are Red
6. Lollipop (Candyman)
7. Happy Boys & Girls
8. Turn Back Time
9. Barbie Girl
10. My Oh My
11. Heat Of The Night

Total Points: 37/55
Average Score: 6.73

You might have noticed that this album has received my highest score yet. Given how my system works, it's very high indeed (I'd say anything above 6 is high, I certainly don't see anything breaking the 8 mark), and there's a part of me that feels a bit incredulous about this, even though I scored it myself and stand by my verdict, just because of the general consensus that Aqua are something of a gimmick band. Which isn't an unfounded myth - songs with subjects including a plastic doll, a fictional archeologist, and a medieval kingdom don't exactly make for a cultured listening experience. Combine with these singles goofy, slapstick music videos that exaggerate the band's wackiness and sense of humour, and it's easy to brush them off as a juvenile act that caters to only the most low-brow of audiences, probably containing more children than adults. But there's a lot more to the band, and this overarching tawdriness is, in fact, just the most pronounced of many concurrent facets they possess.

Before we look any closer, let's reinterpret their zaniness by declaring them self-aware, tongue-in-cheek entertainers who want to create positive music designed to be danced to and to put a smile on listener's faces. I don't think this is far fetched at all, and if this is the goal of their music (and its corresponding promotional videos), mission accomplished. Now, let's focus on some of the brilliant qualities Aqua have that often go overlooked. Firstly, Aquarium is one of the most flawlessly produced albums I've ever heard - not one note, whether sung, played or programmed, is misplaced or nonchalantly fumbled, and even though it's fair to call this an album of electronic music, it never feels overly mechanical or computerised. The record has a consistent, distinct flavour, remaining bright and slick but still incorporating a variety of timbres and moods - ranging from the familiar eurodance tropes of Roses Are Red to contemplative, wistful ballads like Turn Back Time, and even one (admittedly ill-judged) latin-influenced song. While future endeavours feel a little more detached from song to song, this record remains fluid (excuse the pun) and succinctly part of it's own bubble (excuse that pun too please). No track is laboured or excessively long; they are expertly judged by in-band production duo Søren Rasted and Claus Norreen to maintain the fit and feel of their vivid, caricature image during this era.

Aqua's greatest asset is, or should I say are, their lead vocalists, and the sheer contrast between them. Barbie Girl epitomises the extremes of this schism, with Lene's high-pitched, somersaulting voice feminised further still under the guise of Barbie, while René's gruff, baritone Ken provides a macho counterpoint full of swagger and attack that serves as the perfect yin to her yang. This polarity makes their vocals perfect for character acting, and we see it time and time again in the likes of My Oh My, Doctor Jones and Lollipop (Candyman), to name a few examples. René's contributions often err on the edge of rap, and fully take this form in the Middle 8 of my personal favourite track, Good Morning Sunshine. Strangely enough, it's the least cheesy he sounds on the entire album, helped in no small part by the ballad's lush, accessible but poetic imagery and velvet-rich yet relaxed tone - something I'm sure a lot of people would never have expected to be said about an Aqua song! For Lene, Aquarium acts as something of a showcase, giving her chance to really exercise her vocal elasticity. In addition to her trademark brazen soprano, she takes on a softer, more delicate approach in Be A Man, plays up her sugary intonation in Lollipop (Candyman), and shows she can be an absolute powerhouse when she belts out an almighty sustained note during the climax of Calling You.

Along with Good Morning Sunshine, Be A Man is a beautifully performed and vulnerable model of a 90's pop ballad, with the addition of glistening electric piano and expertly dispersed backing harmonies to add a cosy yet sparkling aura to the sound. One notable omission from the original album is Didn't I, a bonus track featured on many re-releases of Aquarium, and bumped up to part of the core tracklist on the 25th anniversary edition vinyl. Had this qualified, it would have been a third 5-pointer for me, notching the album up to an even higher overall score (an astounding 7.0). This song, an up-tempo dance track in their familiar euro flavour, is actually closer in subject matter to Aqua's more serious, slower songs, and takes full advantage of Lene's sweeping vocal ability. Their kitsch phenomenon Barbie Girl, corny and overplayed though it is, still deserves credit for how well assembled it is, as well as it's playful lyrics and sheer audacity. The only real flop is Heat Of The Night; it doesn't matter how big a pinch of salt you take the band with, this will always be cringe-inducing - as packed as it is with every imaginable Spanish stereotype, it feels more exploitative than inspired, and would definitely be inconceivable today.

I haven't set out to convince anyone to fall in love with this album - whereas with City Pop, I'm something of an advocate, when it comes to music like this, I just kind of accept that it's not for everyone, especially in 2022. You don't personally care for europop from the 1990's? That's fine. It's an acquired taste, I'll live. I suppose what I've really done here is written a defence for a band that has always been brushed off as a stunt, a group play-acting at being musicians, and have tried to quash this popular opinion as I feel it is unreflective of their true nature. To me, they're experts in their field, virtuosos of their art and dynamos of their time, and I know that tracks from this particular album will always snake their way onto my playlists, then, now and in years to come.

Sexy Robot (1983) - Hitomi 'Penny' Tohyama

Considering that one of my main goals with this blog was to find a way of integrating City Pop with my favourite western music, I think it's high time I looked at another record from that particular region and era. Sexy Robot by Hitomi 'Penny' Tohyama (who from now on, as her debut album implores, I'll just call 'Penny') is quite a different take on the broad and blurry-bordered umbrella term of City Pop when compared with the previously reviewed For You by Tatsuro Yamashita, but it is no less quintessential to the genre. It simply showcases another side of it - the roots and influences come from similar places, and ultimately both albums boil down to being outstanding products of the 1980's Japanese economic bubble. While busy exporting brands to the western world that we now consider household names, something of a cultural exchange was occurring without us ignorant westerners even noticing, with Japanese musicians borrowing from soul, disco, funk and pop, and infusing with it their own sensibilities and the latest technologies. The results were, as you may expect, both extremely varied and oftentimes very transparently referential. 

When you listen to certain (excuse the colloquialism, but I need to be frank) bangers from Sexy Robot, it's hard not to let a part of your mind guiltily think of the music as derivative. If you've ever lurked such dark and hostile corners of the internet as City Pop themed reddit pages, you'll have seen posts about how artists like Toshiki Kadomatsu have 'ripped off' forgotten 12" bass riffs from the 70's. You'll click on the link and listen, and think to yourself with immense reluctance, having thought your Japanese discovery was a work of original genius, "yeah, ok, that is almost identical actually". The most glaring parallel when it comes to Penny's music is Wanna Kiss, whose thudding bassline is the fraternal twin of Queen's Another One Bites The Dust. I didn't notice until I saw one of these obsequious posts pointing it out, the commenter almost salacious in trying to discredit Penny's song, and now the comparison has forever (admittedly, mildly) tainted Wanna Kiss in my mind as a known imitation, no matter how much I adore it and how much effort I can see has been put into making it unique and wonderful in its own right.

But here's the thing: who fucking cares? In addition to such melodramatic exposé-type posts on these often insufferable forums, largely kept aground by Gen Z-ers hiding behind excessive emojis and memes, you'll also find posts of 'new' music, praising acts like The Weekend for 'sampling' Tomoko Aran's Midnight Pretenders (sampling is an understatement, it's basically taking the track unaltered and singing over it) and 'bringing it to a new audience', as if the majority unfamiliar with Tomoko Aran's original track would even consider that he didn't come up with it himself. And you can guarantee they'll be the same people who prefer the 'slow and reverb' version of an Anri song, or gush about bootleggers like Macross 82-99's bare-minimum remixes of 80's tracks being passed off as their own work, without due credit to their original sources. In my opinion, these are far worse crimes than a bit of light musical imitation - these are bonafide regurgitations! I'd much rather listen to something independently generated from Japan that sounds a lot like (for example) Kiss by Prince than something that literally steals and recycles and bastardises a heartfelt article of musicianship and turns it into a mangled effigy of something that was once pure. I have no problem with sampling, but when the line is crossed and these lazy 'mixes' are passed off as new creations by new artists, it boils my blood. Especially when the whole movement is carried by zoomer trolls with moral compasses so warped by modern concepts like accountability and cancel-culture that they can't see any kind of evil or injustice that isn't bathed in a light of woke-ness.

Ok, rant over. Let's rank this shit!

1. Wanna Kiss
2. Let's Talk In Bed
3. We Are In The Dark
4. Tuxedo Connection
5. Be Mine
6. Sexy Robot
7. Cathy
8. Behind You
9. Try To Say
10. Slow Love

Total Points: 29/50
Average Score: 5.8

Before the advent of the compact disc, it wasn't uncommon for albums to be divided in theme by their sides of play. Overt examples are Kate Bush's Hounds Of Love or, to stay on theme, Mariya Takeuchi's Miss M. While not explicitly annotated as such, what would be 'side A' of Sexy Robot on vinyl or cassette is definitely the more upbeat, danceable half of a clear division, while the second half of the album is slower in pace and much more soulful. While both halves are smoothly but boldly rendered and certainly not disparate, the division itself between the two moods feels a little jarring. Also, the first part is just so much catchier and alive! Of course the slower, moodier side is going to waver somewhat after listening to the strutting, fun, outspoken flamboyance displayed across the first five tracks - there's no escaping this. And it's not a criticism as such, more just an observation, and something of a justification for why my ranking echoes the two halves of the record so closely, with just the middle-most two tracks saving the order from dividing the songs down the middle in the same two parts as the actual tracklist.

Putting any derivation aside, Wanna Kiss is still my top-rated track, and it's a blunt, booming spectacle of sophisticated, refined disco, brought up-to-date for the 80s, with a synth bass laying down the foundations for more experimental ancillary electronic fills. These sounds, by today's standards, are almost retro-futuristic, the wonky, artificial timbres verging on cute or humorous. But just before they reach the level of comical, they evoke the bygone era - that familiar safetynet of nostalgia for something you were never part of that City Pop manages to oh-so-often conjure - and you're transported to a time and a place where these quirks aren't quirks at all, but part of the biome of the music. Along with Wanna Kiss, the confident yet coquettish, partially rapped Let's Talk In Bed carries a kind of restrained sparseness in its musical arrangement, foreshadowing the conventions of modern-day r&b. Reinforcing their western inspiration, songs such as this one and Tuxedo Connection use English lyrics to punctuate the cosmopolitan soundscape with references to alcohol and sexual attraction, selling the record as a soundtrack to a hedonistic and aspirational lifestyle, exemplary of the aforementioned economic bubble long before it was due to burst.

Penny's voice matches the music well - there's something a little ham-fisted about the way she sings, exuberant and verging on brassy, but a gentler or more restrained singer would risk being overshadowed by all of the cutting-edge synths and such. By competing with the instrumentation a little, her voice's boldness wins out and actually reinforces the prevalent themes of confidence and frivolity, and her decisive, expressive phrasing makes sure the spotlight remains on her vocals. That said, she's never uncompromising to the point of being detrimental; when a mellower vocal is needed, such as for the silken and understated We Are In The Dark or one of the more heartfelt tracks in the second half, she is able to rein it in and channel her power into emotion. Penny's voice, to me, feels more typical of a musical theatre or cabaret singer than someone making pop records. But her personality and its placement within the bubble-era zeitgeist is what makes it work, and the result is an unorthodox but striking sound that really distinguishes her from her 1980's peers.

With all the fandango around electronics and drum machine, the music can, at stages, feel a little clumpy and overly automated. The title track suffers from this in particular; despite its distinctive hook and zealous vocal performance, the four bars of solo drum machine at the 2:13 mark do it zero favours, tipping the balance from state-of-the-art sophistication to sounding like it was homemade on a primitive home computer and saved onto a floppy disc. Luckily, the virtuoso guitar and key contributions throughout, from the likes of multiple other City Pop dignitaries such as Makoto Matsushita and Hiroyuki Nanba, bring the music back down to earth and, alongside Penny's singing, insert some much-needed corporeality into what could easily have been quite a robotic affair. Of all the album's offerings, I found Slow Love to be the weakest - assumedly some kind of relaxed, modern take on Motown, but bumbling and quite diluted, and not suited to Penny's ability to bring the levels of drama achieved in the comparably epic closer Be Mine, or any of the funky jams from the first half.

 

It can sometimes be difficult to know where to start with certain artists, especially when it comes to City Pop, with Penny herself having made too many albums to count on both hands, and a lot of her repertoire similar in flavour. Sexy Robot feels perhaps the most exemplary of her vivacious, flirty, courageous side, and is definitely the harder hitting sibling of her other 1983 release Next Door, which touches on these strengths but pulls several of its punches and feels a little 'naff' at times. This overarching cheapness is something that does unfortunately find its way into other examples of Penny's work, but is largely avoided when she opts for a more acoustic accompaniment (see Just Call Me Penny and Five Pennys). However, with these albums, her unique brand of charismatic, girly confidence is lacking, and the themes of luxury and pleasure-seeking take a backseat. Only with Sexy Robot are all of Penny's biggest strengths able to be experienced without compromise, making it the perfect entry level album to help decide what in her discography to explore next.

I know I spent a little longer on this review than others (not least because I got sidetracked by my resentment of modern appropriation of my favourite musical genre) but hopefully it has been informative and beguiling and not just fanatic rambling. I think it's pretty obvious from the length and depth I went into, as well as the sheer quantity of hyperlinks to discogs pages, that this is something of an area of passion for me. If it inspires anyone to listen to some City Pop, for the first time or the umpteenth, or even just piques your interest or sets off a spark somewhere in your brain, then I am happy.