NEXT LEVEL album tracks now available on dwango.jp! (interludes revealed)

[SunshineSlayer]

Originally Posted by Uemarasan

If Ayu wanted to follow current trends in Japanese music and sell well, she would put out pop R&B (Thelma Aoyama and Exile) or urban pop (Namie Amuro) or gimmicky pop (Hexagon) or even boyband pop (maybe she could get her backup dancers to be an Ayu boyband? Ayurashi?). You seem to be forgetting that electro-pop is past its expiry date in Japan, having peaked during the euro-pop of the late 90s/early 00s

No its not.(past its expiration date) Eurodance and this type of pop are very different. And btw, the peak period for the Euro dance/pop sound in Japan was the early to mid 90s. Aoyama Thelma is turning out to be a one hit wonder (unfortunately). Koda and Namie are both doing the electro pop thing these days and Perfume obviously is huge. A lot of artists are starting to incorporate the Perfumy kind of sound. And an even larger amount of western artists have recently or are currently doing the same type of style. It's certainly not something new or anywhere near revolutionary at all.

And am I the only one that doesn't quite see any similarity between this album and loveappears other than that they both encorporate techno elements? For me, Loveappears is a totally different sound than this.

[Tom Punks]

Originally Posted by SunshineSlayer

And am I the only one that doesn't quite see any similarity between this album and loveappears other than that they both encorporate techno elements? For me, Loveappears is a totally different sound than this.

It's not just you, I don't get the LOVEppears comparisons either. Then again, I haven't listened to all of the previews, but nothing about this album has ever reminded me of LOVEppears in the least bit. @_@

[Uemarasan]

Originally Posted by SunshineSlayer

No its not.(past its expiration date) Eurodance and this type of pop are very different. And btw, the peak period for the Euro dance/pop sound in Japan was the early to mid 90s. Aoyama Thelma is turning out to be a one hit wonder (unfortunately). Koda and Namie are both doing the electro pop thing these days and Perfume obviously is huge. A lot of artists are starting to incorporate the Perfumy kind of sound. And an even larger amount of western artists have recently or are currently doing the same type of style. It's certainly not something new or anywhere near revolutionary at all.

And am I the only one that doesn't quite see any similarity between this album and loveappears other than that they both encorporate techno elements? For me, Loveappears is a totally different sound than this.

Scratch what I said. Eurodance/euro-pop/eurobeat peaked in Japan in the mid to late 90s, and maybe a bit of 2000-2001. I forgot about Super Monkeys. But the early 90s were definitely NOT euro-pop. Maybe shibuya-kei. Euro-pop hit its stride when the Para Para game came out, Avex capitalized on the upcoming trend, and club-going entered the mainstream.

Koda's still pushing the R&B/urban sound mostly, although I doubt Ayu would look to her for inspiration for this album since the girl is on her way down down down. I think Namie still manages to retain her urban sound. Her music's increasingly becoming more dance pop, but there is a world of difference between her urban dance pop and the techno-pop of Sparkle. Too bad about Thelma (she is still part of the R&B trend), but Miliyah Kato's hanging in there for R&B.

The only major Japanese artist close to Ayu's techno sound is, as I said, Perfume, but having just one artist do that kind of music does not constitute a trend.

Music listening is a subjective art after all. Anyway, we don't even know how Next Level will sound like (since the other tracks haven't even been released yet in any form), but speculating on what we have so far, I find many similarities. For instance: Whatever and Sparkle. They don't sound alike exactly, but structurally they are very close and share a lot of musical elements. Next Level (the track) has the upbeat, driving sound of Trauma, Too Late, and Immature, Rule has the heavy bass of PSII and monochrome, Green has the Asian sound of End Roll, and Days is in the same league as Love refrain and Who. The one distinct element in LOVEppears (the relentless, restless techno-like pacing) is apparent in all the Next Level tracks available so far, even Days. But again, it's all subjective.

Madonna isn't doing dance pop anymore (Confessions was so long ago). With Hard Candy, she's doing retro urban. Still, Ayu isn't selling to the Western market, so why take up that trend? It's not even selling or doing that well in Japan, Western-artist wise.

So let me just reiterate my stance: techno-pop is no longer a trend in Japan. Urban dance pop is. The euro-pop of the 90s/00s evolved into the techno-pop trend of the early 00s, the biggest selling representative album being Ayu's LOVEppears. Then R&B/J-urban picked up and evolved into urban dance pop, which is the biggest trend now. And then we have Ayu (with the release of Sparkle) reaching back to her euro-/techno-pop roots and here we have Next Level. Hope I'm clear this time.

[SunshineSlayer]

Originally Posted by Uemarasan

Scratch what I said. Eurodance/euro-pop/eurobeat peaked in Japan in the mid to late 90s, and maybe a bit of 2000-2001. I forgot about Super Monkeys. But the early 90s were definitely NOT euro-pop. Maybe shibuya-kei. Euro-pop hit its stride when the Para Para game came out, Avex capitalized on the upcoming trend, and club-going entered the mainstream.

And see I disagree. Parapara may have been a popular underground trend, but there weren't a lot of big selling parapara albums in comparison to other genres. The mid 90s were definitely THE time for euro-pop. By the time LOVEppears came out, the trend then actually was R&B (with singers like Utada, Kuraki, and MISIA being huge). So actually when LOVEppears came out, it was going against the trend. Whereas now, Next Level is going with the trend.

The only case of R&B music selling well these days is EXILE and I think their sales have more to do with them being a boyband than it does with them doing R&B. Lord knows there are a ton of R&B style artists in Japan that don't sell hardly at all.

Originally Posted by Uemarasan

For instance: Whatever and Sparkle. They don't sound alike exactly, but structurally they are very close and share a lot of musical elements. Next Level (the track) has the upbeat, driving sound of Trauma, Too Late, and Immature, Rule has the heavy bass of PSII and monochrome, Green has the Asian sound of End Roll, and Days is in the same league as Love refrain and Who. The one distinct element in LOVEppears (the relentless, restless techno-like pacing) is apparent in all the Next Level tracks available so far, even Days. But again, it's all subjective.

I totally don't think any of those sound anything like each other.