AKB48 Minus One
Major news breaking this morning as AKB48, the outsized J-pop unit that even has its own theater in Tokyo, has fired Ayaka Kikuchi from their lineup. I’m not a fan (actually, I’ve never heard a note of their music and I’m sure some folks would say I’m missing out) but this news still made me say whoa (as did the fact that Tokyograph, a frequent news source for J-Pop bloggers, actually linked to IntlWota and one of its member sites – nice job, guys!).
With such a large lineup (albeit often split into three smaller groups), I have to wonder if the departure, forced or otherwise (six members have already graduated from the group), actually affects the makeup of the band in any way. When someone graduates from Morning Musume, the effect is obvious at first with the next single to come out after the member’s departure, but the band adapts relatively quickly and continues to make high-quality music. I wonder if someone separating from AKB48 would be as noticeable as a member or two leaving a symphony orchestra – again, though, I’m not familiar with AKB48′s music so I personally don’t know for sure. I am sure, however, that like with Morning Musume, when a favorite member departs it’s a sad day for their fans. I’m sure that Cat at the AKB48 blog Aitakatta! is taking it hard – the news that Kikuchi had been caught had already upset her before today’s news broke. Being a longtime MoMusu fan, I can’t help but sympathize with AKB48 fans in an instance such as this.
Whether AKB48′s handlers are looking to be more hardcore than Up-Front Works regarding the personal lives of their contracted talent is up for debate – members have already stated in interviews long before today’s news broke that having boyfriends while being a member of the band is prohibited. It will be interesting to see if (god forbid) any of the older members gets in worse trouble for following an Aibon-esque path in their offstage lives.
ETA: Ouch. They sure moved fast. Her picture’s been ripped off of the wall at their theatre (thanks to Julia for the pic):
Dawning Of A New Era
So, what exactly led to me starting over after two and a quarter years at Stuck In A Pagoda?
Well, one of the biggest reasons is the name itself. Stuck In A Pagoda With Motoko Aoyama is a cool title. I used it for a mix CD of traditional Japanese music that I posted at Art of the Mix several years ago, it was the title I semi-facetiously gave my LiveJournal when I started to use it regularly, and it was, for me anyway, a combination of my two biggest musical loves – punk rock and Japanese pop. (The old blog’s title is a parody of a Dickies song from their second LP, replacing the original’s titular heroine [a real-life Los Angeles newscaster] with my favorite Love Hina character.)
But the title has really restricted me of late. There is a lot more music that I want to comment on, and while I have done so in the past (an account of a Bon Jovi stadium concert I was dragged to in 2006 comes to mind), writing about other mainstream music didn’t completely jibe with my loving scrawls about the latest Morning Musume single, my anticipation for the Stooges’ first American tour since 1974, or anything else I normally covered at Stuck In A Pagoda.
In short, I needed to do my usual insanity and then some under a less restrictive name – but for weeks, couldn’t think of any.
And that is when my pre-ordered copy of Berryz Koubou’s Yuke Yuke Monkey Dance arrived and I saw what was written on Miyabi Natsuyaki’s T-shirt. I ran to GoDaddy.com and registered thegroovemusiclife.com before someone else beat me to it. That took five minutes.
Deciding on a design for the blog took longer. It wasn’t until the other day that I found a theme that I liked – so much so that I may be using the design for another new blog that I will debut next week (one even more specific than So Hot She Shits Fire, which will never change as in that case, you can’t really mess with perfection) as well as for the static version of Stuck In A Pagoda sometime later.
So, here’s the basic mission behind The Groove Music Life:
- I’m still going to write about Japanese pop.
- I’m still going to write about punk and alternative rock.
But I’m also going to:
- Write about any other pop or rock music that I choose.
- Continue my exploration of older Japanese musics. (Simply put, The Vinyl Pagoda Project is going to continue, name and all – I’m even going to port the older entries from Stuck In A Pagoda, dates and all, when the next installment goes up late Thursday or early Friday.)
Some other changes:
- Pagoda Video and The Pagoda Five will become Groove Music Video and The Groove Music Five
- No more picking on the Spice Girls and/or Miley Cyrus. I’ve already proved my point.
- There will be more reviews. As a matter of fact, I want to have at least three up before the end of next week.
Some things that will continue on from Stuck In A Pagoda:
- The Morning Musume/J-Pop In America series. I have been plotting further installments in this series since March; other writing activities, including the completion of Here Is The Wonderland, have been taking precedence (and that novel is still a top priority, as is making writing my sole source of income.)
- The LolIdols series, I Can Has J-Pop? (And I welcome ideas for that as well from readers).
…and one thing that might not continue.
- The Pagoda Podcast.
Obviously, the name won’t fit in with this new blog’s expanded vision. But the other, more important reason is, I don’t have the time right now. Putting a podcast together is a pain in the fucking ass, and even though I have a talent for audio editing, I’d rather be using that time to write. I also got no feedback from that second episode, and even though I started to put playlists for two more episodes together, I decided to put the idea of a podcast on hold. Maybe someday I’ll do a new podcast, but as of this writing I don’t see it happening.
So, in short, this little black duck needed a reboot, and this is it.
Now let’s have some fun – I sure intend to.
