Thanks, Japan!

I was listening to the new Britney Spears CD on my way to work the other day (because that's just how I roll). I browsed through the liner notes and couldn't find one song that she actually wrote or even co-wrote. Though I have no way of knowing this, I would imagine that someone calls her up in the morning and says "Hey Britney, it's time to record an album." She rolls out of bed and drags herself to the studio where someone hands her the lyrics, teaching her the tune, and tells her how to sing it. She lays down the track. They auto-tune it and voila! a new Britney record.

It seems weird for a musician to be so disconnected or uninvolved with her own music. Its one thing to sing someone else's lyrics about universal topics like love or the dance floor, but it seems strange to have someone hand you the words you're supposed to be thinking. (i.e. "I’m Mrs. ‘Most likely to get on the TV for slippin’ on the streets/When getting the groceries, no, for real") Weird. It's also gross when mother of two sings "I just wanna take it off, I just wanna take it off." Leave it on, please!

All of this brings me to my experience with Japan. I ran into the myspace page of a Japanese artist called Alone Together the other day. I was interested in the piano protege vs. spastic japanitechno vibe but much more intrigued by this statement:

My wish is to have many people in the world listen to my music.
If you need my CD, please send an E-mail to myspace email or my hotmail.
I send CD for you.
A money is not necessary.
THIS CD IS FREE .
(If you write your address on an E-mail, I send a CD for you soon.)

So I sent my address. Just a couple of days later I got a package from Japan (the cardboard CD sleeve is shown above) with a personal note from Yuki himself. It's cool to see a guy who's willing to shell out shipping costs to anywhere in the world just so people will check out his tunes.

Yuki is a very talented artist. However, the EP felt the musical equivalent of those Japanese cartoons that give American kids seizures. I'd like to give it a few more spins, but I think I might turn into an epileptic. That said, I can't get enough of the opening track, Human Beings. Very Awesome.

So, Britney Spears, if you don't get your act together and work a little harder, this is going to be the new face of American pop music.



Human Beings [MP3]