|
Here's an ego boost for the U.S. and U.K. English is actually considered hip
in Japanese pop & rock music. Songs are often titled in English, or a line
or two of the refrain might be in English, simply because it's hip and gives
their image a more modern sheen. Young Japanese often use English words in a
slang of their own invention. Their teachers and parents don't understand
it, and, in fact, neither would we.
Sometimes Japanese musicians themselves prefer to write their songs in
English, feeling that rock music should be sung in the language it was born
into, and they believe that it sounds best in English. Shonen Knife
sometimes wrote songs in Japanese, but more often wrote in English. Later in
their career, when their popularity in the West had created an interest and
following for them in Japan, they would translate some of their songs into
Japanese for their Japanese releases, but most of those songs were
originally written in English.
Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her were led by Aiha Higurashi, who up until
the band's last few releases wrote and sang all their songs in English. She
had spent time in London and New York previous to the trio's creation, and
her English was quite good, and provokingly, rather bold and
straightforward. Buffalo Daughter is another band that writes mainly in
English; and a band called Love Psychedelico, whose singer grew up in
California, rode the top of the Japanese pop charts a few years back by
singing songs that mixed Japanese and English phrases together almost half
and half.
|
