Japan, fantastic Japan
I've just been on vacation in Tokyo, Japan for two weeks. It was my second time there; my first time was one year ago, April 2006. I had dreamt of Japan since 1994, when I started loving and getting to know lots of Swedish indie bands that became popular in Japan during the 90's.
I specifically remember a New Year's Day after celebrating New Year's Eve in Linköping with Jennie Medin, singer in Cloudberry Jam, when Cloudberry Jam got up early after the party to leave for a tour of Japan, leaving me and Jennie's then boyfriend Emil to clean up the apartment in an extremely jealous hang-over. We tried to cheer up by listening non-stop to McAlmont & Butler's great single "Yes" and watching "Ivanhoe" on tv (that's always on on New Year's Day in Sweden), but we both dreamed of going with them to Japan; where the people loved the same great Swedish bands that we did, where they pick up on trends and make them their own faster than anywhere else, where everybody and everything is soooo much cooler than in Sweden...
Last year I realised that I could actually afford going to Tokyo, so I and my boyfriend booked a trip and went, and it was the absolute coolest thing I've ever done. So why not go again? No reason at all, so we went to the land of cherry-blossoms one more time.
During the 90's there were, like I mentioned, lots of Swedish indie bands that were popular in Japan - most of them might not have sold loads of albums, but to sell a few thousand albums in Japan was a lot more than many of them could ever hope of selling in Sweden with a population of then just 8 million people. This did though create both jealousy and the untrue rumour that the Japanese were kind of stupid and bought whatever crap as long as it came from Sweden. I remember the Brainpool singer Janne Kask saying some utterly brainless comment in a magazine: "The Japanese would buy any music if you put a blond girl with a herring in her hand on the cover" - only because Brainpool failed to hit in Japan. I think that was proof enough that the Japanese did not fall for everything Swedish, but actually chose carefully what music was good enough and what wasn't.
This Swedish wave sent Swedish bands to Japan, but also the other way around: Japanese artists came to Sweden, particularly Malmö, to record their albums. Why Malmö? Because of Eggstone, who were popular in Japan, and who have their own studio Tambourine Studios in Malmö, where The Cardigans (even more popular in Japan) recorded their albums (hence the Eggstone epithet Godfathers of Swedish indie).
And not only artists came to Malmö: Japanese tourists more or less pilgrimaged to Tambourine Studios to touch the legendary walls.
One of the artists that have recorded numerous times in Tambourine is Hideki Kaji, who I'd met just there a few years ago, so we met up in Tokyo - he lives in London nowadays, but was home in Tokyo for a few weeks to promote his new album. I really like his music, and will try to get some of it on Musicbrigade.
I also met up with Jennie and Jörgen from Cloudberry Jam, who have actually reformed after their break-up in the late 90's, to release albums and tour in Japan only - not in Sweden.
And when we sang karaoke together with some Japanese friends, me and Sohoko sang The Cardigans "Lovefool". New Swedish bands are still getting the opportunity to go to Japan, and I am still jealous!
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