February 05, 2004
Various | Tokyo Calling |King Street | Japan
buy it
Some may say I've had a grudge against dance music ever since I caught dengue fever (not the band) at the full moon party on Ko Phangan. I categorically deny it. You might think I'm the kind of guy who sneers at the beautiful people. Not true! I love the beautiful people. Some of my best friends are beautiful! It's just... Why do beautiful people have to dance to such vapid music?
The packaging of Tokyo Calling: Deeper Shade of Lovely features numerous pictures of sexy, happy-looking people in skimpy outfits and wild costumes. The liner notes are promising: "Following an ideology of presenting music without borders, King Street has assembled a distinctive collection tempered with a colorful array of styles such as organic grooves, electronica, jazz, neo-soul, r&b, batucada, afro-latin rhythms, deep progressive house and jazz."
Unfortunately, this adds up to fifty ways to say "thump-thump-thump-thump." Only one track here (Yukihiro Fukutomi's subtle and pleasant broken beat outing "Expressions") avoids the straight house beat that has bludgeoned the beautiful for decades. One other track ("Star Suite," featuring diva Monday Michiru) actually incorporates harmonic ideas and non-stock chord changes, thus taking dance music all the way forward to the ideas of 70's Stevie Wonder.
But damn, the girls look good on this CD. They look so vivacious. No indie rock irony or funk hippie flailing or glitchy IDM asceticism or hip hop anger in sight. The beautiful people are doing it right. I just wish I could get into their music.