Pop Culture Tuesdays

This is the start of what will (hopefully) be a regular feature on this blog. Every Tuesday a post will be dedicated to some aspect of Japanese Pop/Mass Culture; music, fashion, society, whatever. Some posts will be lengthy and offer some sort of background or explanation on the subject, while others will just be a music video or picture--it depends on my motivation and whether I feel I have any business talking at length about the subject.

Why Tuesday you ask?

Because we all know Tuesday is the shittiest day of the week, that's why.

So, let's get started!

It only seems appropriate to begin a series on Japanese mass/pop culture with a band that I believe epitomizes not just Japanese pop culture, but Pop Culture in general.

Pop Culture is easy, mind-numbing, pretty, fast, and generally pleasant, and so is the visual kei band 'SuG'.

Please don't think this post is me validating the music of SuG--it certainly isn't, their music is catchy, but it's also sickeningly simplistic and saccharine. I don't respect them for their musical ability, but for their (I believe conscious) charge to become Pop Culture personified. The band melds all elements of Pop Culture; its fashion, music, and aesthetic, and for that I definitely do respect SuG. This song in particular also has that underlying tinge of nostalgia and synthetic-ness (in the form of the vocals) that is characteristic of Pop Culture.

The other alternative is that the band is simply a passive product of the evolution of Pop Culture, rather than being one of the pioneers at the frontier of the evolution. That is an impossible question to answer, and this is a post dedicated to Pop Culture, so thinking about such Chicken-and-The-Egg questions is way out of line.

Anyway, without further delay, Pop Culture personified: SuG.

(Do yourself the favor and only watch the first 40 seconds, I think you'll get the idea.)