Cornelius: Classic or Dud?

He incorporates diverse elements really well - esp. the Beach Boys harmonies and oceanic my bloody valentine guitars - but it's ultimately post-modernist pastiche calculated to appeal to people who like spotting fashionable influences. Takes all the fun at of it. A perfect little self-conscious art project, but bloodless. Like Beck without the songwriting skills.

He's too talented to be a complete dud, but far too precious to be classic. Maybe he'll find his voice and blow us all away.

I think "Fantasma" sounded insanely good as of its release, sounds occasionally grating as of now, and will return to sounding brilliant in a few years' time. In fact, I'd venture that it was *so good* that it forever killed the whole cheeky-pop-electronic-pastiche genre --- I can't think of a single record in that vein that I've really, really enjoyed since "Fantasma." This is why it grates a bit now --- a bit like getting off a fantastic rollercoaster and knowing you don't want to do anything like that again for a few hours --- and that is why, when the I-so-sick-of-beepy-Japanese-stuff dust clear, it'll still stand tall. The first three tracks alone are worth a fortune.

Has anyone devoted any time to finding Cornelius's earlier material? The first record by Flipper's Guitar has a certain cloying charm, even if the production feels like it's going to rot your teeth . . . and the very J-pop Cornelius records just prior to "Fantasma" are interesting as well.

I think "Fantasma" sounded insanely good as of its release, sounds occasionally grating as of now, and will return to sounding brilliant in a few years' time. In fact, I'd venture that it was *so good* that it forever killed the whole cheeky-pop-electronic-pastiche genre --- I can't think of a single record in that vein that I've really, really enjoyed since "Fantasma." This is why it grates a bit now --- a bit like getting off a fantastic rollercoaster and knowing you don't want to do anything like that again for a few hours --- and that is why, when the I-so-sick-of-beepy-Japanese-stuff dust clear, it'll still stand tall. The first three tracks alone are worth a fortune.

Has anyone devoted any time to finding Cornelius's earlier material? The first record by Flipper's Guitar has a certain cloying charm, even if the production feels like it's going to rot your teeth . . . and the very J-pop Cornelius records just prior to "Fantasma" are interesting as well..

Not to imply that you're necessarily wrong about this, or that you mean it in "the wrong way," but I must admit I've always been really, really suspicious of these kinds of "self- conscious," "soulless," "over-intellectualizing," or "taking the fun out of it" arguments. They all amount to saying "this goes too far" - -- which is a damn tough argument to make, as it implies that the music *you* listen to contains the exact right balance of self- consciousness versus un-self-consciousness, or intellectualizing versus non-intellectualizing. And then couldn't some fan of Yoruba percussion come along and level the same arguments at you? "Oh, these Beatles, so soulless and self-conscious that it's just not fun anymore!"

Further, the no-fun-anymore argument makes the huge assumption that the person making it knows more about what makes music "fun" than anyone else --- it ignores the fact, for instance, that the level of pastiche on "Fantasma" may *itself* be what makes Cornelius' music fun to his fans, or that, to listeners who prefer intellectualization to balls-out rock, saying something is "over-intellectualized" is like telling a metalhead his favorite band "rocks too much."

That said, I do completely see how the comment applies to Cornelius. I'd offer, though, that at the points where those qualities got really ridiculous --- "Magoo Opening" or "2010" --- that was sort of what was *impressive* about the record, what made it striking and what will make it stand out as worth mention ten or twenty years from today. (You can imagine the stoned obscurists: "This was released back in *99*? Dude, this is some *crazy* shit!") And further, I'd argue that most portions of the record were solid in that the hyper tone was barely a gloss, only a slight tweak in the presentation of what were, in the end, fantastic, organic, and down-to-earth pop songs. "New Music Machine?"

And don't even get me started on the criminally *over*-rated Beck.

Fantasma blew me away, and after listening to it nonstop for about a month, i had to put it away for another month... when i pulled it out again, i loved it even more. i tracked down all of the old stuff, including flipper's guitar... of all of his releases, 69/96 is my least fave, but i love the remix version, 96/69. his beastie boys pastiche did not work very well, if you ask me. i have a soft spot for First Question Award, the first Cornelius album, because it makes me nostalgic for a time i didn't enjoy that much, and it leaves me with the slightest feeling of melancholy... i often hear that tinge of melancholy in the album as well. i think the remix work he's done is fabulous... particularly the money mark, blur, and pastels mixes.

i saw him live at Matador's "Everything is Nice" 10 year anniversary show in NYC... i ended up missing the last ferry to get back into NJ, and had to spend $30 on a cab to get to my car... it was well worth it. the show was so much fun. it wasn't the best show i've seen (that would be mouse on mars during the niun niggung tour @ Irving Plaza), but Cornelius's show was definately one of the best. from what i've read on Momus's website, his next LP is going to be excellent.

basically, i can only get into his albums when in the right mood, but i think he's definately talented. fantasma was a great example of a man in total grasp of the studio as instrument concept, and from what i understand, the new LP is almost sample-free. the man obviously loves music and sound in general, and if nothing else comes across in his music, that certainly does.

I totally agree. I adore that album. It doesn't sound at all hollow to me. My favourite album of that year (1998). A big !

I think Cornelius' pop potential peaked in-between the release of Fantasma in 1997 and his recording of 'Lazy' in 1999. There's a whole school of thought in Japan behind borrowing the art of others while bringing in your own skills to bear (and another for outright imitation) and musically speaking, Keigo rode that one out during that whole 2 year period, not to mention that he'd been doing this since 1989 anyway. There's some excellent pieces on Cornelius and the Shibuya-Kei movement of old at Tokyo-transplanted US pop musician Marxy's website/blog http://neomarxisme.com/ that really opened up a lot of the scene for me.

Obviously, the end of that scene led to the start of a new one, and in comparison to his past, today's Cornelius does seem a little too stark and sterile, although the intricacies of his production have actually exceeded his late 90s days - quite a feat if you use headphones on some of the CM tracks and then the CM2 songs afterwards. Point has been accused by some of being a rip off of Tomoko Kanda's album, which I think is a pretty tall claim when her production for Kahimi Karie in 2000, 'I Can't Wait For Summer', not only sounds exactly like Cornelius as he was then (these plagiarism-spotters always forget the wealth of remix work in-between CM and Point), but in fact sounds like his mix of Money Mark's 'Maybe I'm Dead' (and a touch of his Sting remix too).

The essence of an artist like Cornelius is that he's constantly reinventing himself and testing techniques and his curated influences out. More often than not, it's good fun, but I hope he remembers his inner child sooner or later, because there's a crucial lack of joy in recent work (that Bloc Party remix - ugh), and he's always been too good to go full bore IDM, as he seems to be on the links I've posted below:

Wataridori 2 from the Matador is 15 comp

http://s42.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=33X1QLJBS7TSK3UTEHFDKBX8DN

And 'Coin/N.A.R.Y.', from a mystery EP which I have little idea about.

According to Marxy, the original Shibuya-kei artists have little love for their current antecedents, which is a big shame as Plus-Tech are doing a fine job of capturing some of Cornelius' old lightning-in-a-bottle style. If his next album was to turn out weak, I'd still have the previous albums, and borrowed Beatles or no, I doubt he'd ever write a song like 'Rock/96' (or '69/96' for that matter) ever again anyway.

Almost forgot.

I always thought Point was an absolute winter album, but having pumped it from the ghettoblaster in the backyard while drinking beers in the hot hot summer sun, I realize I was completely incorrect.

I kinda think Keigo's talents would be very well utilised making a CHILDREN'S ALBUM.

Nicka otm - a kid's album would be the ish.

However, the new album Sensuous will soon be upon us. Singles are on Youtube:

Breezin'

Music

'Gum' (which is possibly an excerpt) is also up, as is 'Toner', as they're both off TV ads. 'Gum' looks locked to be an album highlight. 'Beep It', apparently a more electronic or even clubbier affair, will be released on 12" with remixes by Crue-L Records, who are one of the old Shibuya-kei institutions.

Based on this evidence, it isn't as thematic as the previous 3 albums and isn't much distanced from Point, sadly. Oh, and 'Cue' is on this, which doesn't help a lot, really.

To top off, Matdor aren't releasing this.

Especially when Fritz was referring to one album (with a load of context behind it too) out of four (well, nine).

a) he's still using his sampled voice as long keyboard notes for entire songs, and
b) he's still obsessed with 3 against 2 rhythms.

I still enjoy Point quite a bit, but one thing that has started to annoy me about that album is his reliance on a) and b) above.

This may never have happened if he hadn't started a family

(also, Beck has nothing on Cornelius)

I got burned out on Fantasma too, but it really was my favorite album of 1998, and over time, I think it'll age well. It just ain't relevant right now I guess.

None of his other albums moved me from beginning to end.

Keigo's cloning always seemed more like the acts of someone who loved certain songs so much, it was more an act of "what if I wrote that?" only it always seemed more bastard pop driven, which is a lot of fun. 'The Quizmaster' (from Flipper's last album)= the best bits of 'Loaded' AND 'I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have' with more uplift. 'Last Night In Africa'= effectively mashing 2 Beastie songs ('Rock Hard'/'So Whatcha Want'), replacing the AC/DC sample with Zeppelin and sticking a rejig of 'Whole Lotta Love's' breakdown in the middle for good measure. 'New Music Machine'= even MBV could stand to be sunny on occasion. I mean, dude even made a song about his second album using many of the melodies, drumming, samples and motifs.

CM is possibly the best "pure" Cornelius production, as it's way less contextual than the preceding stuff, goes through his influences as genres rather than as specific songs as he did on occasion and also ups the production ante somewhat from Fantasma.

PappaWheelie - very good P5 record, which he did before he even put out his first album, but I think the Cornelius Rock'n'Roll Orchestral Circus version of 'Happy Sad' is the only one I've wanted to hang onto.

And I don't really care that this new stuff sounds exactly the same as the late 90s stuff did, but I am really surprised that he hasn't changed his aesthetic at all. Ok, all right, fine, and i'm also a little disappointed.

First time I heard Sensuous I was all "Oh crap this is like Point" but it only bothered me for a few minutes and I really got into the whole journey feel of the album. It really does bring out a number of different moods that kind of crossfade into one another. I think his reliance on the same samples is not holding him back -- I mean, how hard would it be for Cornelius to record some new sounds and use those? No, he's doing it on purpose. He's realizing that development doesn't just mean new sounds, but new arrangements, new ways of looking at the same sounds.

Not that the arrangements are new at all on first glance either; he's used that staccato single-word arrangement for lyrics before, he's done the guitar-picking-echoes slightly out of time thing before, he's used the-beat-goes down like its drowning thing before. But it's the way they're all intertwined here, it's the moods they create and the feelings that each interrelated song connect.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I like it, alot more than I thought I would at first. Perfect music to put on repeat while you're doing graphic design or taking the train across town..

Going back to his roots, I've been really getting into Flipper's Guitar first 2 albums lately

Goodbye, our pastel badges (1989)

Camera! Camera! Camera! (1990)

Sensurround DVD is amazing, and on netflix!

this dude is somewhat awesome

Fantasma is flat-out incredible. I would pick out highlights but it doesn't dip below awesome at any point. Perhaps "Clash" and "God Only Knows" are the truly special moments. Loved PappaWheelie's Amazon review! Yeah, I'm sad and that.

Sensuous is great also. I've had that one a long time. "Music" is wondrous. I *think* the best song on Point is "Fly", and that is a quieter but still groovy record. What a dude!

Like, how can you have the balls to call a track "God Only Knows" and then turn out this astonishingly beautiful 7 1/2-minute bliss-noise-ambient-pop opus? That middle-eight. Oh shit, that middle-eight. It's like Lonely Soul never had to happen after all. And the final minute....gah, we'll be here all night if I don't pipe down.

Anyone know what Cornelius has been up to? I was big into him in 2007 when I saw him live - the show was incredible, btw...but haven't heard anything from him since. His last release is CM3, which doesn't seem to be too well-known, and most of the remixes are a few years old, like the Denki Groove/Scha Dara Parr one. It's probably his least consistant but his remix of James Brown's "Call me Super Bad" was incredible!!

Haha, am listening to P-Model right now and am unsurprised this thread has been bumped :D

love love love Fantasma and Point.

no connection as far as I know, just kicking up a bunch of old threads related to Japanese technopop musicians

there's a huge connection with Cornelius and YMO though; he guests on Sakamoto's and Hosono's albums and was kind of a "third member" of Sketch Show for a while, plus I think he performs regularly with them now

It did inspire me to give another listen to Point again...forgot how amazing the stretch of music in the middle - "Point of View Point", "Tone Twilight Zone", "Bird Watching At Inner Forest", "I Hate Hate", and "Brazil". "Bird" in particular has been my favorite track off any of his albums.

Fantasma is one of the best records of the 1990s IMO, featuring the best song called 'God Only Knows' ever written FACT

I don't have 'Point'! Need to give it a spin or two. Love 'Sensuous' even if it is a bit more 'mature' than Fantasma; it's also big and bold and beautiful. 'Music' is the chillest shit.

For whatever reason Sensuous never really clicked with me until I saw it live. I'm still not sold on every track but "Like a Rolling Stone" had this weird video with like toy people who were like spinning themselves into rocks and back again; really weird and creepy but I wouldn't like the tune otherwise. I think the title track was the last song he played and it actually worked really well. Just wish the guy would hurry up and release something new!!!

Classic.

Fantasma - Point - Sensuous is an insane run of perfection to my ears.

Just broke out "Point" again, wow that album still sounds great. It's fairly unique in how much of it feels electronic while using a bunch of acoustic instruments. Some songs sound like they have two or three drummers even though they don't have complex drum parts. Just sounds like a bunch of robotic musicians plugging away at their one chord or percussion instrument. I love how it "loosens up" in the middle then goes back to being utterly gorgeous. Maaan I wish he'd come back :(

i always loved that album, but found the one before it a bit too cheeky. What was the follow up like?

not as good, and really the only Cornelius album that wasn't a huge step forward from the previous one. it still had a lot of gorgeous moments and some cool abstract parts, worth a listen if you liked Point

Sensuous(the follow up) is really wonderful. I like it better than Point, personally.

I don't know about this "not a huge step forward" thing. how is Point a "huge step forward" from fantasma as opposed to just a lateral shift to more abstract compositions? I guess you mean that the style of Sensuous is not a big break from that of Point, and yeah I would agree.

im really just talking like in the evolution of his own sound. i dont want to imply that it's necessarily better or more 'evolved' than his past stuff (though i do think it is)

heads up, the new salyu record "s(o)un(d)beams" is produced by Cornelius and very clearly sounds like his last two records but with a better vocalist

find it so hard to process cornelius as anything other than 'music people on message boards were listening to when i started using the internet'

not familiar w/any of the older salyu records but I've been enjoying this one too. great voice for this type of project, definitely, and I esp like when cornelius cuts loose and gets a little crazy cutting-up or layering her vox.

thought this was a standout track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C1xB3Ybw2o

like the way different loops spill onto each other. p hypnotic.

I esp like when cornelius cuts loose and gets a little crazy cutting-up or layering her vox

I like this too. I feel like Cornelius either has a very strict comfort zone or is intentionally limiting himself, so whenever he breaks out the result is often great. A good example is his "Super Bad" James Brown remix which starts as typical Cornelius fare (*bwoomp* *slap* *bwommpslap* x100) but actually comes together beautifully and grooves in the second half.

listening to the salyu x salyu again this morning. really like the レインブーツで踊りましょう/ s(o)un(d)beams / Mirror Neurotic stretch. feel like it neatly summarizes all the styles salyu and cornelius are working on w/this album.

first track is working in a fairly traditional shibuya-kei/jpop mode w/strings and 'live' instrumentation, etc. coda is quite nice too and bleeds well into the more ambient (and gorgeous) title track. the gentle 4/4 kick drum and other techno flourishes are cool too. then 'mirror neurotic kicks' in w/maybe the most active arrangement on the album. love this track.

I definitely like this album a lot but I do wish there were a couple more upbeat tracks like 'mirror neurotic.' a remix lp could be v cool, I think.

also, I had never heard that james brown remix before. it's good!

his remixes of Sketch Show (Yukihiro Takahashi and Haruomi Hosono) are both excellent too, like incredibly beautiful and kinda the summation of everything he goes for in this mixes.

i'd love to see him do an album with those guys but I don't know if he's capable of putting out anything that doesn't sound like Point outtakes right now!

He's back!!!

http://www.theautojubilator.com/cornelius-ah-song/

https://itunes.apple.com/jp/album/dezaina/id591881199

I haven't heard any of this yet but i just saw the links and am squee-ing right now.

A design
CORNELIUS
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Title Artist Time Price
One
See CORNELIUS 1:28 ¥ 250 iTunes (Chocolat song) A design theme
Two
Look at 2:04 ¥ 250 iTunes CORNELIUS observation of design
Three
Look at 1:47 ¥ 250 iTunes CORNELIUS design counting rhymes
Four
Look at 0:32 ¥ 200 iTunes Long clutch A CORNELIUS
Five
Look at 0:54 ¥ 200 iTunes! CORNELIUS dissolution
Six
A look at 2:04 ¥ 250 iTunes CORNELIUS Drawing
Seven
See CORNELIUS 1:51 ¥ 250 iTunes (Takako River Mine song) and visual round
Eight
0:34 ¥ 200 iTunes CORNELIUS see an expression of the form
Nine
2:41 ¥ 250 iTunes prominence seen in CORNELIUS
Ten
Look at 0:58 ¥ 200 iTunes Sound Of Composition CORNELIUS
Eleven
3:01 ¥ 250 iTunes CORNELIUS see a world without
Twelve
See CORNELIUS 2:19 ¥ 250 iTunes (Etsuko Yakushimaru song) Song arrow
13
Look at 0:44 ¥ 200 iTunes CORNELIUS shape of the body
14
Look at 1:03 ¥ 200 iTunes 1 DAY CORNELIUS
Fifteen
3:19 ¥ 250 iTunes CORNELIUS seen people design
Sixteen
Look at 0:57 ¥ 200 iTunes Long clutch B CORNELIUS
17
See CORNELIUS 2:08 ¥ 250 iTunes (Yumiko Ono song) sound and music
Eighteen
CORNELIUS 1:02 ¥ 200 iTunes see messages that only
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See! (Reverse) CORNELIUS 0:51 ¥ 200 iTunes dissolution
Twenty
Look at 1:09 ¥ 200 iTunes CORNELIUS Looking mono
21
0:41 ¥ 200 iTunes CORNELIUS see part
22
I see that unlike CORNELIUS 1:36 ¥ 250 iTunes was I thinking
23
See CORNELIUS 1:47 ¥ 250 iTunes (salyu × salyu song) Color Magic
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Look at 1:04 ¥ 200 iTunes Long clutch C CORNELIUS
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View Ending Theme 0:50 ¥ 200 iTunes CORNELIUS

See CORNELIUS 1:51 ¥ 250 iTunes (Takako River Mine song) and visual round

Hell yes! Takako Minekawa collab!

so, what exactly is this? it's not really a new album is it?

Yep new Cornelius album. Japan-only release at the moment it seems like. The samples sound nice!

Many of these tracks seem to be a minute or less. I'm really hoping it's heavy on the ambient sound collage type stuff.

but it's a soundtrack to something isnt it?

Soundtracks are people too.

I'd like to hear this. I've never totally like anything he's done, but I think he could eventually do something I like, or I could eventually like something he does. Point was really close.

Can't wait.

that said I'll take anything new from the guy - I'm reviewing his old stuff now, kind of shocked how damn good Doctor's Head World Tower and 69/96 really are

okay, just heard it for the first time - it's all shorter pieces, with a lot of vocals, very minimal, but it's clearly him. it reminds me a bit of the Hosono Monad stuff, in that there are only a few sounds going on at once, but there are still a lot of unexpected twists and he draws resonance in odd ways. don't think i'll listen to it as much as his other albums but you can't really complain about new stuff at this point.

Since 2011 Cornelius has been musical director of a kids' TV show about design broadcast on the NHK network early Saturday mornings. He's invited guests and composed his own jingles for items intended to teach children about design. Here's a clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgwxdRnxBK0

it reminds me a bit of the Hosono Monad stuff

well, you just said the magic words...

Speaking of kids' shows, here is on Yo Gabba Gabba
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDcouGIvDi4

Wow i had no idea. That is the coolest!

i saw him live at Matador's "Everything is Nice" 10 year anniversary show in NYC.
I was just thinking about this show, I believe. Prompted because I saw a guy who looked like Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips, who were also on the bill.

No, show I saw was called Music Against Brain Degeneration. Also featured Sebadoh and Robyn Hitchcock.

so, this new one is pretty great! I've never been a huge fan but I'm liking the turn away from maximalism he's been on with this and salyu x salyu

I guess that must be Migu on drums on the HGG clip, that's very cool, her solo record is great.

Yeah i saw that tour too! Blew my freakin' mind. I had never heard of a theremin before and I eagerly bought one that week.

So what is this album called, is it "Design"? Or is it a soundtrack to the show?

Oh, OK, "Design Ah". LOL. Not as good a pun as "Fun9" (Fun Ku) but ok!

I'm finally going over his page in English. Man, "CM4" was just released. I haven't heard one of his remix albums since "CM2".

I wasn't a big fan of CM4 but CM3 has astounding remixes of Sketch Show (Hosono/Takahashi's group), Denki Groove (Twilight) and James Brown (Call Me Super Bad)

man, "Tone Twilight Zone" still gives me chills. part of it is because it has a deep connection to my life but also because of those harmonics. such a simple trick to put them in a song like this but it seems like nobody else really thought of it.

No, show I saw was called Music Against Brain Degeneration. Also featured Sebadoh and Robyn Hitchcock.

that was a good tour. saw it at Cat's Cradle in NC. I remember Cornelius' drummer had big giant headphones on giving them the metronome timing to sync with a really fast movie projected behind them.

Anyone watch Cornelius on HBO's Reverb? That's how I discovered him. Was a pretty important step in my taste maturing at 14.

That was my first exposure to Cornelius, the Reverb show. Unbelievably, I can't so much as find a clip from it online.

Aw crap, i had that Reverb show taped years ago, and now it's lost for good.

Those videos were AMAZING. There was a Fantasma remaster that came out a year or two ago and one of the videos i found posted online in connection to the release was the video they projected during "Count 5 or 6", which had this amazing shot of Keith Moon which cut to an accidents from a demolition derby.

he's definitely a phenominal live performer. I think that gets missed considering how tightly controlled the albums are. there was (still is?) a video of him playing "Monkey" note for note on the guitar at about the same tempo. When I saw him they did stuff like "I Hate Hate" flawlessly and were able to play perfectly in time with the videos, even "Fit Song" which isn't that complex of a tune, but still requires a ridiculous level of precision to get it to match the video.

now that i'm listening to this again and again I think it really is a lot like the Cornelius version of Hosono's "The Endless Talking", but a little brighter and not as frightening. I'd be surprised if that wasn't a huge influence on this album. It's really quite good - very brainy and just the right amount of fun, with the pieces acting more like ideas than songs, with a really refined sound palette (some of the old sounds crop up though). Probably better than Sensuous, really.

This is really great! A little spotty at times but the good stuff is goooooooood. Like it much more than anything I've heard since "Point."

What's exactly is everyone's problem with Sensuous?

This is incredible! I watched the show and holy crap is it amazing. This record is probably my favorite since "Fantasma".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_xLFOg2gTQ

This is an episode with some really amazing video sequences.

Sensuous is fine but IMO it's a little too stripped back at times, it doesn't have any of the real enjoyable moments that Point did. Like it doesn't let loose, even Gum sounds way too tightly controlled and structured to be a lot of fun. Its still a good album I'd say and probably one that's going to look better with time. This new one though puts a lot of the fun back even in it's sterile little world of sound, maybe because the melodies are a lot more all over the place and the pieces are short enough that you don't get bored of them. I'm on my 8th listen in the last seven days and it's still sounding very good.

Sensuous is okay - the charitable case could be made that it threads the needle between Fantasma and Point, but I feel it doesn't have either the hooks of Fantasma or the pristine atmosphere of Point. Really excited about the new one but need to track it down first.

still loving nhk design ah. frogbs' comparison to the endless talking strikes me as a good one, but yeah, this is much more upbeat. still, both albums are very crisp and clear and move through a wide range of musical ideas quite quickly. and there are chopped up vox all over both of these albums.

but the modern production and slight techno edge on some nhk tracks is pleasantly bringing the hosono worship of the atom/masaki sakamoto collabo lp alien symphony to mind - particularly the parts miharu koshi guests on. I'm strictly talking about production here because alien symphony is DENSE music, but if you haven't heard that one, it is very much worth hearing and available in full on soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/sublimerecords/atomtm-masaki-sakamoto-alien-symphony

I hear what you guys are saying about Sensuous. I might be a little too in love with the overall sound/production; really think it's one of the best sounding albums of its time. Excited to hear the new stuff from everyone's descriptions!

btw apparently he's doing the new ghost in the shell soundtrack!

thanks for that one Alan - listening now and its defintely a good modern take on Hosono's S-F-X sound

and yeah it is a lot like this NHK album

awesome, glad you're digging it

i'll give it another listen tonight. I've always been curious about Atom Heart but he's that odd combination of A) prolific, B) obscure, and C) releases material under a zillion different names that makes it difficult for me to really get into him

My cat loves this. I bet he likes the bird song.

xpost yeah, I'd be curious of you find more "hosono-ey" atom material. much of what I've heard has had a 90s ambient techno vibe (which I also like)

new compilation out - Constellations of Music, partly a remix comp like the others but there is a decent amount of new stuff there, some with salyu x salyu. The Bird and Bee remix is of a song I haven't heard before. Flows a lot better than the CM albums. Check it out!

oooh, new salyu x salyu! thanks for the heads up, will be checking that out.

also, haven't checked out the new ghost in the shell ost but I do like the opener (which he produced):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7DuRYkthjU

I have the ost, it's very good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQZNSOUkI7w

original backdrop vid for "Free Fall" from "Fantasma"! they have the one from "Mic Check" up as well. so cool....

https://media.giphy.com/media/puE3RO6CeBKfK/giphy.gif
i see some John Whitney at the beginning. a lot of amazing 80s vector CGI stuff. anyone know what ^this is from?

http://i.imgur.com/sNxf2AA.jpg

last night the Cornelius instagram posted a weird black and white animation with minimal sounds (alternating drum machine kick and snare) then the following info:

0426 FIRST SINGLE
0524 SECOND SINGLE
0628 NEW ALBUM

!

CLASSIC

And why's it taken him so long to release another proper album? But I'm glad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efJp-0GHKp0

I missed the Penguin Cafe/Cornelius EP.

oh wow I missed that too. "Bird Watching at Inner Forest" is my favorite Cornelius track, for real

why'd it take him so long? hard to say but maybe he felt his solo style hit a dead end? for the record there's two, maybe three things I think you could count as Cornelius albums since Sensuous was released 11 (!!!) years ago - the NHK Ah Um soundtrack, the salyu x salyu album, and the Constellations of Music disc which is half a remix album and half new material. he's also been in the band Metafive which were fairly active the last couple years. so he's been busy, at least!

Sensuous feels like the ultimate refinement of his style for sure, perhaps too refined in places? Very interested to hear where he's going with this one.

yea I'm pretty excited for the first single - his style hasn't seemed to evolve much in the past 10 years but I wouldn't be surprised if he had something up his sleeve for this

wow i haven't listened to anything after Sensuous. i'm going to need to check that stuff out!

why'd it take him so long - he produces a lot (didn't he get his start producing Pizzicato Five in 1993) so yeah in all the gaps between albums he is doing art shows, soundtrack music, playing in different bands, producing other people, etc.

I was always a fan of Beastie Boys remix from a few years back:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2inCuVYieY

the NHK Ah Um soundtrack

oh yeah, the Design-Ah show, i forgot about this. it was fucking awesome!

This is fab, love me some Salyu x Salyu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lzu5ST8CnM

didn't he promise a new album back in 2010 or something that never materialised (until now)? i'm excited for this anyway

i quite enjoyed the salyu x salyu album, really wish i'd been able to see her/them live when they were here a few years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brec06BA6JU

Have always LOVED this Kings Of Convenience "Tusen Takk Rework" of "Drop"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EEWPZJrPP0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmO7KLDE8ss

I've always enjoyed this meta-meta remix.

his James Brown remix is awesome. video's kind of a headache though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnsxXh22-2g

salyu record is so good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgHQj3li4gY

listening to Sensuous again. i really love this album. i think he keeps getting better. "Scum" is so good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfL63RbD0Jg

"Omstart"? man, this is nice. very Soft Machine.

geez that preview doesn't really reveal much

there's a lot to like about Sensuous but, idk, I just feel like the songs don't go far enough. like "Fit Song", it seems to cut out right as it starts to get interesting, like it starts to loosen up and jam out and then it just cuts out. seeing him live on that tour definitely helped a lot though - "Like a Rolling Stone", which I never cared for much on the album, sounded absolutely massive during the show

The artwork & font are really ugly, but I'm still psyched.

Making me think of Ed Hardy T-shirts for some reason.

lol i get a early 90s dot matrix vibe. like they used Clarisworks

salyu record is so good

ya I'm playing it now and I'm really blown away by it. it really is like a Cornelius album with an actual singer.

https://i.imgur.com/ZiT4elWm.jpg

Trattoria Menu 100: A Musical Souvenir Of Trattoria Menu.100's Magic Kingdom
https://www.discogs.com/Various-Trattoria-Menu100-A-Musical-Souvenir-Of-Trattoria-Menu100s-Magic-Kingdom/release/3125736

i won this on ebay recently. it is a really awesome promo item. a picture disc and 3 CDs that comes in a sturdy LP jacket with a cool booklet and lots of little toys and things. it makes me think of Sgt. Pepper or Magical Mystery Tour, this set. there is a set of collectible cards with various musical groups. there is a cut-out paper British Royal-style crown. there is a Disneyland-style giant map of the Magic Kingdom. it's sick.

the music is very cool too. i haven't listened to Shibuya-Kei in a long time but i used to jam this stuff back in high school and revisiting it was a treat. the music is very heavy on a style of 90's retro that is equally 60's lounge/exotica inspired as well as 70's funk and tv soundtrack music. but with a heavy dose of new wave, drone, and shoegaze (especially on disc 3 "Hear Nothing" (there are 3 CDs titled "See Nothing", "Say Nothing" "Hear Nothing")).

lots of random indie rock that sounds like 60's psychedelic pop. plus some genuine weird old stuff that got re-discovered by these Japanese hipsters in the first place. The Free Design and Children of Judah sit next to their own acts and yet somehow it works. brilliant. if you can track this down on SLSK i recommend it.

thanks for the headsup, this does indeed look really cool, i'm jealous!

so wait none of you are talking about Mellow Waves? very good album imo, polished, suave, catchy in parts, trippy in parts.

great record, more people should hear it

#10 on my Pazz & Jop ballot. It's getting a US physical release in a few weeks, I'm excited to finally hear it on my stereo.

Ghost in the Shell: Arise OST from 2013 apparently now on streaming services. I could only find this, which may in fact be it.
https://open.spotify.com/album/4tbdfvxeV1392LkpIOLhqR?si=bNanzLRgR9amQaKOgi0PGQ

https://open.spotify.com/album/4vjBmHL0f9a3H8Ul1JXDyy

this looks like it

Arise is outrageously good anime btw

Hmm, this is beyond your standard shitty teenager bullying, I'm sure he wasn't punished for it at the time so better late than never.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/17/tokyo-2020-composer-apologises-for-historical-bullying-of-disabled-classmates

Oyamada, who is better known as Cornelius, sparked fury on social media after reports resurfaced of magazine interviews he gave in the 1990s when he discussed, apparently without remorse, bullying at least one disabled classmate. Online accounts in English and Japanese said Oyamada, 52, had forced one boy to eat his own faeces and masturbate in front of other students.

wow what the fuck

i get why this wouldn't have made its way to the western press before but i am surprised that this seems to be the first time he's received any backlash for something as awful as that when it had long been on record?

This is extremely depressing.

I'd maybe forgive him if what he did wasn't so severe, but what he did was essentially torturing developmentally disabled teenagers. Not only that, but laugh and joke about it in retrospect when previously brought up. As much as I think the guy is talented, and that it would be cool for him to do the music for the Olympics, he really doesn't deserve this opportunity.

Also knowing that this info has been circulating for years, I'm quite surprised that this hasn't really came to anything much before now.

I assume because he hasn’t gotten much media coverage in the Western world lately. But yeah apparently it’s all been out there since ‘94!

I did hear about this last year, but it was hard to tell exactly how bad it was since the guy translating it admitted there was a lot of ambiguity in some of his quotes and that he couldn’t tell if he was exaggerating or joking around. Like he’s always come across very thoughtful in the interviews I’ve read, it doesn’t make sense that he would just openly talk about this shit for a magazine interview. Then again this apology pretty much confirms it so uh….yeah. Heartbreaking.

holy shit that is vile

Apparently he's been given the boot now, sorry "stepped down"

https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/tokyo-2020-organisers-want-composer-who-apologised-bullying-stay-2021-07-19/

wow. i'd seen the reports but had no idea the composer everyone was talking about was Cornelius - pretty horrible.

yeah it's really weird that a lot of stories don't even mention that he's Cornelius

He's a pretty niche interest outside of Japan tbh

yeah it's really weird that a lot of stories don't even mention that he's Cornelius

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, July 19, 2021 10:11 AM (forty-four seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

i was just reading an article about this and it was mentioned in passing like 2/3 of the way down

Fuck, pretty horrible.

yeah can't imagine he's too well known in the Western world anymore, still a fairly big deal in Japan thanks to Metafive. I wonder how this is being received over there. when this first started making the rounds a year ago one thing I heard a lot was "bullying in Japan has always been out of control"

That's true but this story is fuckin wild

when reading it I assumed it had to be exaggerated, like how do you get away with all that and just casually talk about it in an interview like a fucking psychopath. is he a uniquely awful person or is this one of those "everyone knows the deal" sorta things? idk how even to parse this

Wikipedia does say that he initially "claimed past articles contained exaggerations or mistakes that he had not corrected" (the linked article is in Japanese). Even if that's true, the fact that he wouldn't bother to correct them....

holy shit, i don't know what to say about all this. in some ways i sympathize with the possible overexaggerating story...and i can believe that bullying culture is fucking bonkers, all over the world. people do horrible things, just like their parents did to each other. but holy shit, feces and masturbation. that's a no no

Even if that's true, the fact that he wouldn't bother to correct them....

how exactly do you do this? I don't know how this works when you're not actually being accused of anything, but rather were the one just revealing all this for no reason. like it reminds me of old WWF stars like Ric Flair who talk about their sex lives in ways that imply they've committed a lot of sexual assault but also are possibly just made up or exaggerated. but going back and saying "okay, the masturbation thing isn't true" is not really a good look either. and based on the original story it's not exactly clear if he's the one doing these things or if he was merely witnessing them, and obviously just saying "it wasn't me it was someone else" is kinda shitty too. idk what to say, it's all beyond the pale horrible and the dude is fucking crazy for saying any of this in the first place.

why are we giving him any benefit of the doubt here?

e Ric Flair who talk about their sex lives in ways that imply they've committed a lot of sexual assault but also are possibly just made up or exaggerated

why possibly? i can't even fucking imagine how toxic the world of 80s wrestling was

https://oymdkgo.blogspot.com/2021/07/inquiry-into-behavior-of-keigo-oyamada.html

i mean read how fucking specific and detailed these charming anecdotes are

this ric flair?

tw: sexual assault

http://grantland.com/features/the-wrestler-real-life/

Yeah. If he'd maybe shown the slightest hint of remorse 20 or so years ago, I could maybe rehabilitate him in my own mind? Just not seeing any way to separate this from him this far into his life. Its interesting his own words returned to destroy him.

I saw the headlines on twitter and thought it would be referring to horrible but fairly "standard" bullying, but "forced one boy to eat his own faeces and masturbate in front of other students" is horrifyingly awful and way beyond anything I was anticipating. I also thought there would maybe be room for understanding in terms of, say, imagine it was a culture like a UK boarding school or I dunno, the army - where the culture itself is so rotten you find yourself forced to go along with the tide in order not to be targeted yourself, and vile behaviour is normalised - but from some of those old interviews he seemed to still find it pretty funny. Really fucking disturbing.

Wonder if Metafive will become Metafour in response to the bad publicity?

why are we giving him any benefit of the doubt here?

obviously because I like him a lot as a musician and everything I've read about him seems so at odds with this that my mind is naturally trying to find some way to reconcile it. I mean he talks about it with such a jovial tone, almost as though he's trying to impress the interviewer, and some of the stories are from 2nd grade, so it definitely feels possible that this ain't exactly an accurate account of what actually happened. that said even if you give him a lot of wiggle room he's still a fucking psychopath for talking about it like this in the first place.

I also thought there would maybe be room for understanding in terms of, say, imagine it was a culture like a UK boarding school or I dunno, the army - where the culture itself is so rotten you find yourself forced to go along with the tide in order not to be targeted yourself, and vile behaviour is normalised - but from some of those old interviews he seemed to still find it pretty funny. Really fucking disturbing.

tbf public schools in Japan do seem to be that sort of culture, in the interview he makes it sound like he was one of many people fucking with these kids & there's the kicker at the end where he implies they'd still be friendly with each other which suggests some degree of "that's just how it is here". feels shitty trying to justify this but it's just such a weird and unexpected thing. I'm glad he's finally experiencing some sort of consequence at least

Yeah, sorry, I actually only mentioned the culture thing at all because it did seem to be relevant to an extent, I didn't make that clear. Even with remorse it wouldn't remove culpability, but the older interviews didn't even show much remorse, if any.

That some of this schooling was in "the countryside near Machida" (per blog post with translated interviews above) brought back to mind this mass murder of disabled people in the area
https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/13581711

I worked in public high schools in the area for a couple of years and loved it. There are all sorts of different public schools though. Also the word "public" doesn't appear on the page. I'm wondering if he was in some sort of boarding school, fwiw?

I looked up his bio and i wonder what a Shibuya area (Setagaya) kid was doing in school way on the other end of Tokyo. Also I didn't know he was married to Takako Minekawa.

can't wait for the olympics

I didn't know he was Miki Berenyi's second cousin! And also that her mum (not his) was in You Only Live Twice.

he gets around!

i don't think it is worth much if he was in boarding school. All of it just blows my mind to bits.

I wonder how this is being received in Japan...is he getting a lot of backlash or are people saying "that's just how it is here" ?? like we've been through this cycle but here you're talking about a guy telling on himself in a 25 year old interview about stuff he did 5-10 years before that...idk how something like that gets received

I saw Cornelius had been dropped from the Olympics for childhood bullying incidents but I hadn't seen what those incidents were until now; I really can't fathom that this shit didn't sink him 25 years ago.

I know everyone's understandably focussing on the forced masturbating / faeces eating but "taped a cardboard box around a student's head and poured chalk inside" jumped out as particularly malign and dangerous (assuming a certain level of chalk was in use.) sounds like it would create a sensation not too dissimilar to being waterboarded

that's just how it is here

My public primary school in the US was pretty much exactly like that, developmentally disabled kids had their pants pulled down, were forced to eat bird shit, had wrestling moves "practiced" on them... I witnessed all of that with fascination and also fear, because when the disabled kids weren't around, I fell squarely into the category of "target" for such activities. I've met, in our adulthood, a few people who did such things to me then (i.e. stomping on my bare feet while wearing baseball cleats) and in their minds A. we were friends back then B. everyone did it to everyone and C. school was a blast and you're remembering it wrong. So I find Cornelius' open admission about what he did surprising, but what he did totally unsurprising.

I wonder how this is being received in Japan...is he getting a lot of backlash

there was the pressure on him to step down from the olympics, i think that sure counts as a lot of backlash. it seemed like he'd been facing some minor backlash over it recently after someone dug up those interviews, before he got tapped to contribute to the olympics, which lead to the backlash really blowing up

ya I definitely remember a lot of horrific shit happening between my freshman and junior year that often just got laughed off, stuff that in retrospect was torture/sexual assault. I remember this one very big dude (who later got a massive football scholarship) trying to hump me in the shower as a "joke" and I actually kinda forgot about it until now. I see him every now and then and we have a good chat but in retrospect that was massively fucked up

school was a blast and you're remembering it wrong.

This line of thinking is exactly why I will never, ever take part in any "reunion" for any period of schooling. In fact, I won't even step foot in the town where I went to high school (not that I ever really have any need to do so, but still).

Between the sexism rows at top level, the widespread popular opposition to holding the games, volunteers quitting en masse, athletes announcing they're not coming, and this, the Olympics have really been plagued and I can't help thinking the joke is on the (cliche) Japanese dogged insistence to go ahead with organizing them at any cost.

I'm raising this cause everyone is focusing on Cornelius personality, it's his thread of course and far more serious than embarrassing, but how does an organizing committee for such a large event not assess the reputation and honorability of the key artists involved ? And you get bitten in the ass for your absence of checks a couple of days before the score is due ?

he was only announced to be contributing to the opening ceremony a week ago, and my impression is that this stuff wasn't common knowledge before but someone had dug it up not too long ago & he was getting some backlash online in japan right as they announced he was contributing to the opening ceremony, which made it really blow up. absolutely terrible judgement by the organising committee but it's been disastrous the entire time - even just bringing cornelius in at the last minute is evidence of how badly it's been planned. originally sheena ringo was in charge of the music for it, which would have been perfect, but in late 2020 a new head of the organising committee was installed, who scrapped all the existing plans & forced the existing creative team out. that new head then resigned a few months later after making derogatory comments about a female comedian.

Thanks for those precisions, I had only given a cursory look to the whole affair and I was under the impression he had been working on those scores for some time.

i'm sure he'd been working on stuff for it longer than just this week, but considering the late announcement & the general chaos that's engulfed the planning for the ceremony since covid, i doubt it would have been more than a few months at most.

originally sheena ringo was in charge of the music for it, which would have been perfect, but in late 2020 a new head of the organising committee was installed, who scrapped all the existing plans & forced the existing creative team out

this is the worst and most grievous revelation itt imo

It would be kind of awesome if Cornelius was only given one week to compose the olympics music

Well someone will have to now!

the year the olympics song was just one long trombone note, held as long as possible, getting a little bit more flat with every 5 seconds that pass

the Olympics are a disgusting grift even by sports standards and the IOS are criminal scumbags is how I break it down to an extent

here's just the guy to do it, Karl

https://www.discogs.com/artist/101306-Toshihiro-Koike

oh yeah? how is his lung capacity? i assume as a pro 'boner it's pretty good, but this performer would need to have legendary pipes

can't even imagine what the Cornelius Olympic theme would sound like, all I can picture is the Wii Shop music

Now just in: turn of the director of the opening ceremony to be shown the door over an antisemitic joke in 1998 (!) and a new flurry of official apologies that sound kinda comical themselves by now: "In the short time remaining before the opening ceremony, we offer our deepest apologies for any offence and anguish this matter may have caused to the many people involved in the Olympic Games, as well as to the citizens of Japan and the world". Not sure what difference it makes and how much better everyone feels.

2nd Metafive record has been canned.

"The 2nd ALBUM "META ATEM" (hereinafter referred to as 2 product numbers), which was scheduled to be released on August 11, will be discontinued.

Along with this, the release commemorative talk event scheduled at Tower Records Shibuya will also be cancelled. Please.

In addition, the regular radio program "METAFM" broadcast on InterFM897 will be discontinued due to band activities."

Not surprised... Such a shame. But a lesson to all.

I suspect "discontinued" means "will be released in a few months when this dies down".

the nature of this whole thing is just weird, if he hadn't been tabbed for the Olympics I don't think this would have blown up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5xwwpNwQ70

new album in 2 months

6/28(水)  ニューアルバム「夢中夢 -Dream In Dream-」リリース決定！

6/28 (Wed)  New Album “Dream In Dream” release confirmed!https://t.co/8KUeRIxLCr#夢中夢 #dreamindream #cornelius #コーネリアス #keigooyamada #小山田圭吾 pic.twitter.com/mcwDriKeeu

— Cornelius Info (@cornelius_news) April 25, 2023

that's nice. i really used to like this guy. saw him in concert twice, some of the best concerts i've seen in my life. i don't really see a need to get into how much my queer autistic ass was bullied when i was in school, but i'm probably not going to give this one a listen.

totally understandable of course. I'm not really sure how I feel about it myself, I thought about it when a lot of the Marilyn Manson shit came out and it was revealed that the dude gave a ton of interviews in the 90s where he just admitted to a bunch of over-the-top crimes but no one took it seriously because that was sort of his persona. was this just something people did in the 90s? give interviews where they tried to be as edgy and over the top as possible? obviously this interview was out for decades before anyone even thought to make a big deal out of it. but yeah it's all so blatantly horrible, I can't really listen to any of his stuff the same way anymore.

my suspicion is that it's somewhat true, he probably was a big bully or hung out with people who were, the specific stories I think may have been embelleshed though. I remember hearing that some of his classmates came out and said he was exaggerating some things. also I'm not sure how much we should hold an artist's shitty teen years against them when they're in their 50s. it still feels wrong wanting to hear this. but I'll listen anyway.

it's definitely an individual decision, and for me, it's not really a rational one. i'm not gonna stop listening to prince or david bowie or led zeppelin even though these are all artists who did some pretty terrible things. my girlfriend was a big marilyn manson fan back in the day and it's hard for her, she's pretty much stopped but it's still a big part of her life. i quit listening to magma when i found out they were real nazis and not parody cosplay nazis like laibach. is oyamada doing real, present-day harm to people the way, say, j.k. rowling is? is the current wave of fascism driven by rabid ideologues who are devoted to "mekanik destruktiw kommandoh"? i'd say probably not. on a personal level, though, sometimes it does just fucking hurt to learn these things.

oh man I had no idea about Magma wtf

the man spent 30 years making up a nonsense language just so he could put words that sounded like "fuer mein fuhrer adolf hitler" somewhere in one of his songs

truly galaxy brain shit here

honestly i wish more nazis would try to promote fascism in this manner, if only because of how spectacularly ineffective it turned out to be. i spent 20 years listening to nazi subliminal messages and turned out to be a trans communist anyway. it's like he read norman spinrad's "the iron dream" and was like "yeah but what if i did that in real life?"

right, and I try to make sure I'm not rationalizing this based on which artists I like the most. I guess for me some plausible deniability is important. Har Mar Superstar maybe a good example, most of the accusations against him were kinda vague and I don't think anyone's put their name on it but there were so many people going "yeah I'm from this area and I've heard some shit" that you have to think it's true. I mean I saw him once while he was hammered as shit and there was a real rapey vibe to the show. the Cornelius thing on the other hand hasn't been corroborated by anyone, even in the article they try to reach the family and the family doesn't have anything to say (though it seemed clear that something went on). I guess it's possible, maybe even a little likely, that nothing he did was all that out of the ordinary for a Japanese high school student, and he deliberately played things way up for attention in a way that was weirdly common back then. I mean if that kind of shit happened when I was in high school, everyone would have known about it. the authorities would have been involved. but I don't feel right trying to make that call.

as for Magma...idk about that one either. for one, it's just Vander, the other 893 members are in the clear. It's been discussed a bunch in other places and it's kinda gone from "holy shit, fuck this guy" to "wait there may not actually be any evidence here". iirc it's all based on some things an ex-band member told someone over FB messenger. while Vander does seem like a dick and a control freak who seems to have had some issues with mouthing off while drunk he also draws a ton of inspiration from cultures which the Nazis wanted to exterminate. he also married a Jew. so like, again, maybe there's something to it and maybe it's bad, but if indeed the dude running a band which featured virtually every jazz musician in France was an actual Nazi you'd think it would be more than just one guy saying it.

i hate to say it but your post _does_ kind of come off as... i mean i guess the word i'd use is less rationalizing and more _bargaining_. like i said, for me it's more of an emotional decision than a rational one, and for me, my emotions take a lot longer for me to work through than my thoughts. see how you feel about in a week, is what i'd say.

I guess it's possible, maybe even a little likely, that nothing he did was all that out of the ordinary for a Japanese high school student

lmao wtf is this

yeah this hadn't really been an issue for me but i've struggled to enjoy Cornelius's music since i heard about the bullying. i don't know if it's because he was one of my favorite artists, because i was bullied myself or if my attitude is changing.

it certainly doesn't help that he boasted about it years later. he really seems like he's not a nice person.

in theory, i don't have a problem with liking work made by a shitty person. his music is not exactly intimately personal or self-revealing. but it's an intuitive response, not a rational decision that i get to make.

i enjoyed his last album and tour. i'm sure i'll give the new one a listen or two, but getting into it might be a challenge.

fwiw i don't know if i buy the angle that he was playing up his bad behavior for notoriety. with Marilyn Manson there were always comments circulating about what a smart, normal, reasonable person he is irl and surprise! he turned out to be Marilyn Manson in real life.

xxp

lmao wtf is this

― young sussy (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, April 28, 2023 5:34 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Paraphrasing the Japanese people I know who say bullying is a huge problem and was particularly bad in the 80s and 90s

Again, kinda depends on if you read his comments as being exaggerated and/or made up, which he claims is the case now, but obviously no one knows

fwiw i don't know if i buy the angle that he was playing up his bad behavior for notoriety. with Marilyn Manson there were always comments circulating about what a smart, normal, reasonable person he is irl and surprise! he turned out to be Marilyn Manson in real life.

wish I could find it now but I did read some article explaining that this sort of thing wasn't too uncommon amongst Japanese counterculture artists back then, you had a lot of musicians who for instance would play it mostly straight and then have one song that was absolutely disgusting. iirc the author didn't exactly think he was innocent, but figured that some of the most extreme stuff in that interview shouldn't be taken at face value. but yeah kinda hard to compare the two because Cornelius's stuff is so purely musical and his last album is the only one that felt personal at all. his public persona is just a blank face. pre-Fantasma Cornelius is something else though.

maybe that's who he really is, in a way. one of my best friends who released music on Cornelius's label and traveled to Japan at his invitation says he made himself very scarce. Another friend who collaborated with Cornelius on music in the 90's says they never actually met. i get the impression that he likes to keep his distance.

Paraphrasing the Japanese people I know who say bullying is a huge problem and was particularly bad in the 80s and 90s

i've heard stuff to this effect also, when i asked my friend about it who is Japanese and who's parents currently live in Japan, he seemed very puzzled and pretty weirded out by it, and i was very sorry i asked.

(it was re: Cornelius, he's a fan too)

https://www.instagram.com/p/CT7E-PNhK-q/

he did later deny the worst of the incidents mentioned, saying that one of the magazines had embellished the stories to make him seem like the perpetrator of things he said he'd only witnessed. it's a real mess trying to figure what happened due to the language barrier & lack of access to the original articles - he claims that a blog post (which seems to be one from 2006 that was widely used as a source for the contents of the articles when this all blew up) further embellished the interviews and that in the quick japan interview he did deny being the perpetrator, but obviously that's very difficult to verify on my own. this statement also notably doesn't mention the other bullying incidents at all, just the worst two.

was this just something people did in the 90s? give interviews where they tried to be as edgy and over the top as possible?

yeah there apparently very was much a culture of that in 90s japan, and he used that as an explanation for the tone he took in the interviews at the time: https://archive.is/G0Zhv

it seems likely that he was involved in some of the bullying given that he didn't deny the other incidents, but maybe not the worst of it (but knowing if he really did deny the worst of it at the time as he claims would help to clarify things), and either way he took a pretty terrible attitude to it in the interviews to try to seem edgy.

Paraphrasing the Japanese people I know who say bullying is a huge problem and was particularly bad in the 80s and 90s

― frogbs

mmmm, i mean. bullying was a huge problem where and when i grew up, but i mean... bullying other kids wasn't _out of the ordinary_, the kids who bullied me weren't _unusual_, but it wasn't _normal_ in the same sense that, say, casual transphobia was.

idk, now that i think about it, the guy who bullied me in high school is one of the people i remember most fondly. i think better of him than i do of my childhood best friend, though admittedly that's a pretty low bar to clear.

maybe that's stockholm syndrome or whatever, but it gets back to, again, abuse isn't something bad people do to good people. it's learned behavior. that kid who abused me, i don't know for sure what he went through but it was obvious he had a lot of bad shit happen to him. and the way he looked at me... i don't know, it kind of changed over the course of high school. like i think in his own way he wanted to help me be a normal kid, a normal teenage boy. i mean, wasn't gonna happen, any more than he was gonna be a normal teenage boy, but i understand that desire. you look at someone who's fucked up and weird and it's frustrating, like, why do you have to be so fucked up and weird?

i talk about this with people i know a lot, because "fucked up and weird" comes standard on trans people, and it makes things kind of difficult sometimes.

none of this should be construed as an apologia for oyamada, though. anyone who does that shit needs to live with the consequences, which, i mean, i guess is that i won't listen to his album, a fact which he will neither know nor care about. so yeah. take that, oyamada.

yea thats a messed up thing about it. I grew up in a small town and sometimes you wind up at parties with people you went to middle school with and when they see you 10 years later they act like you're some long lost friend. and you're just like, wait a minute, this dude used to make me feel like shit, but I guess they don't see it that way. I kinda got that impression from that article, where the interviewer asks "well where is he now?" and Cornelius says something like "ah, I dunno, we haven't talked in a while". like he thinks they're friends or something.

one time in high school I snapped on another guy. he was clearly trying to get under my skin and I shoved him against his locker pretty hard and said some mean shit to him. I dunno what got into me, I'm not like that, I just lost it. it sucked because we were friendly with each other before that. and I kept thinking, "he thinks I'm a bully", but seriously it's the only time I did anything like that. I saw him tending bar at a nice place after that and we caught up and all that, all I could think is how bad i felt about what happened, and I'm sure he was thinking about it too. but I felt like bringing it up would make us both feel bad so I didn't.

yea thats a messed up thing about it. I grew up in a small town and sometimes you wind up at parties with people you went to middle school with and when they see you 10 years later they act like you're some long lost friend. and you're just like, wait a minute, this dude used to make me eat my own faeces and masturbate in front of other students.

abuse isn't something bad people do to good people. it's learned behavior.

yeah, sorry for the lazy post, i don't know if i believe there are "good people" and "bad people" or not.

i think in his own way he wanted to help me be a normal kid, a normal teenage boy

omg soooo true. and yet, i'm probably never gonna be ascended enough for my empathy to extend to authoritarian behaviors and personalities.

met my bully at a 4th of July thing about three years after high school and he was being very friendly and I was pretty confident and I said "last time I saw you you were hunting me down to kick my ass" and he said "oh. yeah, sorry. I'm not an angry person any more" and my heart softened because I could see that it was true. he was fucked up then and since then he'd grown. we hugged it out. people's fuckin frontal cortexes don't finish forming until sometime in their twenties, teenagers do fucked up shit. they should be sorry as grownups and make amends when they can but being mercilessly "well but the shit you did was SO FUCKED UP" really doesn't help anybody in this world at all imo. some people are already completely beyond the pale and some people get caught up in some poisonous ways of being when they're young and later see the error of their ways and this shouldn't even be a controversial position

imo

yea thats a messed up thing about it. I grew up in a small town and sometimes you wind up at parties with people you went to middle school with and when they see you 10 years later they act like you're some long lost friend. and you're just like, wait a minute, this dude used to make me eat my own faeces and masturbate in front of other students.

― young sussy (Whiney G. Weingarten)

so there was this guy in our high school who rented out porn tapes to the other kids, right? everybody knew about it, except me, because i was that fucking uncool. and one day this kid who's, i don't know, maybe a little less uncool than me. he had a richard dean anderson mullet and the same k-mart hypercolor t-shirt that i did. anyway for whatever reason the videotape he returned was a videotape of him masturbating with his finger in his ass. (the town had gotten super gentrified since my parents bought a house there, our family was one of the only ones in town without a camcorder.) i don't know if this guy had just accidentally returned the wrong videotape or if he was coming on to this other kid or what.

anyway the kid who was renting out the porn tapes did as you do, he threw a big party and invited everyone (i wasn't invited, of course, because i was that fucking uncool) and showed everybody the videotape. well that made enough of a big splash that even _i_ heard about that one the next monday.

it was a whole big thing, the kid's whole family packed up and moved away because of it.

anyway i don't know what your baseline for "normal bullying" is whiney but what cornelius did is kind of inline with my high school experience.

... i feel like this is pvmic for me

While all that is true, and I know it makes me a lesser person, you will have to pry my blinding hatred of my bullies from my cold, dead, hands, both of them sending middle fingers up to D. Spivy. Burn in hell, shitbag.

I hate going to my old hometown. It’s so small that the chance of running into a painful memory is too high.

xpost how is laughing at the local pervert making revenge porn of himself anything like making a disabled kid eat his own shit?

Disabled kid with a mouth full of “faeces”: boyfs will be boysf

Like I don’t have a horse in the race on whether you should or shouldn’t listen to Shibuya-kei artist Cornelius in 2023, I’m just saying the reasoning and bargaining and gymnastics happening in this thread is very, very funny

thank you so much for policing the thread Whiney, it warms my heart to know good people still exist in ILX

anyway here's a story that is perhaps relevant to the discussion. one of the guys I went to high school with named Matt used to tell stories of his sexual encounters and they were usually kinda rapey. he'd hook up at parties with a girl who had way too much to drink and did stuff while she was either passed out or severely inebriated. I remember asking him "uhhh you sure that's okay dude" and he'd be like "oh yeah, she enjoyed it, I got her phone number after" and so on.

this guy would show up to our parties now and then a few years later. of course by that time I was thinking "yeah, that's 100% rape". one day a group of girls came in including one of the girls he'd mentioned. and so I told her "hey uh just so you know, Matt's here". she said "uhh who?" and I was like "we went to school with him, remember?". she recognized him but was curious why I'd pointed that out, and as it turns out his entire story was just made up. he said it just to impress people, because when you're 17 beer and sex were like, super cool

not saying all his stories were made up, but I do recall some of us wondering where exactly these things were happening. there weren't exactly a lot of parties going on back then. and now I think man, if someone had recorded that, or you had posted about it online, that shit could be really bad for you some day.

anyway I apologize for all the reasoning and bargaining and gymnastics but yes, if nobody's gonna corroborate any of the things said in that interview then I have to think there's at least some chance it was either exaggerated or largely made up, especially when it comes to things that kinda seem incredibly difficult to actually do to another person.

thank you so much for policing the thread Whiney, it warms my heart to know good people still exist in ILX

― frogbs

personally i don't mean it sarcastically, i think it really is cool that whiney still genuinely has the capacity for moral outrage

the point of my little anecdote was not to excuse or mitigate what mr. oyamada did. i don't plan on listening to the album, i'm kinda done with him and his career.

i'm just not really _upset_ about it. i wish i was. i wish i could be. the world is filled with horrible people who do awful things and mostly they're the ones who are the biggest successes, that's how you get to be a success in this world, do awful shit and laugh about it.

i'm burned out. i've been burned out for a long time. i have empathy fatigue. if people want to listen to cornelius or eat chick-fil-a or buy the new harry potter game.

well. i'm glad whiney has the ability to get upset about those things. i think his capacity for outrage makes him a really good ally.

another new one out, appears to be for an installation or something, it's really pretty

https://open.spotify.com/album/7iiqrYw9JfizsKVMXrFE8C?uid=5dfa769b74a7635dd9d0&uri=spotify%3Atrack%3A3ybu0re1WrdQdtbzLekvOD