Philip Brasor - The Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 20, 2007

Buy a car and drive up your grocery bill

Toyota Motor Corp. made headlines when it announced that its profit for 2006 was a record-breaking 2.24 trillion yen. In the United States, the news was greeted with some bitterness, since the Japan automaker had recently surpassed General Motors in terms of worldwide sales for the first time ever.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 13, 2007

One culture's dirty old man is another's dandy

Despite the close proximity of the world afforded by the Internet and global media conglomerates, intercultural ignorance is still pretty common. Richard Gere almost got himself arrested in India when, during an AIDS-awareness event last month, he grabbed Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty and kissed her....

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 6, 2007

Baseball federation and schools cause student players to suffer

Some scandals shock the public and others don't. The latter type usually involves organizational malfeasance that people suspect is a normal fact of life. However, in some rare cases a scandal of this type will actually strike people in a contradictory way: The purported malfeasance is not a surprise,...

CULTURE / Music

May 4, 2007

Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood

The late Jimmy Smith is credited with single-handedly turning the Hammond B3 organ into a bona-fide jazz instrument, though the music he played, which borrowed from gospel, old-style R&B and mainstream pop, appealed to a much wider audience. The B3 eventually became a fixture of rock and soul, but no...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 29, 2007

The medical insurance game -- you always pay and they often play

On April 13, 12 different insurance companies apologized for failing to pay benefits for legitimate claims on life and supplemental medical insurance policies. It was the latest chapter in an industry-wide scandal that started with admissions about unpaid benefits for automobile and property insurance....

CULTURE / Music

Apr 27, 2007

Patti Smith "Twelve"

Patti Smith has always been sentimentally reverent toward her fellow artists, even those you wouldn't expect. She once performed Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life," the epitome of sappy pop, on a children's TV show (look for it on YouTube) and totally transformed it without really changing anything....

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 22, 2007

Imagine all the soldiers and sailors singing and dancing in harmony

With the expected passage of a bill setting procedures for a referendum to revise the Constitution, the Japanese people are going to have to think carefully about what sort of changes they want made to the charter. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has staked his political career on revising the Constitution,...

CULTURE / Music

Apr 20, 2007

Earl Greyhound "Soft Targets"

A New York-based power trio, Earl Greyhound tends to get favorably compared to Led Zeppelin, so it would follow that the group's singer-songwriter-guitarist Matt Whyte should be a miracle hybrid of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. Even a cursory listen to their long-awaited debut album lays waste to that...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 15, 2007

LDP fuddy-duddies' social engineering hits women and the birthrate

Earlier this month, the ruling coalition put together a bill to change part of the Civil Code that determines the paternity of a child under certain circumstances. The planned revision, which editorial writers supported for its acknowledgment of practical reality, nevertheless split the Liberal Democratic...

CULTURE / Music

Apr 13, 2007

The godfathers of indie rock

Twenty-five years into a career that will likely not end until one of its members blasts off this mortal coil, Sonic Youth defies whatever characterizations you throw at them.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 8, 2007

'Mr. Irresponsible' -- the humanitarian comedian -- passes on

The media has been filled with tributes to comedian Hitoshi Ueki since he died of respiratory failure March 27 at the age of 80, but compared to the intense public mourning that followed the deaths of other, equally influential Showa Era pop icons, the eulogies have been notably subdued. One explanation...

CULTURE / Music

Apr 6, 2007

The Rapture

Timing is everything in the cut-throat world of commercial pop, especially when your product invites comparisons with other like-minded artists who are releasing their own work at the same time. When Universal delayed The Rapture's 2003 major label debut, "Echoes," for more than a year it missed out...

CULTURE / Music

Apr 6, 2007

El-P "I'll Sleep When You're Dead"

Few labels reflect the sensibility of their founders as completely as Definitive Jux, whose stable of hip-hop artists tend toward a dense, dark sound and a dystopian vision best represented by the work of producer-rapper-company president Jamie "El Producto" Meline. On his second solo album, El-P revisits...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Apr 1, 2007

From comedian to politician: an easy step for Miyazaki's governor

Since last September when Shinzo Abe became prime minister, no event has had as powerful an impact on Japan's political landscape as the January election of Hideo Higashikokubaru to the governorship of Miyazaki Prefecture. Many see the former comedian's victory as a harbinger of what to expect not only...

CULTURE / Music

Mar 30, 2007

The Ponys "Turn the Lights Out"

One of the hallmarks of postmillennial alternative rock is the tension that results from the conflict between aural texture and melody. On their first two albums, Chicago's post-punk revivalists The Ponys were admired for their mastery of the simple, indelible hook, but the blanket utilization of reverb...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Mar 25, 2007

NHK upholds freedom of the press so long as it doesn't annoy anyone with its content

It has been two months since the Tokyo High Court ruled in favor of the Violence Against Women in War Network in its lawsuit against NHK regarding coverage of a December 2000 international people's tribunal, and while the verdict did not receive much press when it was first announced, it continues to...

CULTURE / Music

Mar 23, 2007

The Rakes "Ten New Messages"

One of the dozen or so neo-postpunk British guitar bands signed in the wake of Franz Ferdinand's success, East London's The Rakes flaunted their middle class background (in concert they wear matching polo shirts) and dynamic debt to Wire on their 2005 debut "Capture/Release." Their second album retains...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Mar 18, 2007

'I did it my way' -- 'Hey, stop! You do it my way 'cos I wrote the damn song!'

These days, a news report just isn't a news report without three or four men bowing in front of reporters over some misdemeanor.

CULTURE / Music

Mar 16, 2007

LCD Soundsystem "Sound of Silver"

As half of the DFA production team who first recorded The Rapture, Radio 4, Les Savy Fav and other dance-rock innovators, James Murphy could be called the midwife of the New York underground sound, but as the voice and brains of LCD Soundsystem he's somehow given people the impression that he's English....

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Mar 11, 2007

Female foreigners are OK in Japan, so long as they're not Asian

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's refusal to apologize anew for Japan's sex-slave policy during World War II has a different meaning in Japan than it does abroad. The issue has come around again because the U.S. Congress is considering a resolution to demand that Japan clearly accept responsibility for the...

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