…Just in time to hit the clubs in Tokyo.
[Video][Website]
[5.89]
Patrick St. Michel: I thought Chisato Moritaka was the little girl in the music video for Tofubeats’ “Don’t Stop The Music.” Totally wrong. Moritaka was a big deal in the early 1990s, an artist who could release a single and guarantee an appearance in the top five of the Japanese music charts. But she existed at the worst possible time — she broke through right after the golden age of Japanese idols and right before artists like Namie Amuro and Ayumi Hamasaki became massive continental hits, rewriting the rules of J-Pop. Moritaka had her moment, but has since faded. She’s a reminder that popular artists aren’t guaranteed reissues and revaluation twenty years down the line, regardless of how popular they were. Yet they can mean something to someone. Kobe’s Tofubeats counts himself a fan of Moritaka, and for his debut major-label single he’s chosen to put the spotlight squarely on her. “Don’t Stop The Music” isn’t in any hurry to get anywhere, but rather lets Moritaka get another chance to sing, savoring every second of it. The music moves gracefully alongside her, with only a few modern splashes (some chopped up vocals, the acid-laced breakdown). Which is appropriate — this isn’t concerned with any modern trends, but rather giving a very talented J-Pop star from 20 years ago a much deserved encore that ends up sounding like an absolute celebration.
[10]
Iain Mew: I appreciate all of the intricate trills around the edges of “Don’t Stop the Music”, but the main house piano and melody suffer from a lack of force. They never gain enough momentum of feeling to be worried about stopping, and Moritaka’s vocal in particular sounds like it’s been unearthed from deep preservation and is being carefully handled with white gloves. Still, you can pretend she’s incongruously singing “dubs-dubstep music”, so there’s some sort of fun to be had.
[4]
Cédric Le Merrer: There’s obviously a serious modern coat of paint over this pastiche of early 90’s J-pop tune, but clearly it’s the nostalgia factor that does it for me. This is the sound I heard growing up in the background or the closing credits of countless animes. It was sung by future idols in space colonies and fictional global stars in love with Ryo Saeba. I was more interested in stupid cock rockers at the time and didn’t pay them any mind, but that doesn’t make this any less perfect a madeleine.
[9]
Anthony Easton: It might be the squealing high-pitched quality that i find genuinely painful and therefore quite difficult to process completely, but I cannot work through this.
[4]
Josh Langhoff: I would like four and a half minutes for rebuttal.
[2]
Will Adams: The anachronistic vocal stutters are actually the best part, because that’s the only time when Chisato Moritaka’s vocals engage with the music. Everywhere else, she sounds, at best, like she’s been awkwardly grafted onto the beats and, at worst, a hundred yards away from them. Though she might have a good reason: I wouldn’t want to get too close to Tofubeats’ stale 90s retread.
[4]
Brad Shoup: I keep forgetting about the sprite-in-the-machine intro. Though a veteran, Moritaka is filled with wonder from stem to sterm, projecting a youthful affabiity. Tofubeats’s midtempo electro-house is a perfect accompaniment; like its singer, there’s very little showing off here. The near-off-pitch riff is maybe a bit too on the nose, but it fits snugly with the sense of easy work rendered carefully. So when he throws Moritaka’s vocals in the blender, it reads like a concession to trendiness. A track this adorable, this assured, has no need for it.
[9]
Katherine St Asaph: Like a Summer of Smooth track (or Jellybean Benitez track, or ’90s house track — tofu beats, indeed), but without the disco-suit smarminess.
[7]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: An effective-enough celebration of feeling celebratory, its sheen of peppiness a shield from boredom.
[4]