On Twitter, Andrew Barber from Fake Shore Drive posted that we should all be more forthcoming with our oddball, questionable, or just downright bad music takes
This is different than those interminable “unpopular opinion” threads (they’re never actually unpopular anyway)
This is straight up wrong
This is, I KNOW this is wrong, but like Arsenio’s Reverend Brown, I don’t wanna be right!
I’ve got more than a few of these
To wit:
Morio Agata’s “Submarine,” perhaps best known for blatantly ripping off Joy Division, is in fact superior to its classic source
Just about every comment here is piling on, complaining about, or clowning the theft
Except for one or two who propose that maybe Morio actually came first?
No, he didn’t
It’s definitely from 1980 and She’s Lost Control was definitely already released, even in Japan
But guess what
I’ll still take the robbery
The punk-style energy is pulsating
And the vocal delivery blows Ian out the frame (immediately ducks flying projectiles)
Hell, even the boosted bassline itself comes through with much more clarity and pop
Morio Agata debuted in the early 70s with some cool Japanese folk rock
He had been born in 48 in Hokkaido
Hokkaido was spared the worst of the bombardments in the war, and didn’t suffer the same sorts of civilian slaughters that other islands did
Still, one can imagine the possible influence of growing up in the aftermath of the atomic annihilation
His early albums were actually his most successful
The 1970 debut shows him trying to be the Japanese Bob Dylan, I guess?
And in 72, had a single that apparently moved half a million units!
Later in the 70s, he incorporated psych and experimental elements
And per his own bio, was influenced by the modern mass culture of the Taisho democracy (1912-1925)
I’m too ignorant to know, but I can guess that this period of relative prosperity, and liberalism perhaps had some resonances with second half of twentieth century and its social movements?
In any case, by the late 70s, Agata is getting more experimental, with synths and all
You don’t hear it as much in “Submarine” (other than the bubbling sounds of the sub’s descent into the deep) but check the title track of its 1980 album
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_aXWZSdT5Q
Found sounds and vocal effects
Or the crazy electro pop of the opening track
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGAOYcivQyQ
Yeah, perhaps a bit derivative, but I believe we established that at the beginning!
He’s been damn prolific
And wide-ranging
Put out a tango record in 1987!
Did educational kids records for NHK, sorta like the Japanese PBS Kids
And also directed four films
A true renaissance (Meiji restoration?) man
He’s still active today: put out an album in 2019 that Google translates as “Sightseeing Souvenir Third Planet”
Sounds dope
Not too many copies of the the 1980 album with Submarine were pressed; originals go for about 2 bills
I don’t know the story behind the cover pictures, but like to think it’s a kind of reimagining of the relation between youth, play, airplanes, and destruction – from the rubble of the allied air raids
Anyway, I’m proposing a re-imagining myself where fans of Agata complain that She’s Lost Control is just a pathetic, pale precursor to the true classic, Submarine
Feel free to join in with your own weird and bad takes
