Hey, Hey, We're The Monkeys

I have to admit, when at the height of boredom in the office, my mind sometimes has a tendency to wander. Sure, oftentimes I’m thinking about things that have some bearing on my life; what to eat for lunch, how to find a job when I get back to America, what to blog about next. Occasionally though, I’ll drift off into the realm of complete fantasy, imagining, for example, what it might be like to be a rock star in Japan. While there may not seem to be a clear path from Momoishi ALT to rock god, this fantasy is really not as unlikely of a scenario as you might think.

For a while now I’ve been hearing that my predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor (or something like that-much like when using the term “grand” to trace an ancient relative on a family tree, once you’ve passed about the second level of removal from yourself, you enter a realm of abstraction where any number of additional “predecessor’s” won’t make the person seem any more or less remote, so it’s really pretty irrelevant), Maynard, is the lead vocalist and guitarist of a band called Monkey Majik. He apparently moved to Sendai after finishing his contract here in Momoishi, in order to start up a band. Well, that’s pretty cool I guess but a lot of people play in bands with awful names, so I was never quite as impressed by this information as my co-workers seemed to be.

Well, maybe that was just because I didn’t know how close they were to hitting the big time. They’ve apparently hit the shit out of it now, signing a contract with Avex, one of Japan’s largest major labels, on which they’ve got a new single out called “Fly”. One of their songs has even become the theme song for a popular television show, practically guaranteeing them a huge boost in popularity.

As I was on my way out of Tower Records today, I couldn’t help but notice a large display in the front of the store, pushing copies of Monkey Majik’s new single. There was also a video screen simultaneously displaying their music video. Well, of course I stopped at the listening station out of curiosity and gave “Fly” a spin. And how was it? Well, let’s be clear on this: I really wanted to like it and I really wanted to bask in the band’s reflected glory. But the fact of the matter is that the song is absolutely terrible; a completely bland, flaccid, cookie-cutter pop tune that trades off choruses written in juvenile English for verses written in equally juvenile Japanese. Think I'm just being acerbic? Well, let’s take a look at the song’s chorus, shall we?

Cause I wanna fly
Fly me up so high
Take me to the skies
I won’t get by

If there’s anything more shameful than ripping off Sugar Ray, it’s got to be ripping off Sugar Ray and then somehow defying the laws of science by actually writing lyrics that are significantly worse than Sugar Ray’s lyrics. I mean seriously, just about the only situation in which that chorus would be passable is if the person who wrote it was about seven years old. But hey, you don’t have to take my word for it; feel free to sample the tune for yourself. Meanwhile I’ll be over here, fantasizing about what to eat for lunch or something.