Not another Hey! Say! JUMP related rant...

[faded_lace]

I'm getting awfully sick of the sentiment that Hey! Say! JUMP's music needs to "grow up." The fact that people are equating the more dance-beat electronic music of their past few singles with a more "mature" style and claim that Magic Power is some form of retrogression really aggravates me. Of course, everyone is entitled to her own opinion, and everyone is allowed to like or dislike whatever so strikes her. But the obsession with Arigatou and Over being some sort of "maturing" I find to be pretty ridiculous, especially considering that the album that came out directly before Arigatou introduced, among other things, Smile Song and Ganbaretsugo-- both upbeat pop songs. If upbeat pop songs aren't your thing, that's cool, but what's with the need to pigeonhole them as immature or childish? Honestly, it seems like a surprising choice of insult anyway, considering that Hey! Say! JUMP is still the debuted Johnny's group with the lowest mean age and still gets marketed half the time as "cute" rather than "sexy." Even assuming that Ryuutarou is gone for good, 45% of the band is still underage, and the average age of the members is just over 19-- underage in Japan. Knowing the propensities of Johnny's, is it surprising that they might be marketed childishly? If you were looking for adults, Kanjani 8 has almost the same amount of members-- why choose Hey! Say! JUMP if you're so offended by childishness?

And irregardless of the relative ages and maturity of the members, who says that bubblegum pop is childish? We Can Make It, probably Arashi's most recent bubblegum-poppish single, came out in 2007, when their youngest member was almost 24 and their oldest member was 26. Not everyone has to like it, but just because it's not to your taste doesn't make it an objectively worse song. The fact that people are defending the Magic Power single because of the B-sides or saying it would have been all right if it was a double A-side with Beat Line makes me so angry, because yeah, Beat Line is a good song, but just because it's of a different genre from Magic Power doesn't make it an inherently "better" song. When it comes down to it, they're both popular boybandy songs. It's not like were comparing the Backstreet Boys and Mozart, here.

And yes, Magic Power was the theme song for Smurfs. Yes, it's appropriate to have an upbeat happy song for a humourous family movie. But in the end, I don't feel the need to defend the single with the movie. Hey! Say! JUMP should be allowed to put out a cute, upbeat single with a cute, upbeat PV without being baselessly criticized for it.

Comments

[momijikun23.livejournal.com]

I thought Magi Power was beyond adorable!! It was like so cute and the song was pretty catchy and I found it alot better than Over cause I only liked the chorus parts of Over. It's a bit depressing that Little morimoto is gone now...

[faded-lace.livejournal.com]

I agree. I found the verses of Over generally pretty repetitive and not particularly musically interesting-- but that's just my opinion. I don't necessarily think it was a worse single or that it shouldn't have been the A-side and Aiing should have been... I just didn't like it as much as I like Magic Power. Some of us like cute and catchy songs, it's all a matter of opinion, you know? So other people shouldn't knock it :)