Ladies and Gents, here we are again at the sunny FAN Studios, and here I am! Okay, metal-heads, it’s time to raise your hands and show me your fox signs… whatever that means, I have no idea yet, but you’ll know soon enough as you and me take a dive into the world of Babymetal! So here we go in three, two, one…
BABYMETAL showing their fox signs. If you think that was a dirty line, then you sir have lost the game.
Our story begins sometime ’round the 8th century, when Vikings were all the rage and Ragnarok was around the corner. There was blood, and there was guts. A clash of weapons here and there, with a bit of plague and famine on the side. You’d think it was the end of the world, especially if the Níðhöggr was all over your face in the future. Anyways, Ragnarok would have been the most awesome kind of apocalypse there is, with all the types of fights that would make comic books, manga, or graphic novels orgasm.
All that and more I learned from Vinland Saga, because history books are boring!
And so we fast forward to the era today. Today-today, to be exact. I’m here, having just finished listening to Amon Amarth’s most recent album Surtur Rising. A fun album, in which I particularly liked the songs War of the Gods, Destroyer of the Universe, and Victory or Death. I recommend it, not to mention that it would make decent background sounds in the inevitable zombie or alien apocalypse. But I digress.
I say Amon Amarth because I’d say that the group would be a great help to me in defining the topic at hand this week. Yes indeed, because you see what I’ll be doing to get some readings is to compare Amon Amarth with J-Pop group Babymetal. Cue a relatively manly metal scream here.
So here we are, and here’s a quick run through with both groups.
BABYMETAL:
-Consists of three preteen girls, one 14 and two 12 year olds.
-Is a subgroup of Japanese idol group Sakura Gakuin.
-Nicknames of the three are SU-METAL (vocals) with MOAMETAL and YUIMETAL (screams). They dance.
-So far one of the most notable features among the three is their gothic-lolita getups, at least in the videos.
-Have two music videos, Doki Doki Morning and Li Ne.
-Will have a concert that has a trailer that needs to be seen. Show your fox signs, people!
Amon Amarth:
-A group of bearded vikings from Sweden.
-Name can be translated into Mount Doom. Tolkien was very metal.
-A decent amount of the songs either revolve around Vikings and the Norse.
-The only music video I remember for them is Twilight for the Thunder God.
You decide!
Or not. I really wasn’t thinking of actually comparing the two groups together, or making up some kind of competition between the two. Both are too different for each other, but in the end, I’m here to take a peek because of the word metal. One is a genre classifying the band’s music, and the other is part of the group’s name. Let’s see if the latter can be called “metal” in essence as well.
First, we get into their first music vid: Doki Doki Morning. I have an intent to be thorough, and for your entertainment I have watched the video around eight and a half times. Yow. Not cause I was shocked or anything, but because of the whole having to watch it for eight times, and a half.
It’s not really that bad or anything. It starts of with some rather dinky background tune, and then kind of hit you with the sounds you can associate with metal. Drums and guitar rocking out, or is it metaling out? I don’t know. The vocals kick in at that point, starting with SU-METAL’s metal scream. It’s… okay, I guess. It’s a kind of flat-ish thing. When it’s a woman going at it with a metal scream, I’d want to hear a banshee doing her best, you know?
Anyways, in the background, I can hear a scream that’s more metal in sound. Perhaps a random metal-head nearby in agony over this? Not quite, and the song begins for realz. Note that there’s some dancing going on as well. On the background we have three dudes dressed as skeletons, rocking out with drums and guitars. Nothing ear-splitting, but decent enough for the songs. Now I don’t know Japanese, so I have a disadvantage with understanding here, but the vocals have a very cutesy feel. It’s really the kind I expect on other J-Pop dancy tunes.
At this point, I’m kind of convinced that they’re not really talking about stuff like fire and viking attacks. That would be pretty cool though, wouldn’t it? Yandere stuff. Morbid lyrics sang in the most cutesy fashion. That would be pretty damn awesome, if you ask me.
The whole thing is okay. I’d say that it floats around a weird area with the incorporation of what they perceive as a metal image. The skeletons were okay, and the parts where you can see them playing with the video distortion going about is pretty cool, and there was even a screamer type thing around the end. The girls on the other hand… aside from their metal scream here and there, there’s really not much weight to add in the metal scale. Pop music, and their gothic loli schoolgirl outfits don’t really scream metal to me.
Very metal.
- Very metal.
They did have a hilarious attempt to look all hip-hop, though. Flash forward to their other video, Li Ne. Line? I dunno. This time someone else does the scream thing. The metal tune feels more blended in the background this time around, and the whole song itself gets a more dance-y vibe. Did I mention that they had a background singer that growls here? At the start, you can hear a voice growl/sing back replies to BABYMETAL. It’s the kind of growl that a person could associate with those hard to understand songs in the metal genre.
And then the song cuts, and all of a sudden we are whisked off to what might be hip-hop. The girls, no longer in their usual garb, are donning colorful… I really don’t know. Is it hip-hop? Jackets and hoods, and rapping. BABYRAP? I just saw a DJ’s hand playing around with those vinyl records. What is going on here, I ask myself, as I hear the words “microphone check” followed by a “are you ready to mosh?” which only serves to confuse me more.
More growly screams, and doom metal sounds before the song ends with a serving of J-Pop. Now, as I’ve understood it, fox sign is their name and version of the devil horns. I tried it myself, devil on my right hand and fox sign on my left. My parents would be proud. Anyways, all that mention of fox signs is seen in Li Ne and My First Heavy Metal, a trailer for a concert of theirs.
You really should take a peek at it. You got the girls running all over the stage, with a quick tune that kind of reminds me of those fast paced power metal tunes. And you have the crowd. I am kinda amazed that a bunch of guys are in the front shaking their fists/fox signs. I’m really trying to avoid making a Chris Hansen reference here, but here I am crossing that bridge.
In the end, common sensibilities say to me that BABYMETAL is not Amon Amarth (did I even try to connect the two together?) nor they are metal in genre. I have a hard time defining what’s metal. It’s not just the instruments, though, since for example Korpiklaani had used a violin and probably an accordion. Metal, and several other music genres cover a lot of themes, and a language barrier prevents me from getting an accurate feel of what the songs mean.
Nonetheless, I’d say that in the end, BABYMETAL has an okay tune. I like metal, and I like J-Pop as well. I like a variety of genres, and the most basic requirement I have is that it should be catchy. It can be a case by case things, sometimes. My verdict is this: the genre is J-Pop, influenced by the energy of metal. Nothing more, nothing less.