Pop Genius Interview

>Why "Stars Forever"?

The idea of making song portraits for money occurred to me. It's
never been done before, so it was also an interesting artistic challenge. I
posted an announcement on the Momus website on January 1st 1999,
not knowing if I would get a single response. But within two weeks
thirty people had pledged a thousand dollars each.

>How much time a year do you spend in Japan ?

I've been to Japan five times in total. I try and spend as long there as I can each time.
Last December (1998) I spent a whole month, and loved it.

It hadn't really changed much.There were a few more taxi drivers
who didn't know where things were because the recession made them lose their
office jobs, that's all. A few more building sites where the cranes
stopped moving. And maybe less emphasis on expensive designer labels and
more on being creative with thrift store clothes, which I'm all in favour of.

>Explain the development of your interest in Shibuya-kei.

I seem to work in styles without knowing it, then read articles
In magazines telling me that I am in fact trendy and avant garde.
For instance, with the other El Records bands in the 80s I was making
a kind of ironic loungecore long before people like Stereolab. Keigo
Oyamada was coming to Momus shows in the early 90s in London, at the same
time as he was creating Shibuya Kei. What I like about Shibuya Kei is its
cosmopolitanism and its modesty. While Britpop was all about
exporting British music all over the world while waving the British flag,
Shibuya Kei was about import: listening to all kinds of different music in
different languages, and synthesising it into a new style of Japanese pop.
Shibuya Kei was listening and thinking where Britpop was just shouting.

>It still surprises me somewhat just how widely known and appreciated Momus is in Tokyo.
What do you think made the Japanese take to Momus ?

I have a personality which is similar to young Japanese people's.
Melancholy, slightly sadistic, lolicon, highly aesthetic, a
little detached, polite, fascinated by gadgets, obsessed with trendy
style, an information and media junky, attracted to anything arty,
exaggeratedly individual, obsessed with graphic design, gentle rather than
aggressive, with a satirist's ambivalent fascination with capitalism...

>After years of ignoring Japanese artists, the UK press seem to
be taking Keigo Oyamada very seriously. Has this surprised you ?

Yes, because I always think the world I live in is like an
invisible bubble, and all the people I know are destined, like me, to float
around unnoticed, no matter what we do and how brilliant our work is.
Sometimes, though, the invisibility wears off, as it has recently with
Oyamada-San. But I have no doubt he will quickly become invisible again in
Britain, at least. Fashions change quickly here and no Japanese artist will
ever appeal to more than a small elite of media people and other artists. He
will be influential, but never genuinely 'popular'.

>Could "J-Pop" artists ever make it in Western Europe ?
>If so, who do you think are the likeliest candidates and why ?

We don't have as many trendy people in Europe as you have in
Japan. There is a big gap between a tiny elite who read the style, art and
music press and pick up on exotic new styles, and the majority, who buy
American shit and will always buy American shit, just like they will always eat
hamburgers. So J-Pop will never go beyond the trendy ghetto here,
or in the US. It's destined to be like Apple Computer, never getting more
than about 10 per cent of the market, even though it has a superior product.
And like Apple or Pizzicato 5, it should concentrate on appealing to
people who are interested in fashion, design, media. In other words, it should
optimise its marginality and focus on core markets instead of trying to go
mainstream, because the mainstream is not listening.

>The song "Lolita Dollhouse" was misinterpreted by some as being a
paean to Japanese manhood's much derided Lolita Complex - something that
I'm convinced is present everywhere. How much do you think Japan's
pop culture is based on that concoction of innocence and sex ?

'Lolitapop Dollhouse' is more about Kahimi (Karie) wanting to break out
of the constraints of being an indie version of a cute idol singer. But
I have certainly played up the lolicon image in songs like 'What Are You Wearing?'
too. I think Japan is able to celebrate this combination of
childishness and sexiness because it is such a safe society, with so little
crime. For instance, I was talking to a Japanese girl in London yesterday
and she told me that in Japan she can wear much sexier, more girly clothes
than she can in London, because here other women will think of her as a 'slut'
and men will stare at her menacingly in public. In the west women think
they have to be as hard as men, and as a result they throw away a lot of
power - the power that a 12 year old Balinese girl dancer has, for example:
that highly delicate, fetishised, and beautiful power to move people with your delicacy and femininity.

>A certain section of young Japanese are fascinated by relatively obscure UK
>and European labels such as el, Marina, Les Disques du Crepescule and
>Postcard, and associated artists like Louis Philippe and the
Pale Fountains. How would you account for this ?

These were labels that were more aesthetic than aggressive. I think that in
the west aggession is expected of artists. Even a pierrot like Michael
Jackson has to wear black leather and grab his crotch, when in fact we all
know he's a sissy dancing boy and would be happier to see him being
delicate. But some of us resist the pressure to fake aggression and make
gentle music, as friendly as a PostPet. And that makes it attractive in
Japan, where gentle and cute art is appreciated. By the way, I think you
can still be extremely subversive in gentle and cute art. You can still put
ideas in there which are more disturbing than anything in Rammstein.

>Why have you always been so misunderstood ? Are the British so lacking in wit ?

I know the rules and they know the rules. I have broken them in my records.
British people listen to Momus and say 'Why does he think he has the right
to use these rude words, when other bands are censoring themselves? How
dare he be so original in his choice of subject matter?' They're annoyed by
the cleverness of my work, since it's not fashionable to be clever here.
And they hate the fact that I am influenced by French pop, since France is
England's traditional enemy. An artist like Momus makes all other British
artists look less fresh, less original, less bold. And so I must be
ignored, because otherwise I will damage export sales.

>Most Momus acolytes I know, myself included, consider "Little
Red.." to contain your best songs since "Voyager" or thereabouts.
Did you get a good feeling about this album ?

I'm happy to hear that, because for me it's a very exciting and fresh
record, the first where I really felt I had found an interesting new style.
I feel like a new artist just beginning. Even on 'Voyager' I was mostly
pastiching other people's styles. But with Analog Baroque the influences
became so unique and strange that I couldn't point to anyone else doing
anything similar. Also, lyrically, I reached a stage of feeling
that I could say anything I liked in a song. That felt very good.

>Will you ever have a commercially successful record in the UK ?

You never know... maybe Creation will re-release 'Summer Holiday
1999' this summer and it will go to number one!

>Which contemporary artists are closest to what Momus does ?

Add N To (X). They worked on the last two Kahimi songs I made,
Symphonies of Beethoven and What Are You Wearing? The new
Moby record is slightly like what I'm trying to do, it collides
field recordings of early blues and gospel with electronic arrangements.

But really there are no contemporary artists I feel very close
to. Try to imagine Tom Waits produced by the Aphex Twin.

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