Billboard Japan has launched its mid-year charts for 2023, together with “Niconico VOCALOID SONGS TOP20,” a chart of Vocaloid music newly launched in December 2022, the place Tsumiki has maintained a constant presence on the high since its inception.
Billboard Japan spoke to the musician behind “Phony” on how he felt in regards to the music, which stays broadly beloved even now, roughly two years after its launch, and the rationale for his fixed exercise, not solely as a Vocaloid producer, but in addition as a songwriter and as a solo artist.
“Phony,” which you launched in June 2021, stays a fixture within the high of the Billboard JAPAN “Niconico VOCALOID SONGS TOP20” chart. At present, I’d like to speak with you about “Phony,” which has been a very long-lived hit, and about your relationship with Vocaloid. To start out off with, what led to the discharge of “Phony” in 2021?
Tsumiki: After I wrote “Phony,” in 2021, social networks have been actually taking off, and everybody was masked up due to COVID. I felt like, on the time, there was a powerful and rising shift towards anonymity all through the world, each mentally and in a real-world sense. It felt like individuals have been placing on masks. Japan’s “ronpa increase,” that fad of taking pictures down different individuals’s arguments, was one other instance of it. It was like individuals have been brandishing justice as a weapon. I used to be recoiling from {that a} bit. I began writing “Phony” to place these emotions to music. All of it started with a request I bought to advertise the KAFU synthetic singing synthesizer. KAFU was made by feeding the voice of digital singer KAF into an AI. That’s why I felt that it had a connection to the scenario on the time, the place everybody was carrying ‘masks,’ and to the themes of deceit and falsehood.
The sound may be very completely different from the songs in your first album, SAKKAC CRAFT, which you launched on February 2021. I really feel like “Phony” has a extra danceable sound.
Tsumiki: The music I made up by SAKKAC CRAFT was made utilizing a type of additive method. From “Phony” onward, I began to need to let the fabric breathe. As a substitute of including increasingly over the course of some days, I needed listeners to have the ability to hear the sound prefer it first got here out. I believe that whereas I used to be attempting out new issues utilizing this method, the music grew to become increasingly danceable.
Wanting again, why do you assume you have been attempting to vary your music that approach?
Tsumiki: I believed that method could be extra common. Additionally, till then, a lot of the songs I made have been made utilizing Hatsune Miku, however the one info that Hatsune Miku works with is melody and voice. You need to specific issues like respiratory and falling tones by utilizing notes. With KAFU, although, respiratory is put in routinely. There’s much more information than there may be with Hatsune Miku. Wanting again, I believe that I began utilizing a composition method the place the vocals would draw the listener in themselves, to make the vocals stand out extra.
I really feel just like the themes of deceit and falsehood have been a part of your music even earlier than “Phony” got here out. For instance, “Phony” begins out with “There aren’t any flowers on this world extra lovely than synthetic flowers,” lyrics that basically make a powerful impression. Synthetic flowers are additionally talked about in your music “tautology uncertain.” The “pretend” within the title of the primary music you ever uploaded, “tokyo diver pretend present,”, can also be in the identical vein as “Phony.”
Tsumiki: After I write music, I attempt to at all times be there for the underdog. I personally are typically actually introspective, and I need to write music that compensates for that a part of my very own persona. I usually write my songs and lyrics with the hope that they’ll attain quite a lot of different individuals, as nicely. In that sense, in some methods my music is like taking over mounting emotions of deceit or guilt. For instance, if you’re having a tough time at work, there are occasions when it’s a must to placed on a courageous face. I consider that as a type of lie. I believe by all of my music runs an intent to create one thing that rescues individuals from that deceit.
How a lot do you concentrate on ‘modernity,’ such as you talked about earlier?
Tsumiki: I can’t write about issues I don’t consider. After I’m impressed in regards to the misfortune I’m confronted with in our fashionable age, I begin writing all of it down. That’s the place my songwriting begins, so I assume in a approach it’s inevitable that my music would have a sense of modernity. It might be one thing so simple as “Dammit, there’s no bathroom paper! That sucks!” (laughs) I develop on that little on a regular basis gloom, sublimating it into pop music.
What sort of influence do you assume the widespread help for “Phony” has had in your actions after its launch?
Tsumiki: I believe it was a serious turning level for me in my very own musical life. My efforts to make music targeted on universality got here to fruition. I’ve at all times favored music that strayed from the confines of pop, and, exactly due to that, it was a giant deal that my very own imaginative and prescient of pop grew into full maturity.
As I discussed earlier, “Phony” has constantly saved a high place within the “Niconico VOCALOID SONGS TOP20” chart. How do you are feeling in regards to the existence of this Vocaloid-specific chart, which was launched in December 2022?
Tsumiki: I assume for somebody moving into music manufacturing, rankings are necessary. Figuring out what place your music reached may help encourage you to make music. In that sense, having Vocaloid-exclusive rankings, and the desires that include them, is an effective factor. The chart may be what makes somebody who’s simply beginning their music manufacturing assume, “yeah, I simply would possibly be capable to do that.”
So rankings are like metrics or entry factors for youthful generations.
Tsumiki: I bought into Vocaloid manufacturing again once I was in a band, as a result of my pal Tatsuya Kitani was utilizing Vocaloid. He confirmed me what to do. When my music appeared within the rating, he unfold the phrase about that, and I believe lots of people found me because of this. I need to let the newer generations know that issues like this may occur.
Do you concentrate on the chart if you write music?
Tsumiki: Truthfully, personally, I really feel like if what I’m placing on the market resonated with even one individual, I might die glad. However I’m not making my music alone, and I believe the chart is necessary for every kind of individuals, so I don’t need to neglect the chart, and I hope that I can declare a place on it by placing out good music. I need to carry on believing in my very own creations, and I don’t need to make the individuals who consider in me really feel ashamed.
You stated that in case your music resonated with even one individual, you would die glad. The truth that you would say that with such conviction actually exhibits what a devoted artist you’re.
Tsumiki: I don’t need to make music as an commercial, I need to make music as music. On the flip aspect of that, so long as I can convey the true essence of music, I believe something goes. That’s why I design the exterior trappings of my music, just like the thumbnails of my movies, to speak with as many individuals as potential. Then, when every thing is stripped away, if there’s even a single person who I’ve actually reached, that’s sufficient to make me glad.
The rating additionally exhibits the presence of music from different artists from your personal technology. What sort of affect does this have on you?
Tsumiki: After all, it has quite a lot of affect on me. I submitted my first music in 2017, and quite a lot of the opposite artists on the chart are my contemporaries, like Threee and Ayase. We began watching Nico Nico Douga again after we have been round elementary college age. We have been the technology that was watching artists like wowaka, Hachi, and DECO*27 maintain these ‘good music battles.’ It seems like we’re going again to the tradition of these days. Competing purely for enjoyable, with that feeling of “I gained!” or “oh, no, I misplaced” — there’s a type of nostalgic enchantment to it. I do know that rankings aren’t every thing, in fact, however I hope individuals additionally perceive that they are often loved in that approach, too.
Just lately, you’ve been doing lots outdoors the traditional Vocaloid class, like collaborating with different artists as a songwriter or working within the unit NOMELON NOLEMON with Maria Miki. Taking a look at this rising vary of actions provides me a way of your spirit of exploration as a creator, and your want to tackle new challenges. What do you assume is behind your musical actions taking so many varieties in so many locations?
Tsumiki: Personally, I don’t really feel a giant divide between these different actions and my Vocaloid music creation. I didn’t begin making music as a result of I needed to make Vocaloid songs, I simply had Vocaloid sing the music that I needed to create. I shaped a musical unit for a similar purpose — if it might assist me attain individuals, then it’s what I needed to do. I hope that participating in music creation in all these methods will assist me share the music I’ve deep inside.
This “music you might have deep inside” — does that tie into your want to be there for the underdog, as you talked about after we have been speaking about “Phony”?
Tsumiki: Sure, it does. Properly, I say ‘the underdog,’ however I actually need my music to achieve every kind of individuals. It’s simply that there have been so many instances when music has saved me. When that occurs, I’m crammed with an awesome want to create music. Day by day, even when we aren’t confronted with main issues, we encounter little annoyances in our day by day lives. There are occasions after we simply don’t really feel motivated. After I take heed to music throughout these little downs in my day, the music generally evokes me. It provides me the enhance I would like to maneuver ahead.
So, wanting on it now, what do you assume is the enchantment of the expressive medium of Vocaloid?
Tsumiki: It must be how straightforward it’s to get began. To grow to be a Vocaloid producer, all you want is a pc and the software program. Prior to now, I believe that being a musician required you to comply with a course of: contracting with an company, getting signed to a label, renting a studio, performing…With Vocaloid, you are able to do the equal of all of that from your personal room, with simply a pc. I believe that’s actually necessary. I see this reducing of the obstacles to creating music to be a optimistic factor.
Do you might have any targets of your personal proper now?
Tsumiki: It’s nonetheless a obscure thought, however ever since I used to be little, I listened to music, and the enjoyment of music saved me and enabled me to hold in there. So I need to give again to music — to take what I’ve gotten from earlier generations and move it on to future generations. It feels just like the instances we’re dwelling in are simply getting darker and darker. It’s exactly due to this that I need to create a world the place kids could be saved by the enjoyment of music. That’s why I hope sometime to put in writing songs for youngsters.
—This interview by Fumiaki Amano first appeared on Billboard Japan
