Steve McClure - The Japan Times

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Steve McClure

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Steve McClure

Steve McClure has lived in Tokyo since 1985. Formerly Billboard magazine’s Asia Bureau Chief, he now publishes the online music-industry newsletter McClureMusic.com.

For Steve McClure's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Sep 18, 2002

Talk about the passion . . .

Can Kiyoshi Hikawa save enka?

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Sep 11, 2002

Putting the J in J-punk

It's taken a while, but punk rock seems to have finally broken into the J-pop mainstream.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Sep 4, 2002

X Japan pianist/drummer is now a global commodity

If you've walked by the Laforet building in Harajuku recently, you might have noticed a huge banner that draped the structure's exterior featuring a masked character, looking something like a pro wrestler, poking his head out of what appears to be a body of water.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Jul 31, 2002

Rock 'n' roll is here to stay

The silly season -- when the midsummer heat engenders a sort of benign lunacy -- is well and truly upon us. And you can't get much sillier, in the nicest sense of the word, than The Yellow Dogs and The Bunnies, two resolutely retro bands who have recently issued albums whose primitive musicality is more than offset by their charm and sense of fun.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Jul 24, 2002

Women whose work is never done

"Senko (Flash)," singer/songwriter UA's first single in three years, further cements her status as one of J-pop's most enigmatic and original artists. Released July 24, "Senko" is a dark, moody piece that's half tone poem and half pop song. UA and co-producer Rei Harakami have created a sparse, ambient-ish soundscape for "Senko," which is a very uncommercial six minutes and seven seconds long.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Jul 17, 2002

Really looking forward to old age

Rock stars can do things us regular folks can't. They can get good tables at crowded restaurants without a reservation. They can have promiscuous sex and take all sorts of exotic drugs and then be knighted by the Queen. And if they're Eikichi Yazawa, they can travel forward in time to visit their future self.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Jul 10, 2002

A card-carrying regular guy

One interesting aspect of Japanese meishi (name-card) etiquette is that entertainers never give them out. It took me a while to figure out that one. Several interviews with musicians I thought had begun inauspiciously when I handed the artist my meishi only to receive nothing in return.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Jul 3, 2002

Make way for the gloom

Mr. Hyde is waiting to be interviewed in the chicly decrepit confines of Casa del Japon, a Western-style house in Azabu that was the residence of China's ambassador to Japan before World War II and is now a bar and restaurant.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Jun 26, 2002

Starting off on the right foot (and ending on the left . . .)

The Japanese music biz produces boy-girl pop duos with clockwork regularity -- think Love Psychedelico or EE Jump. The most recent example is Orange Pekoe (that's pronounced "peh-koe," by the way), which comprises Kobe natives Kazuma Fujimoto and Tomoko Nagashima.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Jun 19, 2002

What's the real problem behind music file sharing?

Share and share alike -- that's what we were taught when we were kids.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Jun 12, 2002

Message in a pop song

You've probably noticed a big mascara-lined eye staring out at you from billboards all over town lately. The eye in question belongs to Lisa, former vocalist with hip-hop/R&B trio m-flo, and the billboard is plugging her new single, "Babylon no Kiseki (Miracle of Babylon)," which was released on May 29.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Jun 5, 2002

With Shina, the songs don't have to remain the same

All too often, albums of cover songs are just stopgap efforts put out by artists whose creative juices have run dry. So when I heard that Ringo Shina was making her comeback in the form of a covers album after taking a year's maternity leave, I was skeptical. But my expectations were raised as the names of the songs she was covering were announced one after another on her Web site. It was a weirdly eclectic list, including songs as utterly different as The Beatles' "Yer Blues" and "I Wanna be Loved by You" from the movie "Some Like It Hot."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

May 29, 2002

And the 'nice try' award goes to . . .

It is my sad duty to report that the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards Japan, held May 24 at the Tokyo International Forum, was a less than spectacularly successful affair.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

May 22, 2002

For Utada, third time's, uh, same-ish

Set for a June 19 release, Hikaru Utada's third album, "Deep River," doesn't contain any major surprises, staying true to the pop/R&B synthesis that has proven so successful for the singer since she burst onto the scene with her debut single, "Automatic/Time Will Tell," back in December 1998.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

May 15, 2002

Misora's ship has come in

Die-hard fans of the late Hibari Misora -- the greatest enka diva ever -- may want to book passage on the "Queen Hibari Misora cruise," a unique, if somewhat morbid, maritime event being held June 12 and 13 to mark the 14th anniversary of Misora's death at the age of 52 after a prolonged illness.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

May 8, 2002

Go West, PuffyAmiYumi!

If you've ever seen pop duo Puffy perform live, you know that a key part of their shows is their low-key, slightly ironic between-songs banter. So naturally Yumi Yoshimura is worried that her inability to speak English will make it hard to enjoy that kind of communication with audiences during Puffy's upcoming North American tour.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

May 1, 2002

A heaping spoonful of satire helps the politics go down

Mixing music and politics is always tricky. While it sometimes results in great art (e.g. Bob Dylan's pacifist tirade "Masters of War"), often the music is ruined by too much didacticism (John Lennon's "Some Time in New York City" is a prime example).

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Apr 24, 2002

Two men and a poor baby

I have a thang, as Isaac Hayes would say, for Yuki Koyanagi. Maybe it's her sultry pout. Maybe it's her bleached-blonde hair. Or it could be her gloriously trashy fashion sense.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Apr 17, 2002

Happy End all over again

British rock band Oasis will be playing live in Tokyo on May 23. But exactly where is a mystery.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE

Apr 10, 2002

In a sentimental mood

For Westerners of a certain age, the '60s were an era of social and cultural ferment, when the Vietnam War, the Pill, rock music, drugs and the sexual revolution shook the foundations of society. In Japan, however, a "can-do" spirit prevailed as the postwar blahs were left behind and the country entered a period of rapid economic growth.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.

The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces

By Stephen Mansfield

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

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