beta music mode

This week’s announcement of a reunion (during a comeback performance at A-Nation) by Do As Infinity came as a surprise to me. At first I was delighted, thirty minutes later I was sceptical. The thoughts running through my mind:

“Oh my God, they’re back again!!”
“Hang on. Why are they reforming again? Didn’t they trot out the usual ‘It’s time for us to move on to allow ourselves the opportunity to grow as musicians’ rubbish when they split? What happened to that?”

In the intervening period between DAI’s dissolution (September 29, 2005) and expected reformation (September 29, 2008), precious little good has happened to the band’s individual members. Van Tomiko’s solo career has been disappointing, with poor sales to match. Owatari Ryo’s MISSILE INNOVATION project has similarly failed to take off. Nagao Dai has presumably been busy doing whatever he usually does, which is hiding in the shadows and writing songs for unknown artists.

Money talks, of course. Avex will remember that DAI had 6 out of 6 studio albums chart within in the Top 5, and that they sold more than 800,000 copies of their first Do The Best compilation (which is incidentally, one of my first few Jpop purchases). Why not reform, when you can generate more sales than the individuals (put together) can muster? It all makes financial sense, baby.

DAI isn’t the only formerly big pop group to smell the money recently. ’90s teen girl group SPEED have reformed too - they were wildly popular during my teenage years, and individually not-so successful after the split. All those noble reasons the members have been spitting out - ‘I’m gonna do it for my son, blabla’, nobody’s buying that surely? OK, let’s not be too harsh on Eriko (Imai), whose young son is partially deaf. Their previous attempt at a reunion (in 2003) wasn’t exactly a roaring success, and it’s hard to imagine that their fans will still be around 8 years on but I wish them all the best.

The other side of the coin - influential ’90s band Sunny Day Service also reunited in August to play at the RISING SUN ROCK FESTIVAL in Hokkaido, 8 years after they split. They had several albums chart within the top 10, although I doubt few Jpop fans of the Hamasaki Ayumi era will have a clue who SDS are. Newcomers to the band can check out the PV to fan fave Summer Soldier on Youtube.

Of the trio, only frontman Sokabe Keiichi has actively continued pursuing a career in the music industry and on the surface, there doesn’t appear to be any financially-motivated reason to why he’s reforming SDS. Sokabe has been both prolific and successful with his various projects, including the still touring KEIICHI SOKABE BAND. He doesn’t need to reform SDS, but apparently chose to because he missed playing their songs with the rest of the band and support members. No announcement has been made on future activity, but I do hope that new material will be forthcoming.

So, two ways all these reunions could go. There’s the prospect of a truimphant return à la Take That, throngs of fans waiting to welcome them back with open arms. Or it could all go Spice Girls, empty seats, cancelled live tours and lots of bitching around. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.