Patrick St. Michel

2 weeks ago | mbmelodies.substack.com | Patrick St. Michel

For a window in the late 2010s, Suchmos appeared to be the future of Japanese music. The viral success of 2016’s “Stay Tune” looks slight nearly a decade on — J-pop was still so allergic to YouTube at the start of that year that a video getting like, 30 million views felt like a sea change — but it spread to more traditional platforms. Here was a Kanagawa-based band capturing the mood of millennials in the country as they settled into adulthood.

2 weeks ago | mbmelodies.substack.com | Patrick St. Michel

I’m trapped outside the IKEA. My destination sits across the street, but mere steps from one of the top five Swedish soft-power exports going I find myself unable to access a crosswalk to get over. The show starts in about 15 minutes, and the kind soul at Universal Music Japan who invited me to come out to the concert is sending emails featuring a tone wondering if I’ve somehow ended up on the other side of the country.

2 weeks ago | mbmelodies.substack.com | Patrick St. Michel

perfect young lady — PYL 4th SEASON... The world perfect young lady invites you into through her music turns claustrophobic quickly. Sure, there’s all these charming melodies and honey-sweet hooks dotting the songs, but the longer you spend amongst them the quicker everything starts seeming off. A particular passage seems pitched in a weird way. A sudden interlude appears and like some long-forgotten TV comedy theme song…but you can’t quite place it.

2 weeks ago | japantimes.co.jp | Patrick St. Michel

The belly is a crucial gateway to promoting soft power. And at the 2025 Osaka Expo, the British clearly didn’t get the memo as they unwittingly created the Expo’s first viral food story, albeit for less than enticing reasons. Guests to the British pavilion commented on its pricey afternoon tea set being served in shabby paper cups, prompting the U.K. Embassy to replace them with ceramics to cool down the situation.

3 weeks ago | japantimes.co.jp | Patrick St. Michel

The Japanese music industry has spent the first half of 2025 in full-blown celebration mode. There were government-funded concerts in Los Angeles and the splashy Music Awards Japan in Kyoto — both of which offered no shortage of self-congratulatory back-pats for J-pop’s steady climb on the global stage. But beneath the revelry, something more interesting is happening: the sound of transition. With the first half of the 2020s now behind us, the big question isn’t who’s winning, but what comes next.