Shibuya’s Scrambled Sounds

Hi everyone, I hope you had a nice week. It’s been nice having a normal semi-relaxing week over here. Tonight, I’m going to see a band called Strip Joint, which I’ve written about in this newsletter before. I’ll probably take some videos and post them on the Instagram page so stay tuned for that if you’re interested.

Either way, let’s get to round 2 of The Sushi Platter. This one will be a little more on the short and sweet side.

📖 History and Influence 📖 

Number Girl is a rock band from Fukuoka who formed in 1995. The band consists of 4 members, Shutoku Mukai (guitar and vocals), Hisako Tabuchi (guitar), Kentaro Nakao (bass), and Ahito Inazawa (drums). The name comes from the merging of the names of Mukai’s home recording project titled Number Five and another band called Cow Girl which featured members with whom Mukai played in the first iteration of Number Girl.

While Number Girl’s sound changes every record, the best way to describe them is that they’re the perfect middle ground of 90’s Post-Hardcore and Indie Rock. From an American’s perspective, it’s very easy to hear them and think that they are just copycats of the Dischord era sounds, and I mean, they kinda are Fugazi meets Dinosaur Jr. in a way. Honestly, when I first heard them I felt the same way, but as time has gone on, I’ve seen how truly unique they are as a band. They’re one of the only bands with this kinda angsty sound that I can continue to revisit and enjoy.

A big part of this is thanks not only to the songwriting but also to the sounds that they manage to create. Their guitar sounds are particularly unique and the production sounds like everything is peaking and distorted, while also sounding kinda flat. While their influence isn’t felt in the West so much, their influence on Japanese bands is huge. You could argue that they’re the Nirvana (Maybe Pixies?) of Japanese 2000s rock. Bands like Asian Kung Fu Generation, who were probably the most popular band in all of Japan at one point, owe as much to their sound to Number Girl as they do Weezer. One article mentions how when Number Girl became a major label band, people thought of them as scary, but they were still considered one of the “Elite Four” of Japanese rock at the time (the other three being Supercar, Qururi, and Kazuyoshi Nakamura).

Number Girl came to me at both the right and wrong times. The right time in the sense that I was going through my Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., Hüsker Dü phase right at the end of High School and I mean, they have a track called Pixie Du so it makes sense. But it’s also the wrong time because of the aforementioned, unfair bias towards their sound that is hard to ignore. But once I heard the number 1 record on this list, that was when I truly realized they were a special band that didn’t deserve those comparisons. The reason they’re one of my favorites is not because they have some legendary album or something, just the fact that they were so consistent despite trying different approaches on each album. A feat I greatly appreciate.

Same as with the YMO episode, the links below are of the remastered versions (except for School Girl Bye Bye and the Spotify links for Sappukei). I think these remasters also don’t hurt the original albums and just enhance the clarity, even though there is a bit of loudness war vibes going on. Actually, all of these remasters were done by Dave Fridmann (producer of many classic albums including most of The Flaming Lips discography), a good friend of the band and producer of the original versions of Sappukei and Num-Heavymetallic.

📈 Rankings 📈 

*Bonus - Sapporo Omoide in My Head Jōtai

Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube Music

So this is a live album, hence why I’m not going to include it in this ranking. But I felt I needed to bring this up because this is an amazing live album. Some people always call them a live band instead of a recorded band, and while I don’t completely agree, you can definitely tell they are a different beast live. Each song has a completely distinct vibe that separates the recorded and live versions. Also just worth mentioning that the track Omoide in My Head is God Tier live. Not a good place to start, but def for the Number Girl fans who’ve heard all of the albums.

Also worth pointing out that this was their final show before they reunited in 2019. Lots of passion and crowd-pleasing here.

4. SCHOOL GIRL BYE BYE

YouTube
*Not on streaming services 😢

This is the first album by Number Girl, and I mean this in both a positive and negative way, you can tell that this is their first. The songs are good, the performances are good, the production is good, but there is a slight staleness to it. You can tell that they were still trying to find their groove and form their sound.

But that’s underselling this album, when it came out, it caught a lot of attention. Also, even though this is technically their worst album, in my opinion, it’s still worth listening to. I love the rawness and slight immaturity of tracks like “Over-Sentimental” and “Mini-Grammer”. Although to me, this album bookends with he best tracks. The recorded version of “Omoide in My Head”, while flat compared to the live version, is still one of, if not the best track from this album. “4 Track Professional” closes everything out with a really passionate performance from Mukai with a drum beat and bass that feels like old-school punk (kinda Krautrock as well).

If you’ve listened to the other 3 albums on this list and you liked those, check out this one as well.

3. SCHOOL GIRL DISTORTIONAL ADDICT

Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube Music

So this was my first album by Number Girl, and I think it’s the first for most people right? This was their Major Label debut and I think it’s safe to say it’s their most influential. If you’re looking for the best of the straightforward Post-Hardcore/kinda Pop side of their sound, this is it.

This album is also very consistent from front to back. To me, there are no skips here. It’s not super genre-pushing or doing anything challenging, but it’s the most fun Number Girl album. It’s a refined version of School Girl Bye Bye that just takes what was present on that record and cranks it up with more dynamic songwriting, and just, in general, more memorable melodies.

The opening track “Touch” doesn’t hold back, giving you everything they have right out of the gate. Can we also just talk about how gnarly the guitar tones are on this track? A lot of Number Girl tracks have this sound but this song in particular is just… GNARLY. There’s also the dynamic closer “Eight Beater”, and the close to Pop-Punk but too noisy to be called Pop-Punk “裸足の季節 (Hadashi no kisetsu)” But my personal favorite and one of my top 5 favorite Number Girl songs is “日常に生きる少女 (Nichijo ni ikiru shojo)”. I dare you to fly over here and tell me that tempo change in the middle doesn’t rule, I TRIPLE DOG DARE YA.

2. NUM-HEAVYMETALLIC

Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube Music

Okay, so this one is wild for me. When I first heard it, it was very much in the “oh that’s good but not my favorite” category for me. But this album is the definition of a grower. It’s still aggressive, but it has a lot more subdued passages than previous albums. Also, there is nothing holding them back with the sound effects and instrument manipulations this time. It feels a little less straightforward than their other albums and you can tell that they knew it would be their last. To me, this feels like the full realization of some of the sounds they were going for on Sappukei. Sometimes there are these uncanny dub influences present throughout the album, especially in the drum sounds that give this album a really distinct flavor.

So instead of going for harsh instrumentation or catchy hooks, this album is about driving, repeating rhythms. While there are climactic moments like the closing track “黒目がちな少女 (Kuromegachi na Shojo)” and the ever-changing “Cibiccoさん (Cibicco san)”, most of the album has a very consistent pace and definitely has some Talking Heads and/or Can inspiration which is rare for the genre to channel into so heavily. Some personal favorites of mine include the funky “Num-Ami-Dabutz” and the frantic “Manga Sick”.

This album ages like a fine wine with time, and as of now, it’s probably my favorite Number Girl album to sit down and analyze. But it didn’t quite get number one because that goes to…

1. SAPPUKEI

Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube Music

Yep, this has been my favorite Number Girl album for a long time and while School Girl Distortional Addict, Num-HeavyMetallic, and this one are all really really close for me (all three are 9/10s). However, this one just edges it out for me. It’s the perfect balance of the straightforward pop-adjacent songwriting of SGDA and the experimentation of Num. If you haven’t noticed, I usually like albums that balance these two factors. (hee hee oops)

This album has my absolute favorite Number Girl tracks on it. First off, literally, the one-two punch of “Brutal Number Girl” and “Zegen Vs. Undercover” is pure distortional bliss. “Tattooあり (Tatoo ari)” is also a favorite with its banging drums, warped guitars, and lyrics about the stereotypes Japanese culture has about tattoos.

I honestly don’t have too much to say about this one other than just recommending you listen to it. It rips and roars and has a much darker feeling than the previous album while also bringing in more outside influences, sometimes resulting in a more subdued sound.

Tier List

Thank you!

Thanks again for reading this issue of Shibuya’s Scrambled Sounds! If you have any feedback or questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out by replying to this email, or the official Instagram page (click the icon below). If you like what you read, please tell your friends, like our Instagram, etc. I hope to eventually be a primary source of Japanese music for the English-speaking world because I want to share my love of music with as many people as possible, and you all would be the way that could happen.

See ya next time! Breakfast is ready.