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Discuss Sweet Japanese American Princesses and all of your favorite musicians and bands in our music forum/message board.
Have you heard this album? Give us your rating above, 5 being best.
First of all, everyone needs to know how much I love Japanese rock'n'roll. I love it more than a lot of American rock'n'roll. For a while there it seemed like there were tons of American rock'n'roll influenced Japanese bands that were seriously kicking a lot of ass. I call to mind bands like Teengenerate and Guitar Wolf who to me represent a giant influence (way more so than the Makers, those dudes are way too slick) of a lot of trash-shit rock that was so popular a couple of years back, but enough about that. I got the Sweet J.A.P. record a few weeks back and I’m in love with it. They definitely aren’t Teengenerate or Guitar Wolf, but they’re still just as much fun and I would probably kill to see them live. These guys hail from Minnesota I guess, info is still kinda sketchy on them, and I’m pretty sure they’re Japanese, but these guys are on Big Neck records (one of my favorite labels) so hopefully they’ll get good distro and a few more people besides me will listen to these guys. the good thing about these guys is that they don’t rely on the hash and rehashed version of punk or rock'n'roll to get down, I’m gonna be honest about this, they do some fun things with their changes and they’re a pretty tight band, which isn’t always the case for their peers, but it works for these guys, so what I guess I’m saying is, they’re pretty innovative (I shy away from saying original), yet they still nod to their predecessors, which is ALWAYS a plus for me, I hate it when a band gets so caught up with themselves that they can’t admit they have influences while they rip off their influences. So I guess what I’m saying again is these guys have definitely been influenced, they know it and they acknowledge it. Let's be honest here, not many bands do that. My only problem with the record is how many songs there could have been on the record. When you think that the entire album is under twenty-five minutes, they could have easily doubled the number of songs on the record. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to hear these guys, but I want to hear more. Oh well, chalk it up to me being a dreamer.
Track listing:
01 Den Den Den
02 Turn Me On
03 Ikuze
04 Can't Stop Love Go
05 Oh My Pretty Face
06 Don't Make Me Feel
07 Hong Kong Express
08 R.E.F.
09 Broken Wings
10 Denki Me
11 Punk Vibe
12 Shake It Up All Night
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So I don’t always know what these guys are saying, but I sure do like them. They do the shout back thing that is so much fun at shows when you know the song, and they do count downs and yell “go” a lot. You can’t ask any more from a band really. They aren’t too lovey-dovey and for hell’s sake they’re Japanese. "Den Den Den" is a ripping first track, "Oh My Pretty Face" is probably the closest they come to a love song, but I think Sho is singing about himself (that’s the con of not being able to understand these guys), I really can’t tell. "Hong Kong Express" blazes away and "R.E.F." is probably my favorite track on this record. If I wanted to give people and idea of what these guys sound like, I would let them listen to this song; it’s probably the catchiest, and toughest, without any kitsch. So yeah, if you’re interested in Japanese rocknroll at all, I would seriously check this record out. And even if you’re not, check it out anyways because you probably don’t have enough real rock'n'roll to begin with.
-Brigham Vicious 04/01/04
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