Single review: Perfume - Tokyo girl

Perfume's producer Yasutaka Nakata has been playing Russian Roulette with Perfume's sound for the past 2 years, has lost many a chip and it's really come to a head with "Tokyo girl", which might just be one of Perfume's worst singles to date.

Man. I miss the days when Perfume released good singles.

Let's all call a spade, a spade. "Tokyo girl" is rubbish. It's a re-work of the single mix of "Flash" with a bit of "Star train" thrown in. The entire song is lazy and uninspired. More so when you sit it along Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's "Harajuku iyahoi" because both songs ARE EXACTLY THE MOTHERFUCKING SAME.

The B-side "Houseke no ame" is the better song, but I would not go as far as to say it redeems the Tokyo girl release as a whole. The full song doesn't give you anything new that the clip in the Ora 2 commercial didn't give you. I remember the days when Perfume songs featured in commercials and then wowed me when the full song dropped, because it featured twists I never saw coming.

Remember when "Glitter" featured in a TV commercial and the song sounded great. But then you heard the full thing and there was a complete melodic and key shift in the chorus?

Remember when you first heard the snippet of "Party maker" in the TV commercial, then LEVEL3 was released and you had to have a moment, because that shit was 7 and a half minutes long had this amazing build and a complete switch you never saw coming?

There is no surprise with "Houseke no ame". The song also feels like it's cut from the same cloth as "Baby face", which does not work in its favour.

The structure of "Houseki no ame" feels incomplete. There are too many unnecessary instrumental sections which drag the song out for a minute longer than it needed to be. Some of the key progressions feel strange. I feel that the verses and choruses should have ended on different keys. Production wise, the song is far too sparse and features no build. The percussive echo sound is far too loud and overpowers everything else. The only 2 things about the song I like is the intro and surprisingly, Perfume's vocals. Perfume's voices don't grate as much on this song because they're singing in a key closer to their natural singing voices, and sound better for it. Also, Nocchi manages to get a whole verse to herself. I have no idea what favour she had to turn in for that. But good for her.

If "Houseki no ame" features on Perfume's next studio album, it is definitely going to need an album mix of "Cling cling" proportions to turn it into something good. It's possible, because there is enough there for it to work.

"Tokyo girl" and "Houseki no ame" feel like Cosmic explorer off-cuts. This is the issue with artists releasing new material off the back of an album; it feels more representative of their previous album than what may come. "Tokyo girl" should have been a complete departure for Perfume, or a refinement of their existing sound, Instead, what we get is a really generic EDM song which suppresses what made Perfume's sound so alluring, and another which tries to recapture Perfume's older sound, but just comes off sound like a Pamyu Pamyu song - which is often the case with Perfume's music these days.

RATING: 3 / 10