%20Kaze%20Fujii%20-%20Love%20All%20Serve%20All%20listening%20party%20%231.png "Fujii Kaze holds a charmingly chaotic Love All Serve All listening party | Random J Pop")
Fujii Kaze’s second studio album official releases on March 23rd, but he held a listening party a couple of days prior on YouTube, at Google’s offices. Because, obviously.Kaze and Google are in cahoots at the moment, as Kaze was the face of their Pixel 6 phone in Japan, the music video for “Mo-Eh-Yo” was shot entirely on Pixel 6, and the song featured in the Japanese Pixel 6 TV commercials.
As you’d expect from a listening party, Kaze plays every song from the album, BUT doesn’t play every song in its entirety. The music is also playing through speakers and not through some swanky audio feed, so people can’t rip the shit and put it up online as ‘HQ’. Although I’m sure somebody and their raggedy ass has ripped the audio anyway.
The album releases tomorrow homie.
HENNYWAY.
The coolest part of this listening party is that Kaze imparts information on each song, which TO ME, is true value of this livestream; especially as I’ll get to hear each of the songs in full real soon anyway. And to sweeten the deal even more, Kaze gave his song notes in Japanese and English. He had that shit typed out and everything.
Kaze is out here doing YouTube content right. Crystal Kay needs to take notes.Below are some quick notes of what Kaze had said for each of the songs.
Kirari
One of Kaze’s biggest songs to date, and he’s happy with that, as he feels it reflects who he is: Fun, free and breezy. Kaze absolutely gon’ be the type to turn you out so go- Lemme not.
Matsuri
Kaze wants this song to be played at his funeral.
Hedemo Ne-Yo (Love All Serve All edit)
The song was originally born out of a place of anger, but Kaze has since moved on from that place and wanted the song to somewhat reflect it; hence the Love All Serve All edit, which brightens the song up a lot via different chords and progressions during the verses.
Yaba
Is inspired by R&B from the 70s and 80s, the eras of R&B that Kaze likes. The song generally sounds like it pulls from the late 80s / early 90s era of slow to mid-tempo R&B that the likes of Teddy Riley and Babyface completely owned between them. Pretty much what Bruno Mars did for his album 24K Magic. Kaze has taste, but we been knew.
Mo-Eh-Yo
The oldest song from the album, which Kaze says captures who he was at 17 years old; a person whom he wants to protect. Kaze didn’t elaborate much on this though, at least not in English. So I’m not sure whether he meant that “Mo-Eh-Yo” was the oldest song, as in it was the first once he had recorded post Help Ever Nurt Never, or if it was a song he wrote when he was 17 years old.
Garden
Writing this song gave Kaze the courage to move at his own pace, after feeling burnt out after his first album, yet feeling pressured to finish a follow-up.
Damn
The only song Kaze played all the way through. He titled “Damn”, because he really likes the word. Contextually, the song is about wondering why you care and give a damn so much about certain things, until you realise ‘Damn. I don’t HAVE to care at all.’ I related to this. I don’t have this realisation until years after the fact. But I still relate.
Lonely Rapsody
A song about being alone, but being aware that you’re not the only one. Y’all ever heard the term ‘alone together’? It’s that shit. This song seems to capture how Kaze appeared to feel during his “Free” Live 2021 show, which focused a lot on being lonely in the world.
Bye For Now
A song spurred by Kaze’s desire to write a song that felt like something from a movie.
“Seishun Sick”
Off the back of “Bye For Now”, Kaze tags this as the song that plays during the credits of a movie. The official title of the album version of the song has quotation marks due to the removal of the ambient classroom sounds at the start and end of the song.
Tabiji
The only song that Kaze felt could close the album lovingly.
One of Kaze’s biggest songs to date, and he’s happy with that, as he feels it reflects who he is: Fun, free and breezy. Kaze absolutely gon’ be the type to turn you out so go- Lemme not.
Matsuri
Kaze wants this song to be played at his funeral.
Hedemo Ne-Yo (Love All Serve All edit)
The song was originally born out of a place of anger, but Kaze has since moved on from that place and wanted the song to somewhat reflect it; hence the Love All Serve All edit, which brightens the song up a lot via different chords and progressions during the verses.
Yaba
Is inspired by R&B from the 70s and 80s, the eras of R&B that Kaze likes. The song generally sounds like it pulls from the late 80s / early 90s era of slow to mid-tempo R&B that the likes of Teddy Riley and Babyface completely owned between them. Pretty much what Bruno Mars did for his album 24K Magic. Kaze has taste, but we been knew.
Mo-Eh-Yo
The oldest song from the album, which Kaze says captures who he was at 17 years old; a person whom he wants to protect. Kaze didn’t elaborate much on this though, at least not in English. So I’m not sure whether he meant that “Mo-Eh-Yo” was the oldest song, as in it was the first once he had recorded post Help Ever Nurt Never, or if it was a song he wrote when he was 17 years old.
Garden
Writing this song gave Kaze the courage to move at his own pace, after feeling burnt out after his first album, yet feeling pressured to finish a follow-up.
Damn
The only song Kaze played all the way through. He titled “Damn”, because he really likes the word. Contextually, the song is about wondering why you care and give a damn so much about certain things, until you realise ‘Damn. I don’t HAVE to care at all.’ I related to this. I don’t have this realisation until years after the fact. But I still relate.
Lonely Rapsody
A song about being alone, but being aware that you’re not the only one. Y’all ever heard the term ‘alone together’? It’s that shit. This song seems to capture how Kaze appeared to feel during his “Free” Live 2021 show, which focused a lot on being lonely in the world.
Bye For Now
A song spurred by Kaze’s desire to write a song that felt like something from a movie.
“Seishun Sick”
Off the back of “Bye For Now”, Kaze tags this as the song that plays during the credits of a movie. The official title of the album version of the song has quotation marks due to the removal of the ambient classroom sounds at the start and end of the song.
Tabiji
The only song that Kaze felt could close the album lovingly.
%20Kaze%20Fujii%20-%20Love%20All%20Serve%20All%20listening%20party%20%232.png "Fujii Kaze holds a charmingly chaotic Love All Serve All listening party | Random J Pop") |
| Love All Serve All Listening Party | YouTube |
But it’s cool that Kaze did a listening party. It’s very on brand for him, as an artist who came up in part because of YouTube; as more and more artists in Japan tend to these days. It’s these artists who will slowly wield the power to shift elements of the Japanese music business to embrace the online more and not rely on paywalled fan clubs. I get that it’s been a viable model for some artists who came up in the Heisei era and are still active, but there’s so little growth in these fan clubs, which is becoming a problem for these artists who still cling to them as their sales drastically decline. You gotta move with the times y’all.
Love All Serve All is released physically and digitally on March 23, 2022. The limited physical edition comes packaged with Love All Cover All, an album of piano covers, which will probably hit streaming at a later date, as was the case with Help Ever Hurt Cover.
🎤 Performances: “Me-Eh-Yo” on the Help Ever Arena Tour | “Free” Live 2021
💿 Reviews: Help Ever Hurt Never | Help Ever Hurt Cover
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