Single Review: Superfly - Voice

So, Superfly celebrate a 15 year anniversary this year, and decided to mark the occasion with the song “Voice”. This was an interesting choice of song to go with, because it flies in the face of the sound that Superfly were primarily known for. And you’d think Shiho would have gone with a song which felt nostalgic and really encapsulated the sound Superfly had been doing for 15 years. But nope. She said ‘Fuck that shit’. And quite honestly, it’s one of the best things she could have done.

Quick side note, I may switch between Superfly and Shiho interchangeably. For those new to Superfly; it was once a duo consisting of guitarist, composer and songwriter Kōichi Tabo, and singer / front woman and co-songwriter Shiho Ochi. (For a long-ass while I thought Superfly were a whole-ass band). But Kōichi left, and Shiho chose to carry on the Superfly name solo. It’s a similar situation as to what happened with Years and Years, if that’s a reference y’all get and may know. And much like Years and Years, once what was a group / duo became a solo act, greater success came. Imagine leaving a band, just for them to become even bigger. I’d ask Yuna to just send me to the Farplane immediately.

I have always liked Superfly. I don’t post much on J-rock here, but I do listen to some of it. And the one thing I like about a fair few J-rock acts is how consistent they are. Superfly is no exception. They managed to create a lane for themselves, but still deliver good songs within it, without feeling like they’re putting out the same thing over and over. But with Superfly now just being about Shiho, there’s a selfishness that she’s taken with the music that SHE wants to do, and am all for it.

Superfly’s sound has always been rock. But “Voice” marks the first time that Superfly have ventured out of it and into a sound which is pop adjacent. But “Voice” is also the first Superfly single that’s managed to sound really current and on trend, whilst simultaneously sounding like something which could have been released decades ago - which is a line Superfly’s music has always straddled, because their sound has always been steeped in nostalgia. This is part of what makes “Voice” work. And why despite sounding so different for Superfly, it doesn’t feel strange. Although I do imagine it will divide fans and alienate them, because “Voice” is still a huge shift. But anybody who listened to Superfly’s 2020 album Zero will not be overly surprised; as the writing was on the wall that Shiho was absolutely going to venture into new directions and take Superfly’s sound to places it hadn’t gone before musically.

“Voice” is a Eurodisco song, and there are so many layers to this which go beyond “Voice” JUST being a disco song, which make the song even better for me. Japanese music has a long history of falling for and adopting sounds which were popular in Europe; particularly those which were twists on sounds which were popular in the United States. The US had disco. Europe then took this and created Eurodisco. Japan lived for it. The US had hi-NRG (EDM). Europe then took this and created Eurobeat. Japan lived for it. So the nostalgia of the sound of the song will resonate to older audiences in Japan who were around and being hoes in clubs when the sound was poppin’. And because disco and 90s dance music is everywhere right now, younger audiences will be familiar with the sound.

Everything about “Voice” feels almost as though Shiho wanted a song that would go beyond the Japanese market. The Eurodisco sound. The final chorus being sung in English. Just the immediacy of the whole song. Whether or not it was intentional, “Voice” has the potential to really broaden Superfly’s fanbase as much as it has the potential to divide it. And it’s not crazy to think that maybe reaching a mass audience and causing a divide was the intention, given the message of the song being about finding your own voice, making it heard and being unapologetically loud once you’ve found it. And you could go one step further and say that the decision to make the song Eurodisco was truly to give the Tokyo gays something to run up in Shinjuku Ni-chōme, and it’s very easy to see how “Voice” could become a gay anthem given the subject matter of the song. Y’all see how everything about this damn song seems like it has a specific purpose and how all the shit in this bitch is connected?

Run Shiho a Grammy.

Superfly | Shiho Ochi

I think it’s brilliant that after 15 years, an act can still surprise, deliver and show evolution. Reaching a 15 year career milestone in itself isn’t something many acts are able to achieve, let alone still managing to put out great music which manages to change the rules of everything they’d done leading up to that point. It’s what every fan should want. I liked Superfly’s old shit. But I don’t want another 15 years of songs like “Rolling Days” and “Force”. I want Superfly to venture out, and thankfully Shiho does too.

“Voice” ticks all of the boxes. Great production. Solid vocals. Catchy hook. My ONLY issue with the song is that there is no middle-8 and no bridge section. This doesn’t ruin the song or make it worse. But when I listen to “Voice”, there is so much in the music, the arrangements, and the swells of the strings and the choir, that it feels almost inevitable that there is going to be this amazing middle-8, and then…it just doesn’t come. We just get the chorus again. Also, the expectation that I had given the sound being Eurodisco, is that there would be a middle-8 and or bridge and maybe even a key change. And the whole ‘Everybody is making shorter songs because of the attention spans of listeners in the streaming age’ doesn’t hold, because this damn song is almost 5 minutes long. It’s unfortunate, because a nice middle-8 or bridge would have made “Voice” a near perfect song. But as it is, there’s enough to the song that it still feels whole. Although I do wish middle-8’s and bridges would make a comeback.

“Voice” in and of itself is a great song. But what I admire so much about it is that it is so different for Superfly without feeling like it’s pandering, or making an attempt to be different from the prior MO of Superly for the sake of it. With “Voice” being released to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Superfly, it would have been easy (and understandable) for Shiho to have put out a song which had the typical Superfly sound. But she pivoted to put out something which manages to feel fresh despite it touching on a familiar sound, and something which has the potential to reach a far wider audience than anything Superly has released before.

After Zero, I was already looking forward to where Superfly would go. But after this, I absolutely cannot wait.

VERDICT: Eurodisco Queen desu