Flashback Friday: Natsume Mito - 8 Bit Boy | The blip-bit-bop that flew under the radar

Sometimes I’ll hear a song or an album and be all ‘How was this song so slept on!?’. The whole while there are songs I am sleeping on. Natsume Mito’s “8 Bit Boy” was one of those songs for me.

“8 Bit Boy” was released in 2015 and I didn’t hear it song until 2017 when Natsume Mito’s debut album Natsumelo was released. And upon listening to the album, I kicked myself for letting two years go by where I coulda been shaking-ass to “8 Bit Boy”.

But I guess this is one of the great things about being a fan of music and there being so much music—there is always something to discover for the first time.

The 2010s was a time when chiptune was creeping back into pop and dance music and also video game soundtracks as a stylistic choice—such as with Anamanguchi’s beloved soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. And whilst Nakata wasn’t known exclusively for chiptune, many (me included) always felt that it was such a Nakata adjacent sound. So “8 Bit Boy” felt like the scratching of an itch for many who had wondered what a chiptuney Nakata song would sound like, especially after him flirting with it for “Laser Beam”. And he did not disappoint.

It’s a shame that Nakata never really revisited this sound, because the blend of chiptune, 80s pop, 90s pop and disco works so well here. And it really highlights that when Nakata’s firing on all cylinders, he be making nasty contributions to CO₂ emissions.

I think part of why I probably skipped over so many of Natsume Mito’s singles is because Nakata Yasutaka’s output around 2015–2017 was all over the place. This was the dark period of Cosmic Explorer, the Future Pop singles and the KPP Best singles. Although in Nakata’s defence, his output for Kyary wasn’t quite as egregious as it was for Perfume. “Mondai Girl” was a great song, which also had a very chiptuney, video-game-esque sound as per “8 Bit Boy”. The intro for “Mondai Girl” sounds so much like the intro to the classic Final Fantasy battle themes.

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💿 Album review: Natsumelo