The Blue Hearts

In mid 2000s, the world’s music media was filled withdouble-sided dagger. Oldskool garage sounding with polished rock ‘n roll attitude that the media named “revivalist music”, and on the other side of the dagger was futuristic sounding blip music. It was a monotonous era of tunes, the rise of digital downloads and, I’m pretty sure, the death of innovation. And I wont even be mentioning hip/nu/rap metal.

But in between that era and the ‘Post-everything’ wave came, there was this one band came to radar. 
Resurfaced, if not resurrected.

A punk rock band from Japan that consisted of Hiroto Komoto on vocals, Masatoshi "Marcy" Mashima on guitar (the headband guy), Testuya "Kaji" Kajiwara on drums (the Mohawk guy), and Junosuke Kawaguchi on bass. Sounds like the Ramones X the Jam, performed like the Clash, wrote like the Buzzcocks X the Pistols, and called themselves the Blue Hearts.

The sad (and good part) about this is,I heard them from a movie in 2005. Yes, I’m ill informed like that.

Turns out that the band that started in 1985 and disbanded in 1995, and captured my ears ten years later.

It was a pure, raw, two-and-a-half minutes of harsh energy. Straightforward rock with no punchlines, no jargons and no notable quotes; like a simple-minded masculinity. Not to mention, I'm all for his hoarse singing voice. Productions’ quite well layered; they work on it well considering the era of its released. If you’re into classic punk, discography’s a must have collection. Especially the US only vinyl “Blast Off”.

Fun fact: as a punk band, they used to play small venues. Up until their third album was released with controversy with Mitsubishi as a media scandal and boost record sales to millions. They wrote a song that criticized nuclear power, and Mitsubishi was one of the key-funding sources for their label, Meldac Records. Instead of dropping the song like any other moneymaking cattle, they chose to drop the label and play the Budokan&Yoyogi stadium instead.

They tour the US two times, both with mediocre results. In their last album, they feature “Linda, Linda” that exploded to be their biggest single. The song itself have been covered by countless musicians and bands; to note a few, Me First and The Gimme Gimmes and MxPx did their version of “Linda, Linda” in their Japanese cover albums.

When you go to the karaoke, you should find “Linda, Linda” and scream your lungs out, whether you’re drunk or not.

 Linda Linda

Boku no Migite