GARNiDELiA Interview on New Single ‘Gen’ai Yuugi,’ NFT Project – Billboard
GARNiDELiA is a J-pop duo who started their career on the Japanese video sharing platform Nico Nico Douga and have since produced a number of songs tailored for animated works.
The male and female pair released their latest digital single called “Gen’ai Yuugi” on September 30, created as the opener for the Japanese TV anime series My master has no tail. The track, inspired by vintage Japanese pop and anime songs, breaks new ground for the unit that has produced signature tracks filled with traditional Japanese music-flavored melodies.
In a recent interview with Billboard Japan, MARiA and toku of GARNiDELiA talked about the production of their latest single and shared their thoughts on the music that accompanies animated works.
You recently launched an NFT art project using a series of stage costumes as motifs called GARNiDELiA 3.0 project. You always seem to challenge yourself to try new things. Can you tell us your thoughts on releasing this new NFT project based on your stage outfits at this point?
MARY: We have many fans based outside of Japan, so we are often asked to take on new challenges on a global scale. We experiment and challenge ourselves as we go. We were present at the launch, but we are also looking forward to seeing how the project will expand from here. I think there will be unexpected developments in the future that will make us go, “Oh, I didn’t expect this to go that way.” We think there are different ways to do this, so we’re still exploring and hope to make this something we can enjoy with all our fans.
You’ve also restarted your J-pop cover project, GARNiDELiA Cover Collectionin March.
MARY: This project originally started on YouTube due to the pandemic. It’s become something of a hobby for us, so we like to do it just for fun.
toku: The songs we cover are well known, so I thought people would enjoy the difference after we added some GARNiDELiA flair to them and presented them with MARiA’s vocals. The series allows us to see people’s reactions right away, like when we used to upload our songs to Nico Nico Douga and get a reaction immediately after release.
MARY: It’s really like the vocaloid cover challenges on video sharing platforms (originating from Nico Nico Douga). We’re originally from that niche pop culture, so I guess it’s just that the focus has shifted from vocaloid numbers to J-pop songs. The line between Vocaloid culture and mainstream J-pop is now blurring, and songs written by Vocaloid music producers are now leading the current mainstream J-pop scene. So a strange phenomenon where when I cover a hit J-pop song, I end up singing vocaloid music (like the old days). [Laughs] I think this mix of cultures is what makes the current J-pop scene so interesting.
“Kaikaikitan” cover by GARNiDELiA from the GARNiDELiA cover collection
Let’s talk about your new song “Gen’ai Yuugi”. It incorporates elements of vintage and current J-pop while retaining the feel of a standard anime number. The song is signature GARNiDELiA in the way different essences are condensed into it. This song was made as the opener for the TV anime My master has no tail. How did the collaboration start?
toku: The producers of the anime series said they wanted “a dance track with a traditional Japanese style melody, and also add horns to make it flashy.”
MARY: Our previous song, “Otome no kokoroe,” was the opener for another anime series from last year called Taisho Otome Adventure which was set in Japan’s Taisho period (1912-1926), so it was the same (as My master has no tail). Also, the request for horns for a big band feel was the same as our previous song, so we had to find a way to separate the two. So after some discussion we came to the conclusion that we wanted “Gen’ai Yuugi” to have a sharp edge to the flamboyance.
What do you mean by “glaring edge”?
MARY: My master has no tail is a story about mastering an artistic skill, and although the visuals of the anime are pop, the characters say some edgy things about the world they live in. The story starts with the idea that you have to be out of your mind to want to live in art , and I thought that applied to us (GARNiDELiA) as well. [Laughs] As someone who has been in the art for a long time, I felt a strong connection with (anime), so in the end we were able to separate the new song from the previous one.
toku: My master has no tail is about rakugo [traditional comic storytelling], so I thought it would be good to wrap words in it, with more notes in the chorus than our usual numbers. That way it would sound more flamboyant when the horns were placed in between. That’s what I focused on.
Combined with the vision depicted in the lyrics, it makes for an exciting track, while tapping into the genres of vintage J-pop and oldies-but-goodies anime music. All this while maintaining your signature sound. So it’s really a perfect balance.
MARY: We’re not sure how we give off that GARNiDELiA vibe anymore, actually. [Laughs] We’ve worked with so many genres at this point that anything we create together just ends up being like, “Well, that sure sounds like us, right?”
toku: Anime music itself is a mixture of different genres, and this is where a lot of music that will become the forefront of modern J-pop is born.
MARY: It has rock and EDM and even vintage J-pop styles.
toku: Anything is possible, and it can be taken as cute or cool depending on the listener, so I guess anything goes as long as it’s effectively tied to the anime work. I feel like people who listen to a variety of anime songs are really in tune with things. It’s one of the things that makes us nervous every time we write a song.
And you are already set to release your next digital single called “Oukaranman” on October 19th. This is the last song from yours Odocchattemita dance challenge series featuring GARNiDELiA tracks, and it differs from “Gen’ai Yuugi” in that it’s a fairly simple GARNiDELiA number that mixes modern EDM tracks with traditional Japanese music.
MARY: Miume, the dancer we worked on Odocchattemita series, retires from the stage at the end of October. This will be the last piece the three of us will work on together, so we started by discussing what kind of piece it should be. We wanted the song to be a culmination of what we had built together.
toku: I included some of the tunes and arrangements that give a glimpse of parts of each song in the dance challenge series so far, so it would be great if listeners take it as a summary of the series.
It’s an irresistible tune for those who enjoyed the series. You really invented two completely different songs.
MARY: It’s interesting, isn’t it? We have so much fun. Both titles are inspired by Japanese four-character idioms, and ever since we wrote the song “Kyoukiranbu” we thought we had run out of songs flavored with traditional Japanese sounds that have four-character idiom-like titles. But we still managed to make some. [Laughs] Since we’re lucky that our fans, not only from Japan but from all over the world, are asking for more, we can’t just say we’ve run out and have to come up with what they want.
toku: I got excited then the song which is an extension of Odocchatta series was chosen as the opening for My master has no tail.
MARY: That’s how big of an impact it is Odocchattemita the series wore on us. It is a project that changed our lives. It helped us meet a lot of people and gave us opportunities. I think that’s why we were able to make the song ‘Oukaranman’.
You can listen to GARNiDELiA’s catalog here.
—This interview by Tomokazu Nishibiro first appeared on Billboard Japan
