ARTISAN de la MUSIQUE Jan. 2011 Interview Pt.2

Thanks for being so patient for the second half of the interview. This half covers Maaya's upcoming song 'April Fool' amongst other things. I think this part is a lot more interesting than the first half. I also re-discovered how important it is to double-check your translations. Before posting I went through each question one by one to check I'd gotten the point and I came across one or two bloopers, the point was there but it had gotten lost in translation! 'tis certainly not easy.

Anyway, Enjoy!! Or read part one first.


Original Japanese text by Takayuki Hamada here
ARTISAN de la MUSIQUE 2011-01 - Sakamoto Maaya Interview -Part 02.


Did you not have any clashes with the creators over your interpretations of the lyrics?

No, there wasn’t anything like that. With regards to what I was going to write, it felt like they’d left it completely up to me. Speaking of lyrics, one thing that I really appreciated was Mr. Sakurai Hidetoshi praising the lyrics of the songs I’ve sung in the past and he obstinately refused to write lyrics for me this time. He kept saying “It’s better if you write them, Maaya!” But when I insisted, “but getting a man to write the lyrics for me this time is a challenge for me too so…” and he finally relented, saying “Well, I’ll write them, but while I’m doing them I want to there to be an exchange between us.” So the lyrics were produced through lots of discussions with Mr. Sakurai.

Aside from the cover song ‘DOWN TOWN’, you received new lyrics from three male artists. How was it to work with the other two besides Mr. Sakurai?

For Mr. Tokita and Suneohair, I gave them some of my thoughts but after that I left it all to them and their work went really smoothly. After deciding this time that I was going to entrust things to others, I took a step back and tried not to interfere too much while working with them. Both parties discover something through doing a song together, so I’d like to work together with them again.

As for the lyrics I’ve written myself, I don’t think what I’ve been saying has changed that much over fifteen years. However, this time I struggled with the fact that I’d write and write but wouldn’t come up with anything that was different to what I’d said before now. Then I’d worry about worrying, and one day I thought ‘there must be something that I haven’t written about yet.’ My feelings and what I want to say haven’t changed but I realised that maybe up until now I’ve tried to clean up my expressions, written them with the purpose of showing them to someone else. That’s why this time I wrote them thinking that it would be fine to leave them as they are, without dressing them up, trying to pull them together or trying to produce some kind of conclusion. Putting the reality that dreams don’t always come true, love doesn’t always turn out ok into words, but not despairing because of that –because we live in that kind of world I wanted to paint a realistic picture of it: despite of all that are we living and finding beautiful things, having experiences or making goals?

The world I created in ‘Kazeyomi’ was actually a utopia I thought up. But it wasn’t a lie. Because of the point in time I created it in, ‘Kazeyomi’ became an album that only showed the world’s most beautiful things, so this time round I wanted it to be a little more at ground level, that is to say, I wanted to see how it felt to feel the earth.

In this album, were there any songs in particular that mean a lot to you?

Well, they all mean a lot to me, but I do like ‘Topia’. Of course, ‘Himitsu’ too. Argh, I can’t choose (laugh). I’m also keen on ‘Moonlight’ because I really like the composer and arranger. Yubuki Kana who wrote ‘Topia’ is younger than me, and I think it’s another interesting detail of the album that within all these well-known artists there’s a young newcomer in there, you know? If I get another chance I’d really like to work with her again.

While you were making the album, at what stage did you see how the album was taking shape over all?

‘Himitsu’ was the last song to be finished, and when that was done I thought: ah, it’s all going to be OK. The day after we finished mixing ‘Himitsu’ we started mastering. Up until that point we’d been making several songs all at the same time, and they’d be completed when I was satisfied with them, but probably I don’t think that anyone amongst the staff really knew how the whole thing would turn out until the songs were all lined up to be mastered.

It was through meeting on this album that you came to participate in the new song ‘April Fool’ on Tomita Lab’s best album ‘WORKS BEST ~beautiful songs to remember’, wasn’t it?

That’s right. The song’s atmosphere is quite different, very fresh, and the world view of the lyrics is a change from what I usually sing. After recording the song for my album, I got the sense that Mr. Tomita really understood my voice, it feels like he’s very familiar with it. I think it’s a really good track.

What kind of person is Mr. Tomita?

Before I met him, I was wondering what would happen if he turned out to be scary, but he’s someone who really took the time to make sure I wasn’t nervous, right from the start he was very talkative, chatting away (laugh) Experiencing the way he records and his song choice, I thought ‘we’re really compatible’.

It would be nice if there were further developments on that in future, wouldn’t it? By the way, do you have any anecdotes regarding the artwork for this album?

An image of ‘riding together on a bus’ came to me because lots of different types of artists gathered together from various genres. An image of lots of people riding on a bus that’s heading towards some far-off destination, and I felt like it matched the album because of that difference between when you get on and when you get off the bus. A bus isn’t what you would call a high-speed means of travel so you can really take in the scenery, and I like the way that you can pass through lots of different towns while leisurely travel the earth.

Recently a lot of people saying that software won’t sell, but what do you personally feel about the current trend?

Translators note: I think he means selling music as data like iTunes or on a memory stick like Ayumi Hamasaki’s most recent albums.

I can’t imagine myself listening to music without buying a CD so it’s a bit like ‘is it really ok for things to go like that?’ Because you can delete data in one push of a button, it’s sad that it would just go bye-bye like that. I guess that the day will come when that’s normal but it’s kind of depressing, isn’t it? Even on the level of making a CD’s booklet, there’s a lot of time and effort and thought that goes into each and every page of the paper and everything. I really think that if an album is put on sale I always want people to be able to touch and feel it with their own hands. Although of course I want the songs to be heard by a lot of people, but more than that I want it to be an album that people think ‘I want to own it’.

And within all that ‘DOWN TOWN’ was released as vinyl, wasn’t it?

I’m not part of the generation which listened to records but when I heard about the vinyl going on sale I was simply put very happy; I found out for the first time that covers get a lot of interest from DJs. As a vocalist doing a cover of an old song has its difficulties but I was surprised when it went on sale that the reaction was completely different to what I’m used to. Moreover, as it was a big deal, and that it was people who were fans of Mr. Yamashita Tatsurou and of a different generation to those who’ve listened to my music up until now, I realised that covers really have a wide appeal. It was an unexpected development.

The flow from your cover of ‘DOWN TOWN” to this album has an impression of being from the eighties, that so-called ‘city pop’, was that something that you had planned?

One of my intentions with the cover single was to accept the covers as a new challenge, and while you can say that it is a single, I made it with the intention of being a three-track album and so inside my head it’s complete just as it is. Because of that I really struggled over whether to put ‘DOWN TOWN’ on the album or not. When I thought of the single as a three-track album, then it was fine not to put any of the tracks on [You Can’t Catch Me] at all. But when I think about how it was included, I feel like it was all connected somehow.

Each part of your fifteenth anniversary campaign seems like it will have a lot of different effects on what you do in the future, doesn’t it.

I remember a substantial feeling of satisfaction when we finished ‘Kazeyomi’, like ‘aah, we did it!’ Even though I could have retired happy at that point in time, because of that feeling I thought ‘what meaning could there be in making anything new after this?’ I really pondered over this and that in my mind, but in the end I didn’t have any choice but to make something new. That’s why this time I really do feel think that it was good that I dived right into something new without fear. I think that because I dived in like that I have to continue on now until I arrive somewhere in the future, so the moment I finished this I already started thinking about what comes next. I’ve already started talking about different things to do next.

OK then, let’s finish by hearing your enthusiasm for your upcoming concerts.

This is actually the first time I’ve done a concert from a record, concentrating on songs from a single album. I’m happy because after fifteen year’s there are still ‘first times’ to come, and I feel like there are going to be lots and lots of things I can gain so I’m really looking forward to it.

Fin