page_title: Sakanaction (album)
section_title: Song creation and album structure
hierarchical_section_title: Sakanaction (album) / Writing and production / Song creation and album structure
caption_attribution_description: Sound check at the Goethe-Institut Boston, May 13, 2010 (photo: Susanna Bolle)
context_page_description: Sakanaction is the sixth studio album by Japanese band Sakanaction, released on March 13, 2013. Primarily created in recording sessions that began in September 2012 and lasted approximately four months, the album was recorded at the home of band's vocalist and songwriter, Ichiro Yamaguchi. In order to reach an audience, the band challenged themselves by creating music for commercial tie-ups and television dramas. Prior to the album, the band released three singles: two acting as theme songs for Japanese television dramas and another used in a commercial campaign for the design school Mode Gakuen.
  Theming the album around the concept of a Möbius strip, the band separated their music into two different types: external-facing songs meant for a wide audience, and internal-facing, created as a reflection of their personal musical tastes. The theme represented the band's efforts in attempting to bridge the gap between these two song types. Yamaguchi classified each song on the album as either external or internal, except for the album's preceding single "Music", which he saw as both. The album featured a strong dance sound, influenced by the band members' current musical tastes.
context_section_description: Sakanaction was created as a dance album, where a pop song structure was applied to dance music, in order for the band express Yamaguchi's love of club music. In order to do this, the band placed emphasis on the music over the lyrics, with Yamaguchi attempting to add lyrics that fit well with the music without altering the imagery created by the instrumental and melody. Though Yamaguchi had previously written lyrics in a haiku-like style, attempting to create strong imagery in a compact space, he found the lyrical process for Sakanaction very different. By creating wordplay without affecting the melody or music, he found the process more like writing children's songs, such as "Akatombo" (1965) or the traditional song "Kagome Kagome". He specifically saw "Aldebaran" as a Sakanaction-style song that could be on the children's interstitial program Minna no Uta, lyrically being inspired to write the story of a cat.
  Yamaguchi felt that the album's music focus was a way for them to explain their instincts, and what kind of a band they were. The band members primarily listened to minimalist techno and instrument-focused music during the recording sessions of Sakanaction, which strongly affected the sound of the album. In particular, Sakanaction had been listening to German DJ Stimming, UK house artist Miguel Campbell and American recording artist Toro y Moi. Yamaguchi noted that the other band members all listened to Akufen, and that bassist Ami Kusakari preferred goa trance.
  The album is structured into two halves: the first having a consistent dance flow, beginning from what the band saw as a "deep" place ("Inori"), rising towards the album's "summit" song "Aoi". From "Aoi", the songs begin to adopt a "deep" and varied tone, until they reach what the band saw as the deepest place on the album, "Asa no Uta". Yamaguchi chose the order of the three beginning tracks ("Intro", "Inori" and "Music"), which he linked due to the songs' high tempos, and also the link between "Structure" and "Asa no Uta". He asked the other band members to decide the order of the other songs. The final track list that they chose was extremely similar to how Yamaguchi envisioned (the only difference being that "Boku to Hana" and "Mellow" were switched). Personally, Yamaguchi felt as if the first half was emotional and Sakanaction-like, while the second half had a more entertaining sound.
  Yamaguchi wanted to create an album that began and ended with instrumental tracks. He felt that "Structure" in its demo state would have been a weak album opener, so he began to work on other songs. While Yamaguchi was creating these tracks, he happened to talk to electronic musician Aoki Takamasa, who agreed to collaborate with the band on a new version of "Structure" and another song, "Inori". Yamaguchi saw "Inori" and "Structure" as being the complete opposite of external-focused songs on the album, and he wanted the songs to remain as instrumentals so that listeners could focus on the music without the images created by lyrics affecting what they heard. "Structure"'s demo version was the first song the band recorded in the album sessions. In its original form, it had an arpeggio guitar-like arrangement, similar in feel to the B-side of their "Boku to Hana" single, "Neptunus". Yamaguchi created the song as an experiment, to see if he could take a guitar-composed song and turn it into dance music. The demo originally had lyrics in its final section, but Yamaguchi believed that the lyrics worked against the images listeners would be constructing while listening to it. "Inori", among other songs on the album, were composed without a guitar, going against their previous convention of only releasing songs that could be performed solely with a guitar. Yamaguchi wanted "Inori" to be the first song on the album to surprise listeners who had only heard their externally focused songs with commercial tie-ups, and believed that this would set the tone for the album. Yamaguchi saw "Inori" as being the most internally focused song on the album.
  NHK commissioned the band to create "
caption: Electronic musician Aoki Takamasa collaborated with Sakanaction on the songs "Structure" and "Inori".
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