 If
you’ll excuse the stereotype, there were a few things that saved
Judy and Mary from being just another three guys with a chick
singer. The most obvious was, as they matured, the contrast
between the too sweet for words pop of the material and the squalling
ballistics of guitarist/songwriter/producer Takuya moved further
upfront.
At times, listening to “Warp,” the final Judy and Mary
album, it’s difficult to believe that having THAT MUCH chaos
front and center was as commercially successful as it was: at this
point, they were playing stadiums. There’s no better
example of the tension between the elements than opener “Rainbow
Devil’s Land.” Starting with a sinister, murky, DJ
Shadow-esque slog, vocalist Yuki sounds like she’s trying to push
her way, face first, into a fever dream. Just when you have the
sense that you know what this song’s about, the band throws the
ultimate curveball: the chorus comes in, pure sunlight, kittens, and
sweetness: it could pass for something off a Disney Kids show.
Then into a musically unrelated Guitar God solo. Then back into the
muck.
After a brief ambient reprieve, “Brand New Wave Upper
Ground” starts off with a guitar part that sounds like a refuge
from My Bloody Valentine’s “Loveless,” then proceeds
like a Judy and Mary song does: straight into bouncy bubble pop.
And that’s the template. Judy and Mary may have become a
bizarre band, but they’re still a pop band at heart, and they
know to keep it uncomplicated. The thrill doesn’t come from
the gear shifts, the thrill comes from the tension between the
gears. Pop always wins out, but it’s fascinating to see
just how far it can go before it just plain doesn’t work.
The closest the album comes to that lurking potential failure is
“Peace,” the ballad that would, in a different (better)
world, end the first side of the vinyl. It’s a nice, if
unexceptional duet with…someone (Takuya? There’s
nothing in the liner notes that indicate who it is.) Anyway, the
discordant piano runs feel tacked on, as if the band feels
uncomfortable doing a straight ballad. Now, granted,
they’ve painted themselves into a bit of a corner on that score,
since a straightforward ballad would have stuck out
uncomfortably. While it would have needed some sort of edge to
sound like it belonged to the album, the piano part ain’t it.
Later in the album, we get to the true ringer, a little track called
“Motto” (not the English word that means “the saying
of a group,” it’s Japanese for “more.”)
It’s one of those exceedingly rare, but immediately recognizable
commodities: a perfect pop song. It’s got all the elements:
it’s precisely three minutes long (the liner notes say
2:59. The liner notes are lying) it’s got enough adrenaline
to power a city block, verses that build perfectly up to the chorus,
and a chorus that grabs you by the crotch and forces you to sing along
at the top of your lungs. I never saw Judy and Mary live, but I
KNOW they played this at every show in support of this album.
It’s inconceivable that they wouldn’t.
It’s also inconceivable (to me, anyway) how something like this
would come about. The guitar sounds like a sped up version of the
angular, cranky jabs Andy Gill wrenched out of his guitar on the first
Gang of Four album, shifting to the simplest of power chords when the
chorus kicks in (and oh, does it ever kick in.) It sounds like
prime era Buzzcocks covering The Jam’s “In The City”
(which the guitar explicitly quotes, not once but twice) with the
spastic energy of early Brainiac. It can kill the album if
you’re not careful: the temptation to play it over and over until
you’re tired with the whole thing is strong.
Warp is generally regarded as Judy And Mary’s best effort, and
I’d have to concur. The tension between the elements was
never stretched as far, with such impressive results, as it was
here. Which, if one is inclined to conjecture, might be why this
was their swan song: tug of war is not an inherently friendly activity,
and while I have no evidence that there was any animosity in the break
up, I sure as Hell wouldn’t be surprised if there was. The
first, schizophrenic track, impressive as it is, sounds like it the
product of two opposing forces, each refusing to back down. It
works brilliantly as a song, but it doesn’t take much imagination
to see it as a battle between real world egos. After this, Takuya
would embark on a brief solo career before becoming an in demand
producer, and vocalist Yuki is currently one of the most recognizable
faces in Jpop (although her solo material, aside from a startlingly
abrasive debut single, has been decidedly less challenging.) But
they managed to catch lightning in a bottle before they went their
separate ways, and what more could you ask for?
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Available at Amazon US
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