The Top 100: Southern All-Stars and No Topic

Good morning and good golly, today we're talking about one-of-if-not-the greatest J-Pop group of all time.

Original Lyrics / Romaji / Phrasal Translation / Poetic Translation

New! Lyrics Sheet

I'm trying out something new this time. Click here for a pdf with the lyrics, a vocabularly list, and some additional info about the song.

About the Artist

Since this series is based on the HMV Japan Top 100 artists, I've decided to start translating the original posts. Here's the post about Southern All-Stars.

Initially seen as little more than a novelty group due to their wild vocals and even wilder performances, Southern has racked up 40 top ten hits, 16 number one albums, and the all-time record for most simultaneous songs on a weekly Top 100 single chart (44 songs!). To give a sense of scale, the number two contender is Yumi Matsutoya with 16 songs, followed by L~Arc~en~Ciel with 15.

Lead vocalist and guitarist Keisuke Kuwata shows up again as number 12 on the Top 100 list. He is married to Yuko Hara, who plays keyboard for the group. They've managed to balance band life with married life since 1982, which is probably a rarity for bands beyond any number of chart-topping hits.

It's really impossible to give a sense of how insanely successful Southern All-Stars has been, so here's a video of middle-aged men dancing to Katte ni Sinbad:

[Today's Topic: No Topic is after the jump]

Today's Topic: No Topic

I spent a good amount of time trying to think of a good lesson for Katte ni Sinbad. After all, what's the point of doing a song for StudyOke! if it doesn't teach a grammar lesson?

People studying Japanese and people teaching Japanese think this way sometimes. It's a seductive line of thought. I certainly fell into it, scanning through the lyrics, trying to justify my desire to share this song with you.

But here's the thing: Katte ni Sinbad is a kick-ass song. It's fun to sing, it's fun to perform, it's fun to listen to. It's a lot of fun! That's reason enough to learn it.

There's no grammar lesson today, no bit of Japanese language trivia to store away in your brain. Just a kick-ass song that needs no justification beyond being a kick-ass song.

If you still want a grammar lesson, figure out this phrase from Katte ni Sinbad on your own:

好きにならずにいられない
Suki ni Narazu ni irarenai

Here's a hint: if you go out and have fun with today's song, you'll know what that phrase means on a level far deeper than the grammatical.

Sometimes you may be tempted to view studying Japanese as a duty or an obligation or something equally silly. If you're in a formal study program, you it's easy to lose sight of the fun of Japanese behind homework and tests. But that's not what language is about. This is.

Keep having fun, and keep StudyOkeing!