Howard Rheingold speaking about Shibuya... chaos... technology...

do you use http://www.google.com ? I would venture to bet it is a line in this book judging from the results of this search:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22Howard+Rheingold%22+Shibuya+chaos+technology

thanks, of course i googled and googled again, I could guess this book or tha, but the thing is, I must get the full line whitin a week, I don't have time, and I'm in Japan so people do not remind the text in English but only in Japanese... (I know the Japanese line quite correctly yet I must write the papers in English, so.)

Where in Japan? They might have a copy of the book at Kinokuniya in Shinjuku. Also, amazon.co.jp can deliver almost any book.

You could try writing an email to the author directly or to his publisher.

His email address is:

[email protected]

Debito, thank you - I will try this mail address.
Shinjuku is not far from where I am, but the problem is I don't have time to read the whole book... I am very slow to read English texts. (Japanese use chinese characters, and chinese characters are hieroglyphic not phonogram. Since I'm too used to read Japanese, which you can understand the text as picture at a first glance, English or other only-phonogram languages looks like mysterious database to me... Like manga compared to book...)
Thank you very much anyway!

Wow, Japanese people on ILX! Getting opinions about Shibuya from Howard Rheingold! It's as if I took lessons on the meaning of Scotland from Mel Gibson!

The Japanese pop phenomenon known as Shibuya-Kei exploded forth from the ultra-trendy Shibuya shopping district of west Tokyo, an area home to some of the most fashionable and best-stocked record and clothing stores in the world. Shibuya-kei -- literally, "Shibuya style" -- was the name given to the like-minded pop musicians who emerged from this consumer culture, a group of young Japanese weaned on a steady and amazingly eclectic diet of Western pop exports; the result was an unprecedented collision of sights and sounds, with trailblazing acts like Pizzicato 5 drawing on disparate influences ranging from the lush lounge-pop of Burt Bacharach to the rhythms and energy of urban hip-hop. In its purest form, shibuya-kei is classic Western pop refracted through the looking glass of modern Eastern society -- music cut up, pasted together, and spit out in new and exciting ways. Shibuya-kei is also pop music at its cutest: it's a view to a world where the sweetness and simplicity of the girl-group era never ended but simply evolved, never out of step with the times but always true to its roots as well -- the Lolita complex so pervasive throughout Japanese culture informs much of this music, and its youthful innocence is the key to much of its endearing charm.

haha, I didn't notice that Momus is listed on that page!

GANBATTE!

??????

????

is Supercar considered Shibuya-kei? what about their shoegazer/jangly stuff?

hora! furigana de kakenai :(

I'm excited to report that I've got the original full text from Mr. Rheingold himself - very nice, generous of him (Mel Gibson won't reply, if not his PR agent). It was written for a magazine, "Infineon", which is no longer publishing.

Thank you very much Debito - when I have questions I cannot google out the answers, I usually use "hatena" (Jap ILX) or "2channel" (Jap biggest internet community). I actually heard about ILX from Momus quite long time ago, and this was my very first time to join. It worked!

Supercar's debut was in the late 90s. Shibuya-kei was already dying then. They are not considered as Shibuya-kei... they'd been living in Aomori (far north from Tokyo, contryside of Japan - typical prefecture some people joke about) until they debuted. They are simply discribed: started as guitar pop then shifted towards electro.

Hey Momus, did you know Kahimi's latest album "Montage" includes one 9 minutes song co-produced by Cornelius?