Electric Surfin' Go Go
Tracy Howse
Polysics is
a Japanese rock band from Tokyo,
named after a Korg PolySix synthesizer. Polysics was highly influential to
Japanese rock in their abilities to expand their music around the world. Their
outfits were also very iconic; the members wore orange or yellow suits and very
sharp and futuristic looking glasses. The band released Electric Surfin’ Go Go as their 6th single in June of 2006.
Electric Surfin' Go Go starts with various rhythmic beeps. Some of these beeps are low
and oscillate between two pitches, which the other beeps are less frequent stay
on one high pitch. The low beat speeds up and ends up sounding almost like a
trill; this is followed by the song breaking down into a combination of
synthetic sounds that lead into the synth melody. This synth melody is
accompanied by guitar, drums, and the beep noises which become unnoticeable due
to their repetition. The singer enters with the same accompaniment, except for
the synth melody. Although there are less beeps in this section, there are various
unnatural and stinging noises throughout. The synth creates an interlude that
breaks up the repetition of the voice. This repeated section leads into another
vocal part that is interrupted by a repetitive “ning” sound that happens on
every eight note. These two alternate until the music hits a break in the flow;
it sounds as if a record is breaking and a combinations of squeaks and sounds
that might relate to that. The next section is a collection of voices which are
saying “everybody go go,” and this leads into another voice part. These two
sections also exchange until the synth melody reenters and there is an
instrumental bridge, which leads into the “ning”ing noise again alternating
with the lead singer. This creates a combination of all the sections of the
songs, because the “everybody go go” and the synth sounds all bounce off of
each other until the synth melody takes over the song with the original
accompaniment. It continues until the end, where the synth falls out of the
melody and literally the pitch glissandos down until the song concludes with
the final drum hit.
Only a
portion of the music video can be found online, and it shows the video before
it was altered with graphics and different effects (top) and after it was
altered with these affects (bottom). This video switches between animated
images of the singers or instruments a more natural image of them. This affect
gives the characters in the story a synthetic feel to them and makes them feel
more detached. This is clearly the effect that Polysics is trying to achieve,
considering their sterile outfits and glasses that make it impossible to see
their eyes.
This song
exemplifies the robot esthetic through mechanical sounds. Throughout this song
there are beeps, some of which are consistent throughout. What this does is
create an industrialized sound throughout it that also fades into the background.
At 2:05, the beeps stop when the
hand-clapping sound stars and this clearly shows how accustomed one can get to
this sound. Another esthetic is the contrast between the background and the
main singer. Although the main singer does look robotic in the music video, it
is clear that he is a human and his voice and singing sounds natural. All of
the members in the band, aside from the keyboardist, are very natural in their
motions. This brings up the contrast of the industrial music and the humanness
of the people. This stark contrast with the background voices and instrumentals
as well as the members who are dancing verses the keyboardist draws the listeners’
attention to how human the vocals are, even if they do sound somewhat robotic
on their own. The members are also exemplifying the idea of the recording being
a proxy for the original people who are in the band. Although we can hear the
singer and see them in the video, it is harder to connect with them because
their eyes are covered and they are in outfits that are not conducive with our
image of natural people.
Further Readings
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