ローファイ・タイムズ (Lo-Fi Times)

Above is the song this page is about, covered by Miyashita Yuu. Note that the translation in the closed captions is inaccurate and vague, so the lyrics we're going to look at is by Releska. Here is the Vocaloidlyrics wiki page if you would like to take a look.

Overview

Lo-Fi Times is a Vocaloid song produced by seeeeecun, whose style is described on the Vocaloid wiki as "dissonant and highly addictive", in tandem with "...unique and profound lyrics". His lyrics are eclectic and take inspiration from a variety of different sources, and them being difficult to understand at first glance is exactly why I'd like to take a deeper look at them, the best I can anyways given language barriers.

This song was uploaded on 6/19/2017 and is featured on two albums, one of which is covered in collaboration with well-known utaite (song coverist) Miyashita Yuu. The Vocaloid of choice used is Flower. A commentary on privacy, capitalism and the information released to the world via social media or other means, through the lense of a journalist simply doing their job.

Illustration

The artwork is by Mitsuki Sanagi, and contrasts visuals of a simple and cutely drawn girl with an unsettling scene. There are jumbles of letters in the background, imitating a newspaper layout, and what seems to be various images blurred. Strawberry shortcake, and a mountain. and the composition directs your eye to the girl in the center. Interestingly, the visuals of bugs on the buildings seem to evoke the phrase "a fly on the wall". None of the bugs are shown to have been slashed, rather the "blood" seems to be coming out of the buildings themselves. The question marks give off the impression of missing characters rather than a jumble of keys. Upon transcription, I could not find any codes it may correlate to; I think it is nonsense.

Title

The definition of Lo-Fi, short for "low fidelity", is of music or production quality where you can hear imperfections that would normally be smoothed out. It's also referred to as DIY music, although the definition has largely changed to the former one in the early 2010s. Further into the journalism motif, "__ Times" is a standard newspaper naming convention. A fun phrase that jumped out at me when researching: "In April 1993, the term 'lo-fi' gained mainstream currency after it was featured as a headline in the New York Times."

Lyrics

The market aims for a reactionary price rise. -> The cost of living only rises further as time passes. It benefits those higher up in society.

The salaried workers are hanging with all their might. -> In Japanese work culture, salarymen are embodied by the idea of having overriding loyalty to their company, and are expected to value work over all else. Death by overwork is a documented phenomenon, as well as some of the highest leading motives for suicide in the country being finance and workplace related.

The outsider God is what everyone's absorbed in. -> People are looking for God in places they normally wouldn't. Just the idea of God in traditional religion has been estranged from the equation as society and individual lives become moreover ruled by human power dynamics.

With the same faith/face, it's Murder's Day. -> Wake up, time to show the same face to the world as always. This may be coincidence, but the katakana is one letter off from "Mother's day" (mazazu vs. madazu)

I'm utterly silent while drinking with my boss. -> Drinking parties among colleagues, or nomikai, are a social phenomenon in Japanese work culture. It is socially acceptable while drunk to be silly or speak one's true thoughts as it will be forgiven upon returning to the workplace, but the speaker is silent in such a place.

As if we'd put our rank aside. It's just like a slave play. -> Salarymen are expected to participate in after-work leisure activities such as drinking, singing karaoke and visiting hostess bars with colleagues, as though the company could also stand in to be their friends despite the imbalance of power between employer and boss.

This is Cool Japan— Get married and it's all private. -> "Cool Japan" is a slogan for Japan's brand strategy coined in 2002, referring to the aim to market Japanese culture that those overseas perceive as "cool" to increase the country's appeal and influence. This is done via media, cuisine, commercial products, high-tech industrial products and more.

Everything's a photo op and they chase people to the ends of Hell. -> The word used is "shutter chance", an opportune time to take a picture. The following line frames it in the context of politics or PR.

My real name and face are on full display. My school and occupation are on full display. My relationship status is on full display, along with my hobbies and quirks. -> Self explanatory.

Is it appetising? Is that decomposed philosophy appetising? -> It's the norm, but is it really something to aim for? Surely something like this is unsustainable.

It's meaningless absurdity, but I'm singin'. -> Singin' is written in katakana, implying the English phonetic "singin" is the intended reading, but the same word in hiragana reads "groaning".

With lips that don't split open, I'm singin'. -> Expression for silence, keeping one's mouth shut.

The privacy of strangers is so appetising. -> The same lyric in the next verse is repeated, but altered to "The unhappiness of strangers is so appetising," a different face of it. Also coincides with how negative sensationalist headlines will always elicit a stronger reaction than positive ones due to negativity bias; our brains are wired to react more strongly to it.

The stake that sticks out is hammered down singin'. -> A Japanese proverb that represents group>individual ideology. A stake sticking out weakens the structure of the fence as a whole, so it gets hammered down. Harmony among individuals strengthens the whole. Originally, the phrase meant "those who are different get pulled down by the envy of others", but its meaning has changed to "people who stray too far from society's standards should be reigned in." Moreover, it expresses the idea that people are happy to take down others.

Finding all the faults, I'm singing. -> Negativity sells, and to the speaker it becomes a good thing.

Ideals that don't get noticed are mirages. -> Also translated as "ethics turning in their grave is just an illusion". Don't worry about doing the right thing.

Farewell -> 'Saraba' is an old, archaic version of 'sayonara', and is a goodbye used in the context of never seeing someone ever again.

I distance myself from the young man. Why is nobody looking?
I don't know anything about society. I fail my interview. -> Speaker is getting dissonant in their sense of how they fit into the world. Reminiscent of corporate marketing attempting to become more and more familiar to the average person while remaining inauthentic. Corporations are not your friends as much as they are trying to get you to buy something.

When you apply that to an individual such as the speaker, their humanity is stripped down to only what is required for their job. There is only so long you can profit off of people's suffering without growing detached from other people as a whole, and they are suffering too for it.

You can get more ratings with adultery, pills, and murder. -> Negative sensationalism in an unhappy society that feeds into such. The weight of those things is not acknowledged.

There's an old lady in the neighbourhood— what kind of person is she? -> An old woman is used, the most safe and mundane person imaginable in theory.

I cut down the speech: snip, snip. -> Trimming segments of a speech to cherry-pick wording, to imply a meaning it wouldn't have otherwise.

Smoke billows up where there's no fire. -> Inverting the phrase "There's no smoke without fire," the original meaning being "If unpleasant things are said about someone or something, there is probably a good reason for it." There is no reason for what is being said.

"I want you to be careful of saying things like that." -> Despite all of this, when lines get crossed, a company still has to preserve its image and good integrity. Speaker is going too far.

It's cruel, right? It's so cruel, isn't it? Come on, won't you take a look? Why aren't you looking? -> It's not working anymore. It's supposed to, though.

Okay, fine then. If I'm going to profit off it, then how many P.I.S are goin'? It's pathetic. -> From Releska's translation notes: "P.I.S is used in Japan to refer to ‘Public Information Style Corporation'. They're an artist production corporation, which is kind of like a talent agency or a label. Some people joke that it stands for パーッと・一緒に・騒ごう (Pa tto, Issho ni, Sawagou – enthusiastic merrymaking together)"
If they're leaving, perhaps it has become unmarketable? It'd explain the tone. I can't find anything about this on the web, so I can't say anything further.

I give me -- ah, a good kid. -> Second phrase is directly infantilizing; "you are behaving well." I'd assume it's directed towards the speaker.

Swing on, sing on, I sick on. -> Releska's translation notes: 愛 四苦 音 (ai, shiku, on – Love, four kinds of Buddhist suffering, sound) is written, but when interpreted in the context of the line we can conclude that it's the sound of the words as a whole (I sick on) that's most important, not what they actually mean individually.

The dance empties a little. -> People start to leave.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. -> Could be the sound of a touchscreen, or a pen.

I smoothly rally my sorrow -> Swiftly recover from misery

I let out my comfort in a gushing stream -> Allowing oneself to get comfortable, and openly express it

I cover up my rage with a grin -> ひた隠し = hiding at all costs; desperate cover-up; doing one's best to keep (something) secret

What about my happiness? Ahhhh! -> Releska's translation notes: Various different kanji that are read as ‘a' are used here: 啞, 亜, 阿, 明, 存, 在, 吾, 飽 (Mute, Asia, corner, exist, located in, me, full).

It's likely just for aesthetic appeal, but also interesting in that the expression of emotion does not exist on its own.

The lyrical structure of this section is interesting because while not carried over through direct translation, there is a rhythm established that the last line completely breaks. It goes:

ai o suisui makikaeshitari
raku o dokudoku tarenagashitari
ikari o nikoniko hita kakushitari
yorokobi wa? a a a a a a a a

(Emotion) (onomatopoeia) (--shitari [to do])

Kind of like a line of code that encounters something unexpected and doesn't know what to do with it...

If we're living in meaningless absurdity, let's sing. -> Compare earlier lyric It's meaningless absurdity, but I'm singin'. Acceptance that this is their life, encouraging others to join them.

For the sake of all the citizens, let's tell them about what's real, even though it doesn't really matter whether it's truly "reality". -> It doesn't really matter what they publish. It's never been about integrity to begin with. The form of "everyone" used is minasama, highly respectful and impersonal language used for those above you in status.

We're in lo-fi times. -> Times have changed, and the idea of being in "lo-fi times", is one where imperfections and a low grade life are brought to the surface when it normally would not be.

I'm supposed to like everyone, so why am I complaining about them? -> From a morality standpoint, we have been told to respect and care for one another since we were young, yet it is not all uncommon for society to reward those that exploit others to get ahead. If read on a more personal level, cognitive dissonance between the speaker's thoughts/feelings and actions.

If you have a complaint, you don't need to watch, right? -> Don't like don't read.

Conclusion

The speaker kind of reminds me of Lou Bloom, but if he had a conscience. Watching Nightcrawler recently (April 2022) was really interesting given how long I've liked this song.

If they had an enneagram/mbti, it may be ENTP 6w5.

Song starts out more general and then zeroes in on the speaker's state.

Lots of katakana in this song. Note that katakana is normally used for foreign words, I tried to look for possible relations but didn't seem to find any.

The world is in turmoil. And People are in pain. Even still, we can take comfort in knowing that there is Songs Just like Nightcrawler movie. Grins 😃