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Identity (Sakanaction song)
"Identity" (Japanese: アイデンティティ, Hepburn: Aidentiti) (Japanese pronunciation: [aideꜜnti̥ti]) is a song by Japanese band Sakanaction. It was released in July and August 2010 as the band's first single after the release of their fourth album Kikuuiki in March 2010. The band's first summer-time release, "Identity" was an upbeat song featuring Latin percussion and lyrics about self-identity. In September 2011, it was added to the band's fifth studio album, Documentaly.
The song was well reviewed by Japanese music critics, who enjoyed the Latin percussive elements and the song's upbeat melody. Commercially, the song reached number twelve on Oricon's single chart and number seven on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, performing worse than the band's previous single "Aruku Around" (2010), but better than their earlier singles "Sen to Rei" (2008) and "Native Dancer" (2009).
After the release of their album Shin-shiro in early 2009, the band spent much of their time experimenting with different styles for their song "Aruku Around", testing the audience reaction to the song at summer festivals. After "Aruku Around" was released as a single in January 2010, it became a popular and critical success; reaching number three on Oricon's single charts, praised for its strong arrangement and band vocalist Ichiro Yamaguchi's poetic lyrics. After "Aruku Around", the band released their fourth studio album Kikuuiki in March 2010. Though the band had begun thinking of ideas for this record in February 2009, less than a month after their previous album, they recorded the bulk of the material in January and February 2010. "Identity" was a song that was born from the band's early demo sessions for Kikuuiki in 2009, during the same period when the band were experimenting on "Aruku Around" to create a signature song with a recognisable Sakanaction sound, and considering what a single's role was. After Kikuuiki, the band planned to release an "easy to digest" song in a similar vein to "Aruku Around".
To promote Kikuuiki, the band performed a thirteen-date national tour of Japan in April and May, Sakanaquarium 2010 Kikuuiki. At the tour final on May 28 at Zepp Tokyo, the band performed "Identity" for the first time during the concert's encore. On the same day, the song was announced as the band's next single, scheduled for release in August.
The song was conceived in 2009, as the band's next work after the song "Me ga Aku Aiiro" (2010), the leading track from Kikuuiki. "Me ga Aku Aiiro", a complicated seven-minute rock opera, had been the final song that the band worked on for Kikuuiki, with recording sessions lasting until February 16, a month before the album's release. After the success of Kikuuiki, they felt that the time was opportune for the band to quickly release new material. This time also coincided with the time when band members began to smoothly and enjoyably record music together, compared to the band's earlier albums, such as Night Fishing (2008), where the process was difficult and frustrating. After the band's success with "Aruku Around" and Kikuuiki, "Identity" was the first song the band wrote specifically for a wider audience.
The song's lyrics were directly inspired by "Me ga Aku Aiiro", which were written after "Me ga Aku Aiiro" had been completed. For "Me ga Aku Aiiro", Yamaguchi felt that he needed to develop a new style of lyric writing for himself, featuring abstract concepts but words that people would still empathise with. The first part of the song was inspired by an incident where Yamaguchi was watching people carry out their daily lives. He noticed that almost all of the women around him were wearing leggings, which made him hyper-sensitive to each person's individuality. This feeling, which had been unconscious for him before, inspired the song's chorus lyric identity ga nai, umarenai (アイデンティティがない 生まれない; "I have no identity, it's not born") and melody. The rest of the lyrics were inspired by YouTube comments, which Yamaguchi noticed were often further comments of already existing comments, instead of a comment about their first impressions of the video. This made him realise that people often base their identities on the actions of other people. After considering the idea, Yamaguchi considered the only time people were free from these outside influences were in early childhood, where people's actions were expressing their pure self-identity, and wanted to express his conclusion in the lyrics of "Identity". The song's final lyrics were written by Yamaguchi in three perspectives: the perspective of someone on stage, an audience member perspective and a third perspective encompassing both aspects.
The song was given the concept of a Sakanaction version of Southern All Stars' 1978 song "Katte ni Sinbad" when writing. While Yamaguchi said this as a joke, he felt that this was true for where the band were in their career (like Southern All Stars, who were able to produce many high response singles after "Katte ni Sinbad", such as "Itoshi no Ellie" (1979)). As the song was the band's first summer release, the band members wanted a melody that would express this. Together, they felt that adding conga drums would add to the summer atmosphere of the song. In the band's previous album, Kikuuiki, where the band had attempted to 'mix the unmixable'. "Identity" was an extension of this, where they mixed "heavy" lyrics with a "fun" backing track. The song's sound was an experiment for the band as they considered what pop music was, when previously they had thought of their music in terms of rock. Instead of a pop sound that merely colored the band, Sakanaction wanted to create pop music with a Sakanaction approach. If they were not able to do this, Yamaguchi felt that the band would become trapped; only accessible to a small field of music fans. Because of this, Yamaguchi considers "Identity" to be a song that showed off a new aspect of Sakanaction, similar to their songs "Sen to Rei" (2008) and "Aruku Around" (2010).
"Identity" is an up-tempo song with a strong Latin beat, blending together Latin, rock and electro genres. The song's chorus features a vocal chorus of ten people singing in the background. The song's lyrics question the nature of what self-identity is, and strongly contrast with the song's otherwise happy and upbeat sound.
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Identity (Sakanaction song)
"Identity" (Japanese: アイデンティティ, Hepburn: Aidentiti) (Japanese pronunciation: [aideꜜnti̥ti]) is a song by Japanese band Sakanaction. It was released in July and August 2010 as the band's first single after the release of their fourth album Kikuuiki in March 2010. The band's first summer-time release, "Identity" was an upbeat song featuring Latin percussion and lyrics about self-identity. In September 2011, it was added to the band's fifth studio album, Documentaly.
The song was well reviewed by Japanese music critics, who enjoyed the Latin percussive elements and the song's upbeat melody. Commercially, the song reached number twelve on Oricon's single chart and number seven on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, performing worse than the band's previous single "Aruku Around" (2010), but better than their earlier singles "Sen to Rei" (2008) and "Native Dancer" (2009).
After the release of their album Shin-shiro in early 2009, the band spent much of their time experimenting with different styles for their song "Aruku Around", testing the audience reaction to the song at summer festivals. After "Aruku Around" was released as a single in January 2010, it became a popular and critical success; reaching number three on Oricon's single charts, praised for its strong arrangement and band vocalist Ichiro Yamaguchi's poetic lyrics. After "Aruku Around", the band released their fourth studio album Kikuuiki in March 2010. Though the band had begun thinking of ideas for this record in February 2009, less than a month after their previous album, they recorded the bulk of the material in January and February 2010. "Identity" was a song that was born from the band's early demo sessions for Kikuuiki in 2009, during the same period when the band were experimenting on "Aruku Around" to create a signature song with a recognisable Sakanaction sound, and considering what a single's role was. After Kikuuiki, the band planned to release an "easy to digest" song in a similar vein to "Aruku Around".
To promote Kikuuiki, the band performed a thirteen-date national tour of Japan in April and May, Sakanaquarium 2010 Kikuuiki. At the tour final on May 28 at Zepp Tokyo, the band performed "Identity" for the first time during the concert's encore. On the same day, the song was announced as the band's next single, scheduled for release in August.
The song was conceived in 2009, as the band's next work after the song "Me ga Aku Aiiro" (2010), the leading track from Kikuuiki. "Me ga Aku Aiiro", a complicated seven-minute rock opera, had been the final song that the band worked on for Kikuuiki, with recording sessions lasting until February 16, a month before the album's release. After the success of Kikuuiki, they felt that the time was opportune for the band to quickly release new material. This time also coincided with the time when band members began to smoothly and enjoyably record music together, compared to the band's earlier albums, such as Night Fishing (2008), where the process was difficult and frustrating. After the band's success with "Aruku Around" and Kikuuiki, "Identity" was the first song the band wrote specifically for a wider audience.
The song's lyrics were directly inspired by "Me ga Aku Aiiro", which were written after "Me ga Aku Aiiro" had been completed. For "Me ga Aku Aiiro", Yamaguchi felt that he needed to develop a new style of lyric writing for himself, featuring abstract concepts but words that people would still empathise with. The first part of the song was inspired by an incident where Yamaguchi was watching people carry out their daily lives. He noticed that almost all of the women around him were wearing leggings, which made him hyper-sensitive to each person's individuality. This feeling, which had been unconscious for him before, inspired the song's chorus lyric identity ga nai, umarenai (アイデンティティがない 生まれない; "I have no identity, it's not born") and melody. The rest of the lyrics were inspired by YouTube comments, which Yamaguchi noticed were often further comments of already existing comments, instead of a comment about their first impressions of the video. This made him realise that people often base their identities on the actions of other people. After considering the idea, Yamaguchi considered the only time people were free from these outside influences were in early childhood, where people's actions were expressing their pure self-identity, and wanted to express his conclusion in the lyrics of "Identity". The song's final lyrics were written by Yamaguchi in three perspectives: the perspective of someone on stage, an audience member perspective and a third perspective encompassing both aspects.
The song was given the concept of a Sakanaction version of Southern All Stars' 1978 song "Katte ni Sinbad" when writing. While Yamaguchi said this as a joke, he felt that this was true for where the band were in their career (like Southern All Stars, who were able to produce many high response singles after "Katte ni Sinbad", such as "Itoshi no Ellie" (1979)). As the song was the band's first summer release, the band members wanted a melody that would express this. Together, they felt that adding conga drums would add to the summer atmosphere of the song. In the band's previous album, Kikuuiki, where the band had attempted to 'mix the unmixable'. "Identity" was an extension of this, where they mixed "heavy" lyrics with a "fun" backing track. The song's sound was an experiment for the band as they considered what pop music was, when previously they had thought of their music in terms of rock. Instead of a pop sound that merely colored the band, Sakanaction wanted to create pop music with a Sakanaction approach. If they were not able to do this, Yamaguchi felt that the band would become trapped; only accessible to a small field of music fans. Because of this, Yamaguchi considers "Identity" to be a song that showed off a new aspect of Sakanaction, similar to their songs "Sen to Rei" (2008) and "Aruku Around" (2010).
"Identity" is an up-tempo song with a strong Latin beat, blending together Latin, rock and electro genres. The song's chorus features a vocal chorus of ten people singing in the background. The song's lyrics question the nature of what self-identity is, and strongly contrast with the song's otherwise happy and upbeat sound.