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| Komuro Tetsuya | Keiko Yamada |
Marc Panther |
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Instruments, mixing, |
Vocal |
Rapper |
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Globe is a very popular group who's specialty is mixing trendy music of all kinds to create an addictive blend of styles. They succeed suberbly in mixing high energy pop songs with synthesized instrumentation, electronica/techno, atmospheric new-age trance, jungle drum and bass, jazz, piano ballads, house, hip hop, retro sounds and even rock. Globe is pop with its roots in the club scene, but they have a very rock n' roll approach. The thing I liked best about their music is that it is danceable and full of strong beats and catchy electronic sounds like a lot of club music, but it also has a strong pop or rock melody to tie it all together. Because of a strong melody prevailant in much of the music, Globe's songs are not repeatitve like a lot of other music that uses beats and sound sampling in this way.
Komuro Tetsuya, otherwise known as TK is known as one of the most powerful men in music who is both a trend setter and a perceptive trend follower. TK made his debut around 1984 as a member of the popular techno-pop band TM Network (later shortened to TMN). Even while still a part of the band, TK continued to make a name for himself as a solo artist and started to work behind the scenes as a music producer. Around 1992 when TMN was about to break up, TK dedicated himself to producing. He wanted to introduce groups that combined dance with pop singing. The first group he signed to his Avex Trax label was TRF (Tetsuya Rave Factory). Apart from introducing European dance influenced groups to the scene Komuro also had another tactic. He would find young and hip singers with a bit of talent and make pop idols out of them. TK is more than a mere producer as he often engineers everything about their careers from their singing style to creating all of their music. From time to time he even plays with them. But that's not to say that they aren't quite talented on their own. It's just that Komuro knows what he wants and tends to mold potential stars to his particular vision. Some of the more famous artists he's produced have been mega-idols like Yuki Uchida, Hitomi, Tomomi Kahala (who also used to be TK's girlfriend), Namie Amuro and Ami Suzuki. His artists, most of which are with Avex Trax records, some of which are signed with King Records, Sony or Orumok (Komuro's own label) are collectively known as the "TK Family". Thanks to TK, Avex Trax has grown from a small company to one of the largest record companies in Japan in such a short time. Avex is a record company that specializes only in dance music boasting many more big stars some of whom have seemingly adopted TK's style of music.
From 1994 to 1996 TK Family artists dominated the charts with often 5 top 10 hits at once. Of course one of the most popular of TK's music endevors is the Komuro's very own group, Globe which is one of the most successful Japanese groups in history. In the last couple of years, things have settled down though. While TK's artists are still very popular, they don't totally dominate the charts like they used to. The market has changed and these days the competition coming from other genres of music has evened things up. Still Globe is still as popular as ever. TK is very ambitious and determined to make Globe the number one group in Japan. But it's currently a difficult task with bands like B'z and GLAY to contend with.  Komuro Tetsuya continues to be one of the most influential men in the Japanese music industry and Globe is a good example of why. He knows how to make good, danceable music that appeals to the youth of Japan. They are arguably the biggest name pop group in the whole country and there's no sign of slowing down. Recently TK has released 4 Globe singles around the same time, then an album and another remix/live-cuts album shortly after. If anything, they're speeding up and really pushing themselves to become THE biggest name in the business.
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One of those two I speak of is the singer Keiko who is the most visible one in Globe. Her stage persona is interesting. Sweet as well as tough and bit silly. Not cutsie and fresh-faced like so many of TK's other singers, but mature and womanly with the right amount of girlish sass and sentimentality. Hot damn! (...Sorry).
Interracting with Keiko on stage is Marc Panther who is labeled as the rapper of the group, but does much more. He does a lot to get the crowd excited and reved up and often plays instruments for various songs. Panther is an established French DJ who has lived in Japan most of his life. He used to be a model, disc jockey and video jockey when he was asked by TK to join the group. He has various kinds of raps which are interjected into every song. Sometimes it's a full-fledged rap solo, other times his contribution is just adding some background talking with TK or shouting in a house music style. Most often he'll talk along with Keiko's singing. His style isn't very urban and bears little resemblance to hip hop. Rather his raps tend to be rather mellow and spoken in a whispering style. To be frank there are times when Panther has made some song sound pretty cheezy. Some listeners don't care much for the style he brings to the mix and find him annoying rather than cool. But he does get a lot of unwarranted flak. He is usually pretty important to the total Globe sound and when used effectively he does add more depth to the song. I find that the way he and Keiko interract together is what makes the group really work. Without it, it wouldn't be half as good. He's really changed from his early start with Globe. As a stage performer he used to act pretty stupid and rapped like he was in a late 80's house music group with similarily trite lyrics. But like Keiko, he too found his place in globe and soon became a great performer and has a much cooler image. Now even those who didn't normally like his style before have warmed up to him.
Finally we get to Komuro Tetsuya who is the mastermind of Globe. In Globe TK writes the music, does the mixing and arrangement and plays many of the instruments especially keyboards, piano and guitar. He also does background vocals. Although on stage he isn't as visible as the other two members, he is basically the one who makes it all happen. Therefore to talk about Globe, one must talk about Komuro himself.
