Thursday, January 27

Harajuku Girls
I have such a soft spot for J-pop culture. I went to iTunes and bought the whole Gwen Stefani Love, Angel, Music, Baby album on a whim after Justin told me today that she had a song that references Harajuku girls. [Hey, my $20 iTunes gift certificate has been sitting around untouched since October.] In fact, at least three songs on the album mention the gothic lolitas, and one's entirely dedicated to them. Stefani herself has a mod-squad entourage of four Harajuku Girls. (See photo album here.) Admittedly, Stefani's girls don't look very "true Harajuku" to me... they're much less gothic and more poppy than any I ever saw. But eh, it's still fun to pick out all the random Japanese references out of the album. Even though I'm not sure if the hyper-pop or Stefani's pronunciation of Harajuku as Hera-jewku will amuse me or annoy me to tears.

Well, I suppose I could say the same thing of the album as Ms. Stefani says of the Harajuku Girls in her song. It's "style detached from content."