Yuzu-P's Music Review Vol. 3: RADWIMPS "DADA"

This is the 9th major label single released in 2011 by RADWIMPS, a band currently making headlines following the announcement on October 17th that guitarist Akira Kuwahara would be leaving. It recorded their highest first-week sales at approximately 89,000 copies and reached a cumulative total of about 120,000, making it their biggest hit single.

Song Structure

The song starts abruptly with a high-speed rap verse and drums. True to the song title, the lyrics, which seem to be conscious of "Dadaism", have a religious perspective that is incredibly impactful. The rhyming scheme is also skillful, making it stick in your ears immediately despite being a rap verse.
Then it enters the intro, where it suddenly shifts into a hard, gritty rock sound. While attention often focuses on Yojiro Noda's impressive lyrics, if you listen closely to the sound, it is very elaborately crafted, and you can clearly see that they are playing harder rock music than one might think.
The song charges into the first verse while maintaining that hard sound, and here too, an impressive rap style conscious of wordplay unfolds. As if responding to the swell of the rap, the instrumental section also resonates with a sound that is constantly swelling, giving the listener no time to breathe.

After a pre-chorus with lyrics that seem to teach methods of self-harm, the song finally hits the chorus. Here, they employ a novel lyrical and melodic approach where they simply repeat the beginning and end of words, such as "naa naa ni shinaide" (don't be half-hearted) and "monmon to sasenaide" (don't leave me brooding). It is completely removed from mainstream pop melodies, yet it emits a powerful impact.
The second verse repeats a relatively similar melodic progression before entering the bridge. This part features a clear guitar sound and is the only calm section in the song.
However, it immediately returns to the gritty rock sound, increasing in intensity along with Noda's death-throes-like screams. After a moment of silence, it enters the final chorus, pushing through with the gritty sound until the very end before the song suddenly terminates.

When this song reached number one on the Oricon weekly charts, it became quite a topic of conversation. Many people seemed shocked that such a seemingly niche song reached number one, but by RAD standards, "DADA" has a relatively orthodox song structure, and the chorus could even be called catchy in a sense, so for RAD, it is actually a mainstream and easy-to-understand song.
Incidentally, they also reached number one with their 9th single "Order Made", released about three years before "DADA". That song is a grand work spanning nearly six minutes, but the catchy chorus and guitar only ring out for the last 30 seconds, and the rest is mostly sung in a whisper against a backdrop of guitar arpeggios, making it a very bold production even by today's standards.

Factors behind the hit of "DADA"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MaF-bWeLGw

As mentioned earlier, "DADA" became their biggest hit single. Moreover, even though this was effectively a pre-release single for their 6th album "Zettai Zetsumei" (Desperate Situation), which was scheduled for release two months later, the reason it was able to record their highest sales can be attributed to it being a song in the "Oshakashama lineage".

"Oshakashama" was the lead track for their 5th album "Altcolony no Teiri". It is a highly addictive song with an impressive intro, novel lyrics about God, and high-speed rapping. Despite not being released as a single, it boasts high popularity and is counted as one of RAD's signature songs.
I remember well that when I was in junior high school, I heard "Oshakashama" and was shocked by the musical style and worldview I had never heard before, becoming instantly captivated and hooked on RAD. It is a song with personal significance to me.
Around this time, RAD was regularly producing songs centered on such impressive intros and high-speed rapping (others include "Gimi Gimmick" and "Hyperventilation"). In this article, I will arbitrarily group these songs as the "
Oshakashama lineage". Songs in this lineage boast high popularity among fans, and I suspect there was a latent expectation among fans at the time, thinking, "I want them to make a song like Oshakashama again!"Released under such circumstances, "DADA" was exactly the "Oshakashama lineage" song that fans had been waiting for. Furthermore, it wasn't just the same lineage; by giving it a more intense rock sound, it was differentiated from "Oshakashama", functioning not as a mere rehash but as a
legitimate evolution of "Oshakashama".I remember well that when I first heard "DADA", I was super excited, thinking, "This is it! This is what I wanted to hear!!" (laughs).

Thank you for reading until the end.
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