80 S Ballads

The Japanese Popstars Talk "Controlling Your Allegiance"

On Controlling Your Allegiance , The Japanese Popstars siphon hyper catchy hooks through a lush electronic landscape.

The Northern Ireland trio builds a sound that's simultaneously impactful and infectious on cuts like the catchy "For Lisa" and the monumental "Joshua". Each and every flourish swirls into one cohesive ride that's bound to make you press play again as soon as it's over. You'll be pledging your allegiance to The Japanese Popstars after just one listen. This is boundary-breaking brilliant electro.

One third of The Japanese Popstars, Gareth Donoghue, spoke to ARTISTdirect.com editor and Dolor author Rick Florino about Controlling Your Allegiance , working with Lisa Hannigan, and season 4 of The Sopranos .

Did you have one complete vision for Controlling Your Allegiance or did it come together song by song in the studio?

I suppose at the start we tried to have an idea. We worked on the album over two years. We were gigging most weekends and traveling a lot during that time. The initial idea changed and grew organically as we secured each vocalist one by one. The album kept evolving and taking on different tones. We wanted to develop from where we left off on the first album and take positive steps forward both in songwriting and accessibility. The answer is both "Yes" and "No" [Laughs].

What's the story behind "Joshua"?

It was probably one of the first ideas that was actually penned. It was initially written as a house track. We didn't have many ideas for vocalists at the time. I'd watched WarGames the night before on the computer, and it was called "Joshua". I thought it'd be a really good name for a song. We had the instrumental tied down. About a year before, we'd remixed a track for The Editors. We knew we wanted to work with vocalist Tom Smith because he's able to nail epicness, and his voice suits dance music. We approached him, and he was into. He already had some ideas for the vocals and where he wanted them to go, and we worked together. We were really pleased with how it ended up.

Did you always know that it would end Control Your Allegiance ?

We put a lot of thought into the sequencing of the album, and "Joshua" seemed to be right track to end with. It wound everything up and left a good taste in everyone's mouth.

Low Resolution: Oscars of the '80s: The Best Original Song Project ...

Joe: I cannot -- and have no desire to -- defend Top Gun as a movie. As a cash machine, sure. As a star-making vehicle, as a harbinger of summer-blockbusters to come, as a source of two-plus decades worth of homoerotic-volleyball jokes, absolutely. But not as a movie. But Berlin's gorgeously moaning love ballad? That I will defend all day. I'm sure it didn't start exactly here, but the era of movie soundtracks existing almost independently from the films they belong to certainly got a boost in '86. Mark: Did you see that episode of RuPaul's Drag Race where the guest judge was Berlin's lead singer, Terri Nunn, and the queens had to pretend they knew who she was? It was hilariously awkward, but who can blame them? If it weren't for this song, Berlin would only be known as a German city with a troubled past, and even still, more of the credit goes to composer-producer Giorgio Moroder than to Berlin themselves. This song is so good---and was so destined for heavy promotion from the Top Gun /Columbia Records team---that any halfway decent act could've scored a hit with it. Berlin was just lucky to get the gig. Joe: Okay ... I really can't talk about this objectively. An American Tail was the first movie my family ever owned on VHS, and my siblings and I watched it constantly. I'd have nominated "There Are No Cats in America" too, if I could have. I could probably remember about 80% of the dialogue from the movie if I watched it today, and I know this because it was on HBO last week when I was flipping through the cable grid, and I totally watched it all over again. And I'll just say this: any song that can work just as well as a wistful love ballad to a lover you haven't yet met as it does when sung by one estranged sibling to another has to have something going for it. Plus, this was from Linda Ronstadt's "duets with black people" era, which I remember fondly. Joe: I'm not asking for the same immunity for this song as I did for "Somewhere Out There." I know this song is one big ol' cheeseball covered in slivered almonds just waiting for a Wheat Thin cracker. Well, America, I am that wheat thin. I just really enjoy Peter Cetera's voice, okay? Yes, this song mostly sounds like all of Cetera's other sappy love ballads, and the musicality of the tune is laughable, even by '80s standards. But the chorus? Where we're living forever because we did it all for the glory of love? That's the stuff, 1980s.

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