I love the Velvet Underground.

Being pop and being avant-garde are just two sides of the same coin.
I think they are both at the extreme north of creation.
They are the poles of creation.

I would like to think about these two extremes.
First, let me talk about avant-garde.
The term "avant-garde" is very difficult to use.
It seems contradictory to say that something avant-garde is sympathetic, shared, and popular, and it is always contradictory to say that the moment you define something as "avant-garde," it is no longer avant-garde.
What is it then?
In the end, it can only be something extremely personal and subjective.
What matters then is whether or not it is truly liberating for the individual's existence.
How do we prove such a thing? It cannot be proven.
To begin with, it is not avant-garde to create something incomprehensible.
The role of the avant-garde is to create something that transcends the boundaries of conventional thinking and understanding, and if it becomes a catalyst for leaps, liberation, and turning everything upside down for the individual creator and other recipients, then it has fulfilled its role as avant-garde.
The source from which such works emerge must be a kind of madness that lurks within the individual. However, because of this, it is easy to create "avant-garde-like fakes" that pretend to be madness.

What about pop music?
There are songs and works that everyone thinks are good, and that many people enjoy listening to and loving.
This is different from what is called a "hot seller," and it is not at all the case that it is generic, commonplace, and insignificant. Quite the opposite.
I believe that writing a pop song requires a certain kind of insanity. Just the thought of a melody that instantly permeates the senses of many people is insane.

If the avant-garde is trying to jump out of this place and over to the other side, pop songs seem to come from somewhere else and take us away to the other side.
In this sense, for me, being pop and being avant-garde are two sides of the same coin, two poles of creation.

The Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Velvet Underground.
These three bands have convinced me that pop and avant-garde exist at the same time.
They are, in my opinion, wonderfully insane.
They may be classics now, and they may not be old bands anyway, but their great madness is unshakable.
In an age when there is so much music, I think it is really foolish to discuss the oldness or newness of music only on the basis of time, and I think what is needed nowadays is an attitude of loving music to the fullest by placing oneself at a point beyond time, country, and place.

I know I've gone off on a tangent from the beginning.
I love the Velvet Underground.
Their melodies are beautiful, their noise and sounds are intense and destructive.
Lou Reed's lyrics are as powerful, piercing, and haunting as ever. Above all, they play cool rock 'n' roll.
The world is chaotic to begin with. The world is crazy.
They sang, played, and made sounds of that chaos as they saw it. The beauty and destructive power of their music has not changed at all.

The other day, we played "Femme Fatale" with the band. It was just fun and joyful. I felt like I was back in high school when I first heard them.

With the utmost respect and gratitude.
(June 5,2022)