Jazz

The jazz genre in the west is something that at the moment isn't exactly popular with jazz not usually being aired on music channels or radio stations unless that channel/station is specific to that genre of music. In Japan however the genre of jazz is increasing in popularity.

One such artist that performs using jazz is Suga Shikao. This artist not only performs jazz but also j-pop and funk.

Suga Shikao - Nobody knows

At the start of the song the camera is at a medium shot. This then cuts between the band members playing their instruments, the equipment the band is using such as the amps for the guitar and such, and for some reason a jar of strawberry jam (we're jammin). The speed of the editing is fairly quick with images on average not staying on screen for too long before a cut is made to another part. There are some close ups of the band but the main focus of these close ups are the instruments the band are playing. There's a variety of camera angles that are used through the video, this could be to make the viewer make up their own mind about the people in the video. Most other forms will have a certain type of shot for one arch type of character and a different angle for another, so here they give high angle shots and low angle shots so its unclear whether or not one thing about the person in the frame is right or not. Continuity isn't quite straight forward here as something like a film is where usually it goes from start, middle to end. Here things go from start to finish of the song in that order but in the middle the scene will change to something else throwing the continuity off. One example of this is when the artist s playing his guitar with only his sunglasses on his head then a moment later he has headphones on as well then the next he's not wearing them again. A second example of this is that the artist is playing his instrument then all of a sudden it cuts to an image of him covered in jam.

The mise en scene of the music video on the other hand is fairly coherent through the entirety of the music video. The colors shown are all black and white with some parts of red, (a key pattern may be turning up because in most music videos there will be two colors that stand out most, like in 'Passion' where it was white and blue). A special effect that is used is when time looks as though it is moving backwards and the jam that was all over the side of his shirt and on the jam jar look as though they are coming off his shirt in the same way it went onto it. A second effect that is used is when a number of images of the artist singing and playing his instrument all come up at the same time.

One thing that may have helped this song become so well known was that it was played in the opening sequence of the the anime show xxxHolic: Kei.