Dampa (music)

Dampa song is a slang term that characterizes bizarre, weird music. The term “dump” ( Japanese 電波 electromagnetic waves ) came into use in the 1990s to describe estranged people who live in the world of their fantasies and originates from the murders on Fukagawa Street in 1981. Criminal Gunji Kamavata, he used illegal substances, after which, in broad daylight, he attacked bystanders with a knife, killing two housewives and two children and injuring many others. Presenting before the court, he stated that he was affected by electromagnetic waves ( dumps ), forcing him to kill people and driving him crazy. ^[5] From the early nineties, the term “dumpa” began to appear in music and literature, while the combination of dumpa-kei ( 電波 系 denpa-kei ) began to be used to describe people immersed in themselves and causing fear. That was the name of madmen as a derogatory euphemism, based on the idea that these people allegedly hear voices, observe visions and communicate through telepathy as a result of exposure to electromagnetic waves. Examples of such use at that time are available in the songs of the Japanese metal band KING-SHOW , where there are references to this episode of murders. ^[four]

In relation to music, the term acquired a negative connotation and became associated with music that was recognized as intimidating and had strange texts, often originating from the otaku culture. Since otaku were often considered strange and differed in their behavior from most, the dump quickly became associated with the otaku culture and the scene of Akihabara . Over time, the word “dump” began to characterize anyone who seemed bizarre or divorced from reality, as if these people “received electromagnetic waves”, were hypnotized and obeyed to them. Over time, a category of dump music appeared, which became popular in otaku circles as a niche interest and subculture other than the mainstream. ^{[4] [3]}

Dampa songs are distinguished by music with bizarre patterns and extremely strange lyrics, but despite this they have gained popularity. Listeners justify this by the fact that their music “hypnotizes”, and they remain under the control of the strangeness of the song. The feeling of “poisoning and brainwashing with songs” is described by the term dock-dump ( Japanese 毒 電波 doku-denpa , poisoning by electromagnetic waves) . Lyrics of dump songs are usually meaningless or contain themes related to otaku. Songs relate to topics such as obsession, telepathy, or insanity, and often contain chaotic or repeating lines so that a fun song starts to sound creepy. In the musical sense, a dump usually contains repeating phrases or purposely false vocals at the same time as a catchy melody, deliberately provoking a sense of immoderation and excess. Excessively high vocals, votagey ( Japanese ヲ タ 芸 ) -cries and other extreme methods are used to create chaos, which is characterized as a “dump”. An example of such a song is Neko Mimi Mode , where the entire text consists of a repetition of “Neko Mimi Mode”. Dump music can be combined with many other musical subgenres such as gamewave, bitpop and chiptune . ^{[6] [3]}

Often, dump music is incorrectly described as “sweet” and “happy,” since most of the dump songs use an overabundance of moe themes that are extremely cute and happy, and sometimes these songs are very fast, but this characteristic is not always true, since they can contain much darker themes. It is wrong to consider the dump as a “cute J-pop ”, since it is largely an underground phenomenon, it is not popular in mainstream music and has a completely different scene from J-pop. Dampa from early days was associated with creepy music, as a result of which she was not accepted in the mainstream and her scene was limited to the niche group otaku. Under17 became a popular band that created cute songs with fancy lyrics, and these songs changed the way the idea of ​​dump music looked. ^[6]

Dump albums are usually sold by musicians at fairs such as Komiket and other major events for people interested in otaku culture. Dampa music is often used in opening and closing melodies of anime broadcast on television ; examples are the opening themes of Shinryaku! Ika Musume and Kill Me Baby .

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