KKB Flamingo writeup for 2014 top 100

I should've just written "kkb where album" and moved on with my life

Where were you when Kero Kero Bonito dropped "Flamingo" in 2014? I was in my last year of middle school, preparing for high school exams. The song I bumped the most on my mp3 player was probably "Firestone" by Kygo. I probably went home and binged Naruto Shippuden after studying. My favorite Naruto opening song was the first one from Shippuden, ["Hero's Come Back!!"](https://youtu.be/ipBCtl0j4O8) by nobodyknows+. That's a Japanese hip hop song. Is it anything like KKB? No! It's a bunch of dudes doing racing game-core anthemic rap rock. I love it, but you can hardly draw a line to "Flamingo" from there.

As far as I can tell, the song first went viral in 2017 with a [fan animation](https://youtu.be/JhDIILjlhBQ) and a year after, [Clone Hero YouTuber Acai played it](https://youtu.be/qcnygxZoyaQ) and made it even more viral. Music publications were onto KKB earlier. J-music enthusiast and runner of the Make Believe Melodies blog (name familiar?) Patrick St. Michel [covered](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/17069-kero-kero-bonito-sick-beat/) "Sick Beat" for Pitchfork, and electronic music dude Philip Sherburne [covered](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/17126-kero-kero-bonito-cat-vs-dog-kane-west-remix/) "Cat vs. Dog (Kane West Remix)" as part of his interest in PC Music. But Pitchfork didn't show the same attention to their debut mixtape or album. Fantano did, reviewing Bonito Generation a couple weeks after its release. The band was getting an increasingly bigger (and very online) fanbase, which grew even further with their "edgy" era with *Time 'n' Place* in 2018. You might have heard of KKB during sometime in this period and became a fan (or a hater), perhaps you're thinking "what is bro saying? where was hypno for this," but I was unaware of all that at the time. So where was **I** when I first heard of KKB? I was watching a guy stream Hearthstone, and "Flamingo" came on his playlist. Apparently I first listened to the song on Spotify in 16-01-2020, and I listened to it 143 times through that day, most of it on loop. All that info just to say that "Flamingo" is probably the least 2014 song on this list for me. So then, how did it come to be? Actually, can we understand that without looking at how KKB came to be? We probably could, but that wasn't a question I asked myself when I started this writeup.

KKB start out with Gus and Jamie in 2011. Sarah's been the face of the band for so long now it's hard to imagine KKB without her, but she actually joins them in 2013. Most of their pre-Intro Bonito stuff were exclusive to Soundcloud (and now deleted but available as unofficial uploads), with Gus and Jamie sharing vocal duties. It's not too far from some indie synthpop of the time like MGMT (but better). The duo were also familiar with a guy named Alexander Guy Cook, then running a project/label called [Gamsonite](https://x.com/KeroKeroBonito/status/178887671706427393). [This tweet](https://x.com/KeroKeroBonito/status/310448147224752128) at the Quietus that they didn't cover the A.G. Cook/Danny L Harle collab album no one remembers today is hilarious to me. There is a lot of stylistic overlap between early KKB and PC Music releases, with a considerable electro/new jack swing influence. PC Music even released an EP by Gus (using the moniker Kane West) in 2014.

There is also the fascination with J-music. A brief worldwide phenomenon with "PONPONPON", J-music is an influence on a lot of 2010s underground pop, including PC Music (check out how many J-pop/denpa acts appear in A.G. Cook mixes). KKB worked closely with the scene, releasing a [collab](https://youtu.be/UChyLIvbDDw) with Japanese indie pop artist Contrary Parade on a Make Believe [the blog] Mix. Gus even [interviewed](https://makebelievemelodies.com/chat-salyu-x-salyu-featuring-salyu-cornelius-yumiko-ohno-and-asa-chang/) Japanese chanteuse Salyu (perhaps best known for being the voice of Lily Chou-Chou) for the blog in 2012. Moreover, the first official KKB release ["Why Aren't You Dancing?"](https://youtu.be/pHHV4CCC3W0) was released through Flawless World, a small Japanese label focusing on UK new wave-centric dance music. The song itself is kind of a 2010s take on New Order's *Technique*, but the far more interesting part here to me is the person running Flawless World, Akira Suzuki. Prior to Flawless World, Suzuki had founded the label Usagi-Chang Records in 2002, as a publisher for his own group Sonic Coaster Pop and other indie artists making energetic, video game influenced pop. Considering [their respect](https://x.com/KeroKeroBonito/status/324508050587271169) for [Pine*AM](https://youtu.be/Mo-KWBAWfE8?t=1711) I doubt KKB were not influenced by this entire scene. That comp with the Pine*AM song I just linked is great if the idea of Bonito Generation-esque upbeat, happy video game-like pop sounds appealing to you, and Sonic Coaster Pop's second [mini album](https://youtu.be/9t0RyYRU1-4) is 18 minutes of Dreamcast hyperrock and one of my favorite things ever. But neither the PC Music adjacent bubblegum trance-pop space nor the Japanese energetic video game pop influence explains "Flamingo" fully. Well, enter Sarah Bonito.

["Wherever You Go"](https://youtu.be/Yb_ilkl0y8I) was a song KKB self-released around a week before "Why Aren't You Dancing?" and with it, Sarah joins the band! With this song you can still hear those wide synth soundscapes that remind me of an early Hannah Diamond track. But by the time of *Intro Bonito* Sarah is the fully fledged MC of the band, as well as handling most of the art direction. She is their aesthetic, and the band play to her strengths, carving themselves a unique space in indie pop that diverges from their influences and contemporaries. KKB mix in the playfulness of Japanese pop rap groups like [Halcali](https://youtu.be/FTVeAHo4LdM) and [Heartsdales](https://youtu.be/vM6DAGb8iAk), bubblegum pop choruses, sick synth breakdowns, various dancey rhythms from electro, dancehall and more; and a distinct 2010s future bass inspired sound. But what makes KKB special is Sarah's lyrics which can take a song about gaming and make it about gender norms girls are expected to fit. With Sarah, KKB go from an excellent pop pastiche act to a band many people found themselves resonating with, a kind of fan-artist connection that I would like to think also resulted in the evolution of KKB's own sound over time. The lyrical themes are masked, but usually not so subtly, so it is easy for people to be drawn to them. And "Flamingo" just does that in such an unassuming way that it is hard not to love. "Show off your natural hue," sings Sarah, and if you're multicolored, that's cool too! I love the simple visualizer of the song with the shrimp with a shell that changes colors. A song asking why flamingos are pink turns into a simple but effective ode to accepting and loving yourself. And what a catchy song too! The song starts with a weird question, ends its intro with an even weirder statement to have in a song (who else but Sarah would sing a line like "shrimps are pretty rich"). A brief moment in silence is not enough to process the quirky energy the band has thrown at you before the silliest, catchiest synth melody hits your ears. What an effortless hook. You can't help but wonder what they're going to do next, and then Sarah starts rapping in Japanese? She's so crazy, love herrrr. No wonder this was the song of theirs that eventually went viral. Also gotta love the breakdown after "somatte ikuze one two three". It's short and to the point, it does the job wonderfully. Can't praise the synth melodies here enough either. No like I can't cuz I don't know how to speak music! Thankfully we can all hear it and go "what a bop" anyways.

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