JOJI - Ballads 1

I’ve been missing a long time

to know I had to move

I’ve been waiting my whole life

to know I wanted you

(“Wanted U”, Joji)

Joji, the alias of former YouTuber, singer and Japanese producer George Kusunoki Miller, is a name that jumps out especially to web veterans: with four albums under his belt and a decade-long career behind him, during his “excursion on the web” Miller has had quite a few lives, a bit like a cat, but one in particular consumed him like few other things in the world, the one belonging to the caustic universe of Filthy Frank.

«He is anti-PC, anti-social and anti-couth» still reads today the description of his official channel, abandoned shortly after the release of the anti-best seller “Francis of The Filth” (Lulu, 2017): around the first half of the 2010s, Miller showcased a comedy pushed to extremes and cunningly blended with the grotesque, social satire, nonsense and sheer absurdity. While it spilled over into countless episodes of questionable taste, over time he's been recognised not only as one of the forerunners of the “dank meme” (e.g. “Harlem Shake”), but as one of the personalities who left the deepest mark on the YouTube platform, maintaining a long-running, layered fanbase behind him.

The channel's followers are well aware of his passion for a certain kind of music. As it happens, his first channel, “DizastaMusic”, was born to promote his self-produced songs. And yet, the idea of starting to write more inventive tracks surfaced during a glorious period of success on the platform.

Between 2015 and 2017, his SoundCloud profile saw the release of several works inspired by the musical influences of the era: from the bedroom pop of “Thom”, whose title references the frontman of Radiohead, to the alternative r&b of “You Suck Charlie”, moving on to the fragmented trip-hop of “World$tar Money” and the lo-fi hip hop of “Unsaved Info”, which skilfully makes use of a sample from Erik Satie's “Gymnopédie No. 1” by Erik Satie. Shortly before abandoning the YouTube channel for a variety of reasons – mental health, flags from the site, a musical shift – Miller moved directly to the American record label 88rising, for which he signed his first EP released under the Joji alias, “In Tongues” (2017). Through all this, it's worth stressing how much the YouTube channel served as a space to experiment with an early, ever-evolving stylistic approach, beyond the constant comic nature – see “Pink Season” (Pink Records, 2017).

Still with 88Rising – with whom Miller would form a lasting bond – came, towards the end of October 2018, the release of his studio debut, “Ballads 1”, preceded by the two singles “Yeah Right” and “Slow Dancing in The Dark”. The record was met with mixed reviews, between those who found the emo-cloud approach unoriginal, and those who genuinely praised the variety of its productions. Over the years, all the negative aura surrounding the concept has blown away through some hypothetical window of prejudice, and listeners have given Caesar what is Caesar's.

From its unsettling low-resolution cover, the album opens in grand style with the alt-r&b track “Attention” which, for all its radical brevity, reveals on first listen Joji's solid production skills, already showcased earlier on the shelved debut “Chloe Burbank Vol.1” (self-produced, 2016). Bittersweet in its elusiveness, the track drowns pleasantly in a bath of distortion that makes its author's conceptual idea clear: dismember an authentic melody, break it down into small pieces and then reassemble it masterfully like a puzzle or a restoration job; that's the gist of it.

Produced by Patrick Wimberly, former vocalist and keyboardist of the American synth pop duo Chairlift, in which an at-the-time-unknown Caroline Polachek played, the alt-pop hit “Slow Dancing In The Dark” marries future bass attitudes to floating chillstep rhythms: remorse, competition and resentment are dressed back up to the point of making the track one of the former YouTuber's most memorable. Proof of this is the track's eponymous video, rendered in bluish photography. What results is a convincing ballad for millennials, made of insecurities, disillusionment and shattered hopes. The trap soul of “Test Drive”, meanwhile, rests on an aching piano and a beat that's very much a product of its time. Detailed with Joji's sharp, near-falsetto vocals, the track glides along comfortably over its average runtime, even without veering into experimental flourishes.

The self-produced alt-r&b of “Wanted U” brings to light one of the Japanese musician's most ambitious and introspective tracks. The track's hushed, at times lethargic choral textures, alternated with an exquisitely refined lo-fi taste, make its minimal melodic structures all the more noteworthy. Joji's is the tale of a broken-hearted man (or an overgrown kid), an eternal lover of brooding, far from making the kind of decisions that might bring a positive turn to his life. Shortly after comes the album's shortest track, “Can’t Get Over You”, a funktronica number with mainstream appeal, produced by Clams Casino.

The hedonistic, solitary “Yeah Right” reflects the influence of Frank Ocean, one of the Japanese producer's major inspirations. The post-rock of the following “Why Am I Still in LA”, made in collaboration with LA-based DJs Shlohmo and D33J, is disorienting. Vaguely punk bursts invade the composition midway through the track, propping it up with a scratchy bassline and ethereal guitars. Produced by London's Jam City and geared towards far catchier rhythms than usual, the UK bass of “No Fun” dresses itself in a depraved humour, closely tied to Filthy Frank's internet-born output – after all, we're looking at the same person.

Lower-key are the scattered experiments towards the end of the record, whether it's the desperate cloud of “Come Thru”, the emo rap of “R.I.P.”, made in collaboration with LA trapper Trippie Redd, or the closing farewells of “I’ll See You in 40”, somewhere between indie folk and alt-pop. The nostalgic track “XNXX” goes largely unnoticed, its title perhaps leading one's mind towards a red-light scenario: instead, what we get is a circular composition, an undefined sketch that stirs up the memory of blurred images, distant but no less important for it.

For all its imperfections, “Ballads 1” defines rather well the image of the Internet-made alt-pop star.

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13/05/2026