Someone posted about language barriers in music yesterday, and it reminded me of a time I experienced the opposite.

I bought a compilation CD released by the record label Avex when I visited Japan in 2006 with no knowledge of the language. It included the song Yatsu Revolution (don't watch it in public or in front of other people BTW) by the A-BOYS. It's obvious from the video that the song is very strange, but with YouTube being less than 2 years old at the time, the music video wasn't easily available online, so I just thought is was supposed to be tongue in cheek. There was also a dance group that has worked with Avex and are called A-Boys, so I assumed the song was by them.

I started studying Japanese a few years later and eventually went to a language school full-time. I found the album it was on along with a bunch of others buried in my hard drive around 2020. My understanding of it going from 0 to 100 all at once was a surreal experience. I'd assumed it was just a silly song by some dancers with no professional singing experience, but it was actually a bawdy song about Japanese geek culture.