As part of my continued personal campaign to drum up a critical discourse on the art of background music, in 2011 I began tweeting micro-reviews of bgm I came across in Tokyo, using the hashtag #bgmlog. This was partly in the hopes that the hashtag would catch on and trigger a global revolution in bgm awareness. As of January 6, 2012, this has yet to happen. In the meantime, I present an (unabashedly personal) best/worst of 2011 Tokyo bgm.

BESTEST

1. Suna no misaki / Sakurashinmachi 砂の岬／桜新町
This tiny 6-seater Nepali place is run by a young Japanese couple and ranks up there with the best South Asian food in the city. Thankfully steering clear of the usual SuR Sudha-esque Nepali tourist music, their cd changer serves up woozy detuned xylophone solos, 70s psych-pop, old Marry Poppins-style themes (a trend this year for sure), quasi-opera, and a touch of indie enthusiasm (discussing Antony and the Johnsons and Beirut with customers, for example). Great sequencing too.

2. Cafe Obscura / Sangenjaya カフェ オブスキュラ／三軒茶屋
Along with the name, the clean subdued tones of the cafe itself, and all the James Turrell books on display, Obscura upholds a sort of benchmark for ambient coffee, hewing to single-origin album selections like Harold Budd and The Album Leaf.

3. Ozeki Supermarket Parking Lot / Kugayama オオゼキスーパー駐車場／久我山
Just to the left of this large suburban discount supermarket, the parking attendant blasts some posessed-by-demons style old-school blues from a little boombox perched outside his little hut. The stereo sits on a folding chair in the middle of a sea of parked cars, accompanied – in late October at least – by a very large inflatable orange halloween pumpkin.

4. Shinagawa Health Center / Shinagawa 品川健康センター／品川
This exercise facility worked their way around the satellite-radio dial in 2011, moving from wonderfully surreal contemporary American country (“Back that Thing Up”) to vintage 90s Color Me Badd (“I Wanna Sex You Up”). Lately they’ve lost their way, slipping into more generic soft-rock stations, but I’m hoping they bring back the funk in 2012.

5. Coffea ExLibris / Shimokitazawa コフィア エクスリブリス / 下北沢
Gently motoric post-rock played just quiet enough to make you listen for it. I can’t recall most of what was playing here simply because it was too soft to notice in the first place, which worked wonderfully as a way to draw attention to the subtle flavors of the coffee.

Honorable mentions:
- Two chain shops with unexpected attitude: Caffe Veloce in Toranomon playing something like the synth soundtrack to an RPG set in a circus, and Otoya in Miyamasuzaka laying down some full-on hallelujah chorus, at 1 in the morning and nowhere near Christmas.
- Sunday in Ikejiri-Ohashi: Amid slightly repetitive French satellite radio, some occasional inspired selections like Señor Coconut’s “El Baile Alemán” (a latin jazz Kraftwerk cover album). They used to have some great ambient video on the walls as well (sadly no longer).
- Finally, Phosphorescence Cafe in Mitaka deserves a nod for having no background music whatsoever – a real rarity. It was so quiet you could sit and listen to other customers’ phones vibrating in their bags. On the downside, I also had the sense the owner sitting silently behind the counter was listening to our entire conversation.

WORSTEST

1. Starbucks / (pick one) スターバックス／何処でも
Besides the annoying covers albums, this year they tapped the great Charles Mingus to serenade their generic landscapes of brown and green. I couldn’t help feeling Mingus was becoming a little less Mingus with every play.

2. Chano-ma / Nakameguro 茶の間／中目黒
This place kind of epitomizes the generic hipster style, one of a chain of quasi-indie cafés proliferating this year all over the city. The music matches: uninspired and predictable selections like DJ Shadow and Helios. It’s a fine line in the musical sand between a place like this and Cafe Obscura, but an all-important one.

3. THE TERMINAL / Jingumae THE TERMINAL/神宮前
The same 5 tracks played 3 times in a row, and two of them covers of Björk’s Hyperballad. One of the covers was pretty good actually, but I also had the distinct feeling they were trying to keep people from lingering too long. Or just oblivious?

4. Muji Cafe / Futakotamagawa 無印カフェ／二子玉川
Whoever designed this place put the cafe right next to the escalators, where the same woman’s voice repeats the same 3 safety announcements about riding the escalator, every 30 seconds. Ad nauseum.

5. Tokyo Emotional Garden YUZUHA / Shinjuku Tokyo Emotional Garden 柚葉／新宿
A not-quite Edith Piaf imitation vocalist to go with the not-quite there food and the not-even there staff. This was periodically punctuated by the table buzzers of diners asking (…pleading…) for service, and occasionally the clatter of dishes crashing to the floor in the kitchen (!). It was all very emotional.

Dishonorable mentions:
There was far too much Cat Stevens and Bob Dylan in my lattes in 2011. This also seemed to be the coming-of-age year for 1990s background music. Apparently people who grew up then are now in management positions?

Thanks for reading – any other observations/nominations are welcome in the comments.