Back in 2009 I named Perfume's ⊿ (pronounced "triangle") one of the most disappointing albums of the year. Disappointing didn't mean it was bad, but rather, I had oversized expectations that weren't met, and can you blame a fan for having such huge expectations after GAME? GAME was Perfume's first studio album, and the perfect blueprint for the Perfume-sound worked out and solidified after a string of experimental indie singles, all spearheaded by mastermind Yasutaka Nakata. But⊿ was the album that could prove that Perfume was more than just a novelty, and that Nakata was more than an over-hyped producer-of-the-month. The album did extremely well: It hit #1 and stayed in the top 20 for six weeks. It has spawned some of Perfume's most well-known and beloved singles, including "love the world," "Dream Fighter," and their last #1 to date, "ONE ROOM DISCO" (most of their subsequent singles, including the eight immediately after this one, stubbornly peaked at #2). So why was I disappointed at the time, and how has hindsight changed the way I see this album?
⊿ is one of the more innovative albums in Perfume's discography, and today it's seen as one of their best, the type of album able to marry classic pop music with the broader electronic and house styles that Nakata was increasingly pushing into his productions. At the same time, it also managed to retain some of the jazzy finishes of his Shibuya-kei roots, all while retaining a fresh, commercial appeal perfect for shilling chocolate on television. In many ways, this was peak-Nakata: in 2009, the year ⊿ was released, he had just released Supreme Show, his collaboration with Ami Suzuki; STEP, his second album with MEG; and the house-heavy MORE! MORE! MORE! with capsule. You could forgive the guy for being a bit burned out less than a year later, and to me, one half of ⊿, the half not consisting of songs written over the course of 2008, shows that fatigue. There's the largely instrumental "edge (⊿-mix)" that meanders well past its welcome at nearly 10 minutes long, the mid-tempo duo "Kiss and Music" and "Zero Gravity," and the navel-gazing noodle of "Speed of Sound." These are songs that I initially disliked upon my first listen, although now I have to admit I find them charming call-backs to all the things I miss about this period of Nakata's music, from the push and pull between commercial resistance and total capitulation, to the self-indulgent instincts tempered by moments that feel catered to the broadest audience possible, culminating in great album cuts like "The best thing," "NIGHT FLIGHT" and even "I still love U."
I've spent a lot of time talking about Yasutaka Nakata, but the three women of Perfume, A-chan, Nocchi, and Kashiyuka, are the ones who really bring it all together with their personality and talent. Nakata once again focused on making the most out of the ways he could manipulate their voices, rather than on whatever unique vocal traits any one of them brought, tweaking everything to suit the music, and leaving the other half of Perfume's highly-skilled team of costume designers, choreographers, and light technicians to sell the unit. And they all do, fulfilling crucial elements that move in lockstep. So much of ⊿ was also finally committing to everything that has now become iconic about this group, from haircuts to wardrobe quirks, and the group has rarely deviated from it since. If at any time the group was going to do an image overhaul, this would have been it. Instead, they doubled down on and cemented what is now a comfortable, reliable space that fans have taken for granted.
Though I understand why I was disappointed when this album first came out, I've definitely come to appreciate it a lot more since it was first released, especially in the last five or so years, as Perfume have have gone through even more disappointing, lackluster phases, losing the innovative spirit that made anticipating new releases so fun. But whenever you joined the fandom, whether it was through this album, their earlier work, or that phase where dance music was reluctantly putting itself back together after the EDM firework burst, there are things to love about ⊿. It's hard to dismiss an album that includes so many classic J-pop songs that went on to change the sound of popular Japanese music for a long time (not taken into account when Billboard critics only ranked "love the world" the #7 best Perfume song of all time, but they put "TOKYO GIRL" and "FLASH" in the top three, so the whole list is sus), inspired a plethora of copy-cat groups, and forever carved Nakata's name into the game-changing J-pop producers Hall of Fame, right next to men like Haruomi Hosono and Tetsuya Komuro.
Since Team Perfume had mostly come to terms with the group's lack of forward momentum in 2016, they really focused on pushing Perfume as a legacy group, and like all legacy groups, that means cashing in on whatever they still could by recycling old music into new formats. That meant that many of Perfume's studio albums that had been originally released in regular CD-only and limited-edition CD+DVD versions were re-released on limited-edition vinyl. All of those were collected in a limited-edition LP box set that also included their second best-of collection, 2012's Perfume Global Compilation "LOVE THE WORLD. But perhaps it was a bit premature. Or rather, it's been a bit of a yo-yo recently -- while Perfume seemed to be making a bit of a comeback in recent years with PLASMA, "Moon" said don't hold your breath. Still, it's been encouraging to think that like now-iconic albums like ⊿, I might find myself re-evaluating "LOVE CLOUD" someday, too.
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