I Love Ninajirachi

In 2021 I was introduced to hyperpop via 100 gecs and this playlist by Hank Green. I told everyone I knew about the music because it was a fully new experience which only happens so often. This year, I was introduced to new hyperpop that kept the same energy but with lyrics that blew me away and my love for the genre got reignited. I want to talk about how one of these songs has captured my attention: iPod Touch by Ninajirachi.

“It sounds like loving you is easy but they boosted the bass, it sounds like–”

I was DJing my friend Abbey’s Summerween party last night, and during the height of the dance floor I transitioned away from Only Girl by Rihanna to Von Dutch by Charli into iPod Touch by ninajirachi. When I DJ, I am always a bit hesitant to play music that people don’t know the words to because it can really dampen the energy. This string of songs was so magical to me though, because it was one of the rare times when the new music seemed to get people even more excited. As soon as the ninajirachi song came on, it seemed like people were freaking out about the fact that the dancey vibe was getting amplified with something they hadn’t heard before. It was like turning a corner in your neighborhood and realizing that a whole other main street popped up overnight.

I think this is in large part because iPod Touch has beautiful, straightforward lyrics. It gives a look into ninajirachis early interior life that reminds you of your own nostalgia and early interior life. The first line:

“I got a song that nobody knows.
I put it on when nobody’s home!”

sets the stage for this beautiful story of discovering a source of comfort in life. We all have those songs or TV shows or movies or books or youtube videos that feel extra special to us alone. I like this line because it creates a shared experience of a unsharable feeling.

“I heard it in a post when I was 12 years old.
I didn’t know that it would score the 64-bus home.
Turn a Monday to a memory and change my world.”

This is the part that almost moves me to TEARS. It describes how an influence on your life can take over without any warning and change a regular day into a monumental one. You don’t know which moments will shape the rest of your perception of yourself and the world. You can’t know, and you so you can’t really seek them out. When you are growing up and read a book in a new genre, or watch a movie trailer on a TV in a BestBuy, or have a video game introduced to you by your older brother’s friend, you don’t even realize these things could become memories that you will draw on forever. They give you happiness and comfort and even dictate what you end up doing for your career, or which city you end up living in, or even the way that you see yourself for the rest of your life.

You can’t know if you will be affected at all. Especially as a kid. You’re not thinking about that type of thing because you don’t yet have the concept of being “affected”. At least I didn’t. I think not knowing adds to the magic. I think thats why “turn a Monday to a memory” is so resonant to me. An ordinary day. This makes every ordinary day even more special.

That chance for unannounced transformation doesn’t go away as you grow up either. Any given Monday your friend Max could play a new song they think you would like. There’s no saying how you will react to it. It could just be another track in your gym playlist, or it could inspire a blog post, or it could fade as fast as it came. You never know.

Were the people on the dance floor last night listening to the lyrics? Probably not closely. But I think this song puts its main idea front and center where you can even pick it up in passing. The vocal melodies and performance communicate that idea too. The first line of iPod Touch has a similar melody to the first line of Funkytown by Lipps.

“Gotta make a move to a town that’s right for me”

When looking up info on Funkytown, I found this reddit post that described it as a

“incredibly successful last gasp for disco, when it was nearly dead but before there could be any nostalgia for it.”

I think this melody in both songs sounds super timeless and helps iPod Touch be immediately understandable even in a loud bar. It sounds like the last gasp of disco in 1980. And it sounds like the Youtube video intro you play over and over on the bus ride to school in 2010. And it sounds like the song you hear on the dance floor in 2026 that pulls you away from the nostalgic late 2000s singalong pop, into a new memory. You can’t sing along to it yet, and you can’t feel any nostalgia for it, but you know in your heart what it will mean to you already.

Now, have I gassed up this song too much? Probably so! It also just has a super danceable beat, which might be the main reason I like it. But as you listen, try to think about the music and other art in your life that has shaped your personhood. Think about the last time you heard a new favorite song and try to be open to that experience in the future. For me, it was iPod Touch last night at Summerween in Brooklyn.