Music / Make It Sweet!

Left to right: Lammy, Ma-san, and Katy Kat

We're the girls from around the block
Gorgeous, sweet, and we love to rock.

—"WE ARE MILKCAN!"

Make it Sweet!, released in 1999, is the sole release from MilkCan, a virtual band created for the video game Um Jammer Lammy. The album was released through Sony Records initially only in Japan due to poor sales of the game outside of its home country, but it was later rereleased digitally internationally.

The album contains nearly all of the songs from the main story of the game, sung (with few exceptions) by lead singer Katy Kat, on a couple of occasions also featuring the teachers who originally sang them.

This album serves as one of three soundtracks released for Um Jammer Lammy, in addition to an official soundtrack with all of the game's music in its original form and I Scream!, which consists of remixes of PaRappa the Rapper's versions of the songs from Lammy.

Tracklist:

1. "Let's Jam Together" – 0:14
2. "KEEP YOUR HEAD UP!!" – 3:09
3. "FRIGHT FLIGHT!!" – 2:46
4. "BABY BABY!!" – 2:19
5. "FIRE FIRE!!" – 2:59
6. "PJ Berri Jam" – 0:36
7. "BIRTH SONG" – 1:58
8. "THEME OF RAMMY" – 2:14
9. "CASINO IN MY HAIR" – 1:27
10. "Radio Signal Jam" – 0:59
11. "TASTE OF TERIYAKI" – 3:53
12. "POWER OFF! POWER ON!" – 2:46
13. "WE ARE MILKCAN!" – 4:17
14. "Jam Chin" – 0:19
15. "GOT TO MOVE! (Millennium Girl)" – 3:42

Dojo, casino, it's all in the tropes:

• Album Intro Track: "Let's Jam Together!" briefly shows Katy, Ma-san, and Lammy initially meeting each other and deciding to form a band.
• Animated Music Video: While the Um Jammer Lammy game can be considered a series of music videos for the original songs, an official music video was released for the album's version of "GOT TO MOVE! (Millennium Girl)".
• Babies Make Everything Better: The lyrics of "BIRTH SONG" (a rearranged cover of "Treasure" from the game) talk about how having a baby "shall bring tons of love and peace to all! (Uh huh.)"
• Bratty Half-Pint: In contrast, we have the baby bunny in "BABY BABY!!", who is shrill and demanding and keeps saying "gimme" this and "gimme" that, everything from normal things a baby would want, like food or a potty, to a "car, one that goes vroom!"
• Chainsaw Good: "POWER OFF! POWER ON!" is about the joys of chopping down every tree in sight with chainsaws.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • Some of the lyrics work in one of Lammy's catchphrases, "Got to move on," most prominently in "GOT TO MOVE! (Millennium Girl)" (which takes its name from the phrase) and in "KEEP YOUR HEAD UP!!"
  • "BABY BABY!!" has Cathy Piller's catchphrase ("Now put these kids to sleep, will ya!?") said after nearly every verse.
• The Cover Changes the Gender: Averted. On "FRIGHT FLIGHT!!", "FIRE FIRE!!", and Katy's parts on "POWER OFF! POWER ON!" (all songs sung by male characters in the game), nearly all of the lyrics were left intact.
• Expository Theme Tune: Part of the lyrics of "WE ARE MILKCAN!" somewhat describe the basic plot of Um Jammer Lammy:
  Suddenly another problem hits us in the face.
  And we think that we can overcome this wacky race, but then someone in the band brings up another craze.
• Genre Roulette: The music runs the gamut of different styles of rock music, from basic Rock & Roll ("BABY BABY!!") to country rock ("CASINO IN MY HAIR") to J-pop ("TASTE OF TERIYAKI") to ska ("KEEP YOUR HEAD UP!!") to even thrash metal ("FRIGHT FLIGHT!!").
• "I Am" Song: "WE ARE MILKCAN!", as you can guess from the title.
  Rockin' to the rhythm, rollin' with the beat.
  Here we come, here we come, hold on to your seat!
  Cheerful and pleasing, cute and appealing.
  Give it up, give it up, can you feel the heat?
  We're the girls from around the block.
  Gorgeous sweet and we love to rock.
• Instrumentals: "THEME OF RAMMY", the song that plays when the character Rammy first appears in the game, is the only one that lacks lyrics or spoken lines.
• "I Want" Song: "TASTE OF TERIYAKI" is largely about wanting a man to whom the singer can give her love and be protected from malevolent angels and demons who are harassing her.
• Motor Mouth: The gibberish in "BABY BABY!!" is a whole lot of sounds sung extremely fast in a short period of time, represented in the written lyrics as "#$%^&!"
• Our Angels Are Different: The lyrics of "TASTE OF TERIYAKI" imply that its singer is haunted by unwanted sexual advances from a malevolent angel.
• Pretender Diss: The second half of "Radio Signal Jam" is a brief skit called "You Can Look Like You're Playing The Guitar Even Though You're Not That Good", mocking people who pretend to act like rock stars without the skill set to back that up.
• Rearrange the Song:
  • As discussed here in greater detail, most of the songs were reworked from Um Jammer Lammy's original versions. Some changes were superficial (e.g. Katy Kat singing on most of the songs instead of the game's teachers, minor adjustments to some of the lyrics), and some were radical (e.g. a completely new music track for "BIRTH SONG", which uses the lyrics and melody of "Treasure"). The biggest example of this is "TASTE OF TERIYAKI", which had the vocals greatly slowed down and the uptempo music replaced with something more atmospheric in the verses, while the chorus is left intact and the fadeout contains vocals from PaRappa's version of the song.
  • The background music of "PJ Berri Jam" is the rearranged version of "FIRE FIRE!!" used in PaRappa's story in the game.
• Record Producer: According to the liner notes, Ma-san produced the album.
• Shout-Out: During the solo of "CASINO IN MY HAIR", Katy shouts out, "Hi-ho, Silver! Away!" referencing one of the catchphrases of The Lone Ranger.
• Speaking Simlish: Ma-san's voice consists of unintelligible noises that resemble high-pitched gurgling.
• Theme Tune Roll Call: The middle section of "WE ARE MILKCAN!" calls out the band members by name (with the exception of Katy, who refers to herself in the first person) and calling out some of their attributes, with Lammy and Ma-san briefly responding when addressed.
  Lammy feels so delicate she doesn't wanna play...
  Ma-san says she's angry at a bug that's flying her way...
  And I put on my wrong costume....
  Lammy, Lammy play your guitar like you always do! (Uhmmm, Ummmm.)
  Ma-san quit acting like a child that's in a zoo! (!@$!%@)
• Uncommon Time: "WE ARE MILKCAN!" is in common time for some of its verses, but the majority of the song is an unconventional arrangement full of tons of rests and alternating time signatures, owing to how the song is basically a suite of the score from Um Jammer Lammy's cutscenes with lyrics.
• Virtual Celebrity: MilkCan does not actually exist as a band outside of the game, with the sole exception of a single live performance for Um Jammer Lammy's release party (which can be seen in full here in a promotional video from the time). The music was actually all written by Masaya Matsuura, the game designer for the PaRappa the Rapper series and musician formerly of the band Psy・S.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: PaRappa the Rapper shows up in the second half of "GOT TO MOVE! (Millennium Girl)", mostly mirroring the lyrics that Katy is singing.
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Tame example here, but for a band whose guitarist can't even afford to buy a new guitar in a pinch, MilkCan sure has some expensive-sounding orchestral and horn arrangements on quite a few of their songs.
• Word Salad Lyrics:
  • Taken out of the context of the level from which it originates, most of "FRIGHT FLIGHT!!" makes absolutely no sense.
    Did I eat my drink??
    I thought milk was pink??
  • "CASINO IN MY HAIR" has lyrics that seem to have been cobbled together solely for the sake of having something to remind Lammy in the game of Chop Chop Master Onion's advice via the word "casino."
    Where's that place that comes in pairs whenever I'm aware?
    Casino here, casino there, casino in my hair.
    I wish my bear was in the air with no more time to spare.
    Casino here, casino there, casino in my chair.

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Wasn't that a groove?