The J-Pop Thread

Ippu-Do/Masami Tsuchiya
Miharu Koshi
Chakra
Moon Riders
Akiko Yano
P-Model
Taeko Ohnuki/Mishio Ogawa
YMO (of course) / Sakamoto / Takahashi
Melon
Zelda

Here's Tommy February - Hey Bad Boy
http://s45.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=20QG4O8JQGQO821ID8ECY69XRC

Great Japanese Pop

Regardless, saying "J-pop really fucking sucks" is really dismissive.

I will bow out of the thread now as it's obviously not for me. Toodle pip.

i 2nd snowballing's tommy february6 recommendation. see also; tommy heavenly6 & brilliant green.

not sure if shiina ringo belongs on this thread but everybody should search.

I didn't know Plus-Tech Squeeze Box qualified. Awesome.

It'll probably be hard to search for W, but I'll try the rest.

Haha, which country HASN'T been doing stuff like this recently?

I guess what I like about this stuff is its resilience. It's this "Nothing is going to stop this motherfucking bubblegum brigade.. we're going to use every odd modern production technique out there to create this kaleidoscopic maximalist sugar rush of a song" attitude that I appreciate. It's a love or hate thing, I guess. But I'm noticing that I'm starting to like the more conservative stuff as well. ah, age.

"I'm confident that there IS good music in Japan, it's just really hard to find."

Wrong, wrong, wrong! One of the best things about living in Japan is the huge variety of record shops catering to any genre you can imagine, plus a few you've probably never heard of. Furthermore, if you live in nearly any of the major cities, you've got plenty of options with regards to club nights, live shows, not to mention the festivals which go on all summer. Judging the state of Japanese music based on Ayumi Hamasaki and her ilk is just plain ignorant.

I've said it before on a bunch of other threads but anyone interested in Japanese music needs to check out SUPERCAR. 'nuff said.

Did anyone get the last english-language Utada album?

i was thinking the other day that I needed to start a thread about j-pop in 2005 b/c i've really been out of the loop - anybody know of any great '05 releases in the genre?

"Long Way Home" by Speed is a lachrymose ballad in the "Careless Whisper" vein that kind of seeps under your skin after a few hearings. Dunno if they're anything to do with Speed, Glue and Shinki (I suspect not) but you can always hope.

Those are the only 2 j-pop songs I can remember actually. Are there any compilations / overviews marketed to the Western market? Or would that be a complete waste of any record companies time and money?

The Hillary Duff sounding song "Endless Love" from We Love Katamari soundtrack. So good!

This morning on the train I jammed out The Fantastic Plastic Machine's "too" which is total disco mindfuck.

spontine i had just bought LOve Jam, which is good, is Love punch better ?
Also i bought Chara "a scenery like me but had yet to listen"

not strictly jpop but i highy recommend Takako Minekawa "Roomic cube" and "Chat chat".

any other suggestion, expecially greatest hits, since i can permit to go bankrut and i buy tons od diverse genre of music. Yeh a J-Pop compilation for the wester market would be a goodidea, but probably noone is interested....

Kinokuniya Books sells "The Best in J-Pop! Volume X" type comps for better (yet slightly inflated but nowhere near Japanese import) prices.. so SOME labels (in the U.S. at least) have seen a market for this.

They also sell domestic releases of Japanese bands like Polysics and, occasionally, Boredoms related stuff... Still, I wish the buyers at Kinokuniya would be more on the off-the-radar tip -- but the AOR Japanese pop, J-Pop, and Japanese underground customer bases tend to be mutually exclusive, I guess.

BABYMETAL! I have nothing else to say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QbAXXXOJF8

That's...quite something.

I guess there's always been a crossover between j-pop and metal with people like Aikawa Nanase and the vis kei bands but i've never heard anything like that.

Do not ignore their homepage:

http://www.babymetal.jp/

Amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKJdLkpqj6k

Have to post this here as well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAOqbu_XEvk

(This being Momoiro Clover Z - the music video is great as well, but the official upload's sound is muffled http://youtu.be/TIokp4MonxE )

Big, amazing song. Marty Friedman featuring seems like a normal sort of thing for these girls. There's also this article from Japan Times:

The not-so-odd coupling between noise acts and J-pop http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fm20120223im.html

However, a lot of it is thoroughly sincere, and in Japan, the burning heart of this love affair is Momoiro Clover Z, a pop group who provoke squealing, teenage admiration from punks, indie kids, noise musicians and heavy-psychedelic longhairs throughout the Japanese underground music scene.

One such progressive rocker is Taigen Kawabe of U.K.-based psychedelic band Bo Ningen. More often seen in Tokyo playing alongside noise legends such as Keiji Haino, Kawabe's page on the website SoundCloud leads off with a curious mashup of his own band and Momioro Clover Z in which the former band's shifts in rhythm match surprisingly well with the idol group's distinctive penchant for chopping aggressively (and sometimes illogically) between seemingly unconnected melodies.

Interestingly, Momioro Clover's recent single, "Roudou Sanka," written by Ian Parton of British band The Go! Team, met with criticism from some fans for being too commercial, and the Hyadain-produced (and Friedman-enhanced) followup, the elaborately titled "Mouretsu Uchuu Koukyoukyoku Dainana Gakushou", is defiantly back in the group's previous furious conceptual mashup territory

Roudou Sanka is actually great http://youtu.be/Krj3dwKEaSk

the music isn't killing me as much as the video concepts, but the Megadeth guitar + Volga Boatmen Russian choral coda is definitely some kind of... thing? they're 9000 times less disturbing than AKB48 in any case, if I could take back watching that one video of theirs a friend forwarded I would

that Japan Times article is great though; Merzbow had been influencing western pop artists from the beginning of his career, but when Shiina Ringo began integrating full on Otomo Yoshihide levels of noise-solos in her pop songs it really did come across as national heritage rather than some kind of collage. almost confused Japan Times didn't reference Shiina even though she basically moved away from noise in 2004

Here's the song performed live with a full choir and marty on the guitar!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB3Oo1vihSo

I fell asleep listening to Perfume's JPN last night and had weird acidy candy store french electro dreams.

Whoa, I completely missed out on Momoiro Clover Z's nutsoid Christmas song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmfli1WCcFA

^ the best bit is when it goes SANTA

Dude who writes most of their stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyUXKynmmiw

bet he's tired

Sufficiently so to forget his many chords in the new Momoiro tune- http://youtu.be/fATvdleWPtU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVn3_qeIrBA

TAKE FIVE! puts me in this really nostalgic mood

speaking of cheating, is there a better place to talk about the lexie liu record?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4tyThWCYU0

oh and nakata continues bringing the good stuff again with the new capsule

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXlbYV9RhAM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n8WiBNCZpY

very confused by this sailor moon-themed idol group putting out this weird atonal track produced by hudson mohawke & bloodpop

Sakurazaka46 (formerly Keyakizaka46) have been steadily ruling this year

"Start Over" - such a rush

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJRFD1AdaUE

"Shoninyokkyu" - currently no.1 in Japan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_BjvhMW9TE

love the weird ass tempo changes in this, makes my brain feel like it's being squished together and pulled apart simultaneously

RYUGUJO - Deep Waves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w--X4i-K1Wk

it's not just tempo but time signature too, extremely bold

Yeah, that's wild.

Even more Sakurazaka46:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs-Y9MtHsoo

Anything else happening in the J-Pop world at the moment?

That's pretty good. They seem consistently solid in their lane.

Anything else happening in the J-Pop world at the moment?

Anonymous singers taking off maybe? Perhaps I've been blind to it before, but after Ado taking over the world (including an actual world tour) without showing her face it feels like every month there's some new singer showing up in my feed with some popularity who's not revealing her identity.

On the 2024 mid-year chart 15 year old singer/songwriter tuki. is at nr. 2. Makes some sense for a young girl in school to not reveal herself if she can I guess. She has several songs on the JP Spotify chart.
Her songs are maybe reminiscent of Yuuri, but a memorable voice.

The Supper Song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxW-ok1ekSY

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GP_7JF1aQAA3Won?format=jpg&name=small

Personally I find this new Aimyon single very sweet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqSspWjCA6s

haven't been paying _super_ close attention but I've enjoyed -

usabeni "air":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAb1OZIJGiI

these lilniina singles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aocYZAJ1RL0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po6UjrGrb7E

the "sped up" vers of both also pretty great

kimriri "episode":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMaKM-9dFPs

there's also a brand new YUKI record! those are usually good!

Dempagumi is about to retire and still doing their thing best in the biz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz69lZW8h0A

they still got it!

hadn't heard about the retirement but makes sense. they feel a little out of step at this point. and I like that there are still one or two OG members left. including a married one! (hopefully this is no longer taboo but... probs is lol)

Probably. Even at debut Dempagumi hid their ages because they were reportedly on the 'too old' side of starting up a idol career. Good to see they made a long run out of it.

Enjoy the lilniina songs, haven't heard (due to my lack of effort no doubt) that style too much in jpop

Thanks for these - lilniina definitely standing out the most to me atm.

Phantom Siita are my kind of shit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRQ7TpV0JSA

lol that's a hell of a chorus!

managed to track down an old Avandoned 7" recently and was amused at the inner labels

https://i.imgur.com/C3CXs1i.jpeg

12 years later it's the end of Dempagumi Inc, going out in style -- the same style they set out with and have stuck with, that is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpM2NWN-kO8

Nice keyboards at the beginning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt-V-XfYBcs

"going out in style"
how so?

In that they're retiring? Or do you disagree with the style. I like the song - like most of their songs!

I thought you were referring that its sound was dated?

I thought you were referring that its sound was dated? What would be the current jpop sound then?

No I just meant that they are ending their career in style.

sad to see dempagumi go but they had a good run and… i’m not really convinced that they won’t be back sometime in the near future

speaking of, did hyadain come back for thst track? it’s obv quoting the old WWDs but that’d be a nice reunion for the send off

Please help me identify this mysterious band my friend recorded from the radio somewhen in the late '80s or early '90s.
It's two quite different songs played in sequence, but evidently sung by the same singer. The vocals sound like Jun Togawa to me, so I thought it's maybe Yapoos or some other project with her, but I'm at a loss:
https://soundcloud.com/max-florian-1/please-help-identify-this-mysterious-japanese-band-recorded-from-radio-in-late-80s

(new, edited post with working link to the audio file)

Please help me identify this mysterious band my friend recorded from the radio somewhen in the late '80s or early '90s.
It's two quite different songs played in sequence, but evidently sung by the same singer. The vocals sound like Jun Togawa to me, so I thought it's maybe Yapoos or some other project with her, but I'm at a loss:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B6ytvM5fTMhlaWiicElOHMQliE8a0EDY/view

I'm totally intrigued by this and will have to do some digging to try and figure it out. Jun Togawa seems to be in the right ballpark for sure. I also thought of Mishio Ogawa but I don't think it's her either. I noticed a male singer contributing on the second song. Are you sure on the date?

Thanks! God, colour me intrigued as well. Yes, that's the temporal arc he recorded it off the waves. For sure not post-1995 or so.

Was it recorded in Japan? or where?

been enjoying Situasion recently, almost a Belgian New Beat sound to some of the keyboard noises

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m-Bm5FB2Hs

their new single reminded me of STUPiG too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYzpgl0RA8A

I like Kokuryu very much!

xpost @Kim Kimberly - My friend recorded that onto cassette off an Italian FM radio station in his Istrian (Northern Adriatic Croatia neighbouring with Italy) home.

hmm this is a fun little mystery… total stab in the dark but the first track sounds a little like something that j.a. ceasar could have been involved with?

Thanks for the forensics so far, guys. Now I've got a few more names to enjoy researching until this mystery's solved.

I'm more like an outsider in regard to japanese music, so i pick tracks with good melodies and the like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGsy8NrG6PA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cRST0sE7ug
There are interesting things on independent circles

love that FFF song! if you haven't you heard "Picnic At Nerd Park" by Avandoned I suggest checking it out, it's both of the singers previous band and the same songwriters worked on it too.

oh, that FFF track _is_ a nice one! production is making me think of underrated nakata-produced natsume mito record, which is def a good thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAIyMT7gARc

always loved that song, choki choki!

hell YEAH

missed that hitomi's back, sounding good imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZMIXCaa0YQ

sakanaction is back after a long hiatus. they're still on that retro sound, but am glad they're still around - there were reports in the japanese press that frontman ichiro yamaguchi had been struggling with depression and unable to finish songs

sakanaction - "IRANAI"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRb67zfMF7M

oh nice, i'd been wondering what happened to that 2023 album they announced that never came out

i really like the last minute, i like this more than anything on the last album

what a good band

today's one of those days where "yoru no odoriko" is the best song i've ever heard

that and “music” all day everyday <3

it's just wonderful to have so much music from a band that sounds kinda like bloc party if they'd gotten seriously into dance music instead of completely losing the plot somewhere around the third album

great song/video - excited to show this to my kids