― J-rock (Julien Sandiford), Monday, 21 February 2005 04:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jeff. (Jeff), Saturday, 1 April 2006 21:51 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.keikaku.net/reviews/102
it should be noted that I really don't like about 99% of j-pop though, it gives me the rabies. but I've been listening to Adult 2-5 times a week since it came out in January.
― milton parker (Jon L), Sunday, 2 April 2006 00:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― pdf (Phil Freeman), Sunday, 2 April 2006 01:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― xgurggleglgllg (xgurggleglgllg), Sunday, 2 April 2006 01:48 (eighteen years ago) link
And thanks for the link to that site! I hadn't seen it before...not bad.
― Patrick South (Patrick South), Sunday, 2 April 2006 03:17 (eighteen years ago) link
I'm looking for something that's really poppy and dancey though. I want like a japanese girls aloud.
― Jeff. (Jeff), Sunday, 2 April 2006 05:02 (eighteen years ago) link
I'm not really feeling j-pop 2006 yet, it doesn't feel like anything very exciting has happened, musically at least (the current number one selling like 750,000 copies in its first week is more uhm culturally interesting?). Otsuka Ai has a new single out, which is supercute (music video on youtube here), but LOVE COOK was a bit of a disappointment, so I'm not expecting too much. Morning Musume's last single was good, if a bit typical.
The j-pop i'm listening to most at the moment is straightforward pop-rock and eighties chartpop, though, not post-shibuyakei stuff. Also m-flo, who are a.ma.zing, but more r'n'b/hiphop than j-pop. 2004's 'astromantic' is the album to go for with them.
― permanent revolution (cis), Sunday, 2 April 2006 16:39 (eighteen years ago) link
Yukihiro Takahashi - Blue Moon Blue
http://www.neowing.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=TOCT-25939
If you listen to the samples, you'll see it's in a similar vein as the Takahashi/Hosono Sketch Show collaborations, though bordering slightly more on the pop than electronic side.
Tomita Lab - Shiplaunching
http://www.neowing.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=AICL-1731
Jazzy pop with lots of guest vocalists (including Takahashi on one track).
Buffalo Daughter - Euphorica
Can't find samples for this...but they're one of the more well-known j-pop bands I suppose.
― Patrick South (Patrick South), Sunday, 2 April 2006 17:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― jackl (jackl), Sunday, 2 April 2006 23:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― Baba Yaga, The Iron Hag (blastocyst), Sunday, 2 April 2006 23:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― Baba Yaga, The Iron Hag (blastocyst), Sunday, 2 April 2006 23:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― Baba Yaga, The Iron Hag (blastocyst), Sunday, 2 April 2006 23:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― BARMS, Monday, 3 April 2006 10:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― BARMS, Monday, 3 April 2006 10:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― permanent revolution (cis), Monday, 3 April 2006 21:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― antonio, Monday, 3 April 2006 22:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― xgurggleglgllg (xgurggleglgllg), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 01:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― Freud Junior (Freud Junior), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 03:05 (eighteen years ago) link
The great thing about 'joy' is that I expect the usual gentle sweetness, but the first song is so startlingly synthpop (crypto-rave, even!) --http://s54.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=153YM54R40SLM0PQ01UOPX10PR
― permanent revolution (cis), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 08:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― bob snoom (vestibule), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 13:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― J-rock (Julien Sandiford), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 14:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― BARMS, Tuesday, 4 April 2006 15:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― S- (sgh), Wednesday, 5 April 2006 03:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― xgurggleglgllg (xgurggleglgllg), Wednesday, 5 April 2006 07:45 (eighteen years ago) link
Also compilations would be a good idea, as brought up on another thread.
― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Saturday, 8 April 2006 15:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Saturday, 8 April 2006 15:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― someone let this mitya out! (mitya), Saturday, 8 April 2006 16:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― permanent revolution (cis), Saturday, 8 April 2006 17:12 (eighteen years ago) link
I will second (third? fourth?) the Yuki recommendations in this thread wholeheartedly. Except I'll add that her solo albums (and, to some extent, her work with Judy & Mary) don't really have many of the tropes that one might associate with prototypical j-pop. Musically, I think they probably sound much less foreign to Western ears, but they're very solid and well worth checking out.
Here's the video for Yuki's "End Of Shite" (from Prismic, which is indeed great):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrC7zxjGCGc&search=Pv
― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Saturday, 8 April 2006 17:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Saturday, 8 April 2006 17:26 (eighteen years ago) link
I'm going to order 'Tadaima' and the Yukihiro Takahashi album 'Blue Moon Blue' from cdjapan.co.jp
Never used yesasia...but cdjapan is at least reliable.
― Patrick South (Patrick South), Saturday, 8 April 2006 17:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― xgurggleglgllg (xgurggleglgllg), Sunday, 9 April 2006 09:40 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.waxpoetics.com/music/mixtape/citypop-japanese-aor-mixtape
Japanese DJ Bawxxx recently hipped us to his mix of citypop (Japanese AOR), lovingly called Melancholy of Suburbia, and we’re feeling this! Good luck ever finding these records! We don’t know much about Mr. Bawxxx, but with a little snooping we found out that he apparently hails from Nagoya and eats quite well!
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 16:32 (nine years ago) link
i've been listening to tons of japanese electronic pop of the 1980s, esp. 1980-84, lately. there doesn't seem to be as much of a division between what we might consider "pop" versus "experimental" in japan. that goes for music as much as, say, film. people like hosono and others move freely--even on a single album--between modes. i like that aspect a lot. not that western pop music doesn't have its experimental elements.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 16:34 (nine years ago) link
that said, the "city pop" of the kind on that mix is not very experimental, but it can be very enjoyable. i don't have my laptop to hand to check out the names of the bands/albums in that mode that i've been enjoying, but i can check later. if anyone cares.
the album i've been addicted to in particular is a one-off studio group called "aragon" (that's what the album is called, too). it's a kind of electronic MOR/jazz fusion/4th world/ambient thing. which could sound terrible. amazingly my fave track is on youtube, i'm curious what others think. i think it's lovely:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAqNzycK7rY
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 16:37 (nine years ago) link
oh yeah, I love the closer on that aragon album:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSBH2EGcNHo
― original bgm, Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:51 (nine years ago) link
oh man, somebody else who knows this record! it seems hopelessly obscure. good luck finding an actual copy in the states.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 20:01 (nine years ago) link
don't have a physical copy myself, but yeah, it's a good one!
if you haven't heard it, I'd recommend the ichiko hashimoto's beauty if you dig that aragon lp:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UELvVDDXEG0
similar understated experimental '4th world' pop vibe on a couple tracks (it's pretty eclectic tho, others are nothing like that one)
― original bgm, Wednesday, 29 October 2014 21:22 (nine years ago) link
these 80s japanese LPs are some of things i don't feel bad about downloading, since in many cases i'd never find a copy. in some cases there have been reissues but given typical japanese prices and exchange rates they'd be like $50+
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 21:36 (nine years ago) link
also it'd be hard for me to even look them up since i don't read kanji :(
haha yeah :-/
going back to this - there doesn't seem to be as much of a division between what we might consider "pop" versus "experimental"
def also really like that about hosono & lots of his contemporaries from that era. his work in the 80s kinda straddles the line between the two but even his ambient music has this abstracted catchiness to it. maybe bc a lot of this crew also did work for movies, anime, video games, commercials, etc.?
― original bgm, Wednesday, 29 October 2014 21:46 (nine years ago) link
*bookmarked*
― the all man brothers (clouds), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 21:51 (nine years ago) link
ooh that hashimoto track is nice
here's one from colored music LP from 1981
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHL2e9VkiyU
― I dunno. (amateurist), Thursday, 30 October 2014 00:22 (nine years ago) link
here's some hosono-produced weirdness from 1980
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTiY4RbIaZc
― I dunno. (amateurist), Thursday, 30 October 2014 00:29 (nine years ago) link
that's not a takahashi track? it's on one of his solo lps, so just assumed it was
super hilarious hosono cmaeos in this sandii vid btw:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxSV8Xu0RUk
― original bgm, Thursday, 30 October 2014 03:38 (nine years ago) link
i think takahashi did it first, def his roxy music track -- so good.
― the all man brothers (clouds), Thursday, 30 October 2014 04:47 (nine years ago) link
re: finding aragon in the US...probably like 4 or 5 years ago i found a copy in the collection of a weird reclusive ex-EBM DJ from florida that used to be a buyer at princeton record exchange back in the day. still had the store-made hype sticker from (i'm assuming) the 80s, which immediately had me pretty stoked:
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b39/spencerd63/IMG_6603_zps37d828c7.jpg
not sure how to post pictures here, hopefully that worked. but yeah, remarkable album. there's a really weird "making-of" type LP called "the studio works" that was issued the same year made up of studio demos and outtakes, worth seeking out if you're a fan. nishimatsu kazuhiro (the vocalist) has a solo album form the same time too, though it's titled a little too far into schmaltz territory for my taste.
― Spencer D (reassemblage), Thursday, 30 October 2014 18:08 (nine years ago) link
you're the same spencer d that did the "fairlights mallets and bamboo" mixes, yeah?
― clouds, Thursday, 30 October 2014 18:38 (nine years ago) link