The J-Pop Thread

haha just came to post that ^^^

yes! love it. so dense and catchy.

WORLD WIDE DEMPA was great too. (though sadly a little on the stingy with new tracks)

stingy SIDE

Tricot drummer is leaving the band this month, on the positive side they are booked to play a summer festival in Hungary so more European dates are likely to follow

Also Slovakia, also Czech republic

Curious who they land on to replace the drummer, not like you can get any old chump to do it. Also curious what 'creative differences' exactly made him leave, after releasing all that amazing music. Maybe they want to get a girl.

damn, that drummer was fantastic on The

The BiS album is out and great

Re-issuing their first release and putting out a raw acoustic version of a song from that release, at the same time alluding to the new life of the band ahead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R19QjZNvUA

^ tricot『Laststep(Live, Acoustic Version)』

Kind of addicted to this at the moment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIKqgE4BwAY

man that new dempagumi single is the best thing ever

I'm not sure I've ever heard a production quite like it. anyone know who wrote it?

this guy apparently https://www.google.no/search?q=%E7%8E%89%E5%B1%8B2060%EF%BC%85&safe=off&espv=210&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=kcgYU6mzJaPnygPunoGgAQ&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAg&biw=1536&bih=704

album of Disney covers by the likes of Tricot, Dempa, Tokyo Girls Style etc. really want to hear the full version of "Some Day My Prince Will Come" by BiS!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmG5WJiYfwk

I've been looking for a way to listen to this album for weeks now ;\

thanks, abcfsk! (x-posts)

this is execrable but check the sample

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_4nGY9at9M

lol

I actually enjoyed that song but it may be because e-girls while is probably the best hip hop dancing girl group out there they've done singles so fluffy and tame they've been forced to put out separate dance intros or instrumental dance videos -- and this time they finally manage to incorporate it into the song/mv itself.

while e-girls is*

new Vampillia album out next week, has collaborations with Tujiko Noriko, BiS, Hirotomo Hasegawa of Aburadako, Mick Barr of Orthrelm and ... Jun Togawa!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTWfomMQaP4

like that one. she's the best.

Yeah that's nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apr2JCdpTbQ

new Kyary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paHGjIe2Wms

are there any good english-language critics/bloggers who are writing about new J-pop in an interesting way?

Make Believe Melodies guy can be pretty good. I don't dig that deep into the J-Poposphere though.

feel like melissa johnson's blog stands out:
http://blog.mjohnso.com/

mostly k-pop but some j-pop too. you can filter by tags if need be.

Yeah I guess I get most my jpop stuff from twitter, forums, stuff like that. Weird that there shouldn't be some regularly updated, j-pop only, high quality blog though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QjACk4qM6g

new especia single is fantastic:
http://mbmelodies.tumblr.com/post/83615671010/omikse-livefromthetabernacle

Woah, that's a big, great tune.

And here's the new Momoiro Clover single / MV http://youtu.be/TC1Q7DuNKfw

Composed by Nakajima Miyuki

hmmm... not bad but doesn't strike me as all that special either? but I like them best when they're at their most manic and that's pretty restrained.

I think it's partly a case of other groups having taken on the mantle of the super hyperactive, manic idol group - like dempagumi inc, even with former MomoClo musical maeastro Hyadain - and so MomoClo try to stake other courses to stay unique. Personally I really like their rock side, "Otome Sensō" (Z女戦争) is my favorite single of theirs and it's hardly them at their most manic - much as I love their CoCoNatsu / Santa-san side. This is a bit straighter than Otome, better compared to 'Saraba..' perhaps, but sounds good to my ears. I really like how distinctive the members' voices are, though I know other people find them shrill they've really sold the individual personalities in later releases.

Cosign Make Believe Melodies, I wonder if that's the same Patrick who occasionally posts on ILM about Japanese music.

x-post -

well, first impressions and all and it may grow on me still! also love their vox and that's a plus on here but I do wish this had a bigger chorus, feels like it doesn't quite take off to me.

and yeah, I don't really have any problems with the way they've evolved either given that we have dempagumi and plenty of others pumping out hyperspeed idol music. but still, it's a little bittersweet for me, and man I don't really see it happening, but I would LOVE if we somehow got tons of hyadain on the next one!

"gounn" was ultimately a little disappointing to me so high expectations may be a factor as well

on initial impressions i'm not sure about that MomoClo song, i like it better than Gounn tho - prefer it when they are being more 'out there' but there's maybe too much money at stake these days to release an oddball single?

Gounn was oddball, it just didn't necessarily hit hard enough.

and the 5th dimension single hyadain wrote WAS p bonkers and it did well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C5%8Dretsu_Uch%C5%AB_K%C5%8Dky%C5%8Dkyoku_Dai_7_Gakush%C5%8D_%22Mugen_no_Ai%22#Chart_performance

I think doing things on a huge scale is a big part of their image, so I wouldn't count em out

Yeah..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvO2u2XkCbs

hah, exactly what I was thinking of!

lol not denying the concerts are still nuts, just think the last two singles have been too safe (& next one is probably Sailor Moon song? ultra safe!). that Hyadain song was released 2 years ago!

I like Hyadain but don't really want them to go back with him. He's in the idol game anyway. Someone like Etsuko Yakushimaru is a much more exciting, and just for the politics of it I'm happy with how many of their singles the past few years have been composed by women.

oh, that is cool and I didn't even realize it. is there a good resource for writing credits for j-pop?

Generasia used to be good, don't seem to have updated info on latest MomoClo releases though.

gonna dig around, thanks!

Momoclo Scandal! http://youtu.be/AIqCVmf564s

maybe last BiS single, they shot the first half like a cheesy AKB48 video with bikini beach dance routines, kissing the camera etc! awww I'm going to miss them :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc8vjprOWLs

Yeah that's an oddly f itting end to the great experiment that was BiS. Will have to write some more once it's all over.

The new Especia is gorgeous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e089x6ba1Zo

that's great. sounds a little like some of the slicker tokyo girls' style singles to me.