Great Japanese Pop

Yeah... but who doesn't?

Ever try staying a week in Tokyo or Yokohama without having your head explode from all the hot chicks walking around like the end of the world is not near? Damn near impossible!

Ever try staying a week in Tokyo or Yokohama without having your head explode from all the hot chicks walking around like the end of the world is not near? Damn near impossible!

The same's true for Nagoya, Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Fukuoka - the whole place is ridiculous.

Also

SUPERCAR

uh... japanese-american. they're from san francisco, california, usa.

not really "pop" either...

nippop

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.

And thanks for the link to that site! I hadn't seen it before...not bad.

I'm looking for something that's really poppy and dancey though. I want like a japanese girls aloud.

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.

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.

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

Also compilations would be a good idea, as brought up on another thread.

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

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.

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'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.

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

oh yeah, I love the closer on that aragon album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSBH2EGcNHo

oh man, somebody else who knows this record! it seems hopelessly obscure. good luck finding an actual copy in the states.

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)

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+

also it'd be hard for me to even look them up since i don't read kanji :(

original love, tomoyo harada, olivia, clammbon