[Music] J-Pop: An Introduction (and discussion)

holy shit, Hitomi Shimatani sucks.

Hikki's new album's cover and tracklist!


lol I love how the album's called ULTRA BLUE while she has this SUPER RED cape flowing around her.

01. This Is Love
02. Keep Tryin'
03. BLUE
04. 日曜の朝
05. Making Love
06. 誰かの願いが叶うころ
07. COLORS
08. One Night Magic feat. Yamada Masash
09. 海路
10. WINGS
11. Be My Last
12. Eclipse(Interlude)
13. Passion

source


I don't like the fact that WINGS is on there. Also some of the song titles are kinda scary but I'll just wait and see before I make any judgment.

And no CD+DVD version?

Originally Posted by Technophile

01. This Is Love
02. Keep Tryin'
03. BLUE
04. 日曜の朝
05. Making Love
06. 誰かの願いが叶うころ
07. COLORS
08. One Night Magic feat. Yamada Masash
09. 海路
10. WINGS
11. Be My Last
12. Eclipse(Interlude)
13. Passion

source


I don't like the fact that WINGS is on there. Also some of the song titles are kinda scary but I'll just wait and see before I make any judgment.

And no CD+DVD version?

For future reference, track 4 is "Nichiyou no Asa" (Sunday Morning) and track 9 is "Kairo" (Sea Route).

Hikki's never had a CD+DVD version, so I expect that we'll see a UH4 DVD announcement shortly after the release of ULTRA BLUE.

Yeah but her latest singles have all had CD only or CD+DVD versions! It seems like pretty much every jpop artist, with avex or otherwise, has adopted this with or without DVD format ever since Ayu first did it with Memorial Address. I want the CD to have some sort of extras...

Anyway, I can't wait till we get samples of the new songs.

Originally Posted by Technophile

Yeah but her latest singles have all had CD only or CD+DVD versions! It seems like pretty much every jpop artist, with avex or otherwise, has adopted this with or without DVD format ever since Ayu first did it with Memorial Address. I want the CD to have some sort of extras...

Anyway, I can't wait till we get samples of the new songs.

I think Hikki just likes to do her own thing. That's what makes her such a great artist and person. Maybe she just likes the idea of a UH4 over CD and CD+DVD versions of ULTRA BLUE.

I'm most interested in hearing This Is Love. For some reason, I'm reminded of Uso Mitai na I Love You when I see that title.

Yeah maybe. We'll see.

Anyway, This is Love, One Night Magic and Making Love are, in my opinion, awful titles. I cannot imagin how these songs would be good or taken seriously. However, I also thought that Be My Last and Passion were awful titles before I heared the songs but then ended loving them. Because of that, I'm really eager to see where she's going with these songs.

Originally Posted by Technophile

Anyway, This is Love, One Night Magic and Making Love are, in my opinion, awful titles. I cannot imagin how these songs would be good or taken seriously. However, I also thought that Be My Last and Passion were awful titles before I heared the songs but then ended loving them. Because of that, I'm really eager to see where she's going with these songs.

One Night Magic sounds like something you'd find in a Bemani game, and Making Love sounds like something she'd write as Utada.

As for Be My Last and Passion, I thought they were brilliant titles. "Be My Last" obviously had clear connections to Haru no Yuki (a doomed love, perhaps?) and "Passion" just sounded epic. "Passion" has many different connotations anyways, so one's interpretation of the title depends on how they define "passion."

Originally Posted by Technophile

Anyway, This is Love, One Night Magic and Making Love are, in my opinion, awful titles. I cannot imagin how these songs would be good or taken seriously...

It doesn't matter. They're in English. This is a Japanese CD.

Track six's "Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro"; something along the lines of "Concerning Granting Someone's Wishes".

Has anyone heard of this Yamada Musash(i) before?

I think J-POP is too commercial, the mainstream artists anyway and I don't like it. It's not just J-Pop though, I hate American pop, British pop, any pop really. (only a few exceptions) So i'll leave JPop out of this.

Can somebody name me some GOOD J-RnB, J-HipHop and J-ROCK artists? (or maybe some good non-mainstream J-Pop artists)

Artists (Or groups) I like that fit under either of these category's are:

HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR, UVERworld, Sunset Swish, HOME MADE KAZOKU, Takahashi Hitomi, AMADORI.

Notice that most (infact all) have either come from Anime opening songs & ending songs? >_> Blood+, Bleach and Naruto to be exact.

But for some reason as soon as I start to explore Japanese music I CANNOT find any decent Japanese tunes, any genre for that matter (rock, pop, hip hop, RnB)

So, does anybody know something good? a tune that has flare and style to it, the vocals dont have to be perfect or anything but just a tune with good vibe?

Originally Posted by Weeklan

I think J-POP is too commercial, the mainstream artists anyway and I don't like it. It's not just J-Pop though, I hate American pop, British pop, any pop really. (only a few exceptions) So i'll leave JPop out of this.

Talk about mass stereotyping.

Out of interest, are you basing this rather extreme opinion of J-Pop (which is at best a lose description used to cover a wide range of music) soley on your experience of J-Pop so far, which by your own admission is anime themes? If so I would recommend you reconsider your position, or are you seriously going to argue that someone like Shiina Ringo/Tokyo Jihen and other such acts are too commercial? Exactly who is it that makes you believe that J-Pop is so commercial?

It seems highly contradictory to say "All this music is crap" and then "Hey guys I don't know much about this music, point me in the right direction kplz", not to mention a little rude.

OK first way to go for asnwering my question. Let me give you a hand! *big clap! clap x23* you also get a cookie! Maryland style! *hands Maryland cookie to you*

OK now that i've acknowledged your helpfullness let me get this crap out the way.

I didnt say ALL J-pop was like this. and just because I say something doesnt mean u need to take it out of context. I even said I wanted some good recommendations to JPop if you actually read my post properly?

Anyway I wont get into this debate, can anybody recommend me some good stuff or not? (one of the purposes of this thread I believe)

So, there's been a trend with snotty n00bs stumbling in the J-pop thread, I take it.

I think the problem isn't so much that popular music is "bad" (which is opinion, anyway), but it seems that popular music isn't your cup of tea. (This is what I get from your "a tune that has flare and style to it, the vocals dont have to be perfect or anything but just a tune with good vibe" statement.) You could've just said that you like rock and hip-hop more than general pop.

There's good music in most every genre if you search for it.

Out of curiousity, what artists have you heard and not liked?

I can't wait for Utada's new album. I love "Keep Tryin" (Check out my remix PV if it on Kumi-X), "Passion", "Wings" and "Colors", but i am slightly annoyed that we are only getting 6 new tracks (excluding the interlude), well seven for me as I haven't heard "Be My Last" yet and i'm saving it for the new album release.

Hopefully the 6 new tracks will be so good that quantity loses it's meaning. Why shouldn't they be amazing? The singles have been great and it us Utada afterall.

Alright I guess I could've worded it a bit more polite and less "snotty" (were you refering to me with the "snotty noob" statement?) but whatever.

And I just generally sat down and fully listened to a few tracks of some of the popular mainstream artists. Ones like Hamasaki Ayumi, BOA but I guess their style isn't necessarily my taste.

So does that help you to help me?

Originally Posted by Weeklan

Can somebody name me some GOOD J-RnB, J-HipHop and J-ROCK artists? (or maybe some good non-mainstream J-Pop artists)

From what you've listed, a recent album comes to mind. It's relatively new, but you may be interested in LISA's new album, "God Sista." Another one you might try out is EXILE's "ASIA" album.

Originally Posted by Lee-chan

It doesn't matter. They're in English. This is a Japanese CD.

Track six's "Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro"; something along the lines of "Concerning Granting Someone's Wishes".

Has anyone heard of this Yamada Musash(i) before?

Yes, it does. Just because the song titles are in a different language than the song itself it doesn't mean the title can be anything. It still represents the song! If we followed your argument then the songs could be named ,for example, Bukkakke Diarrhea Froth and it'd still be ok cause, hey! the rest of the song's in Japanese so the English title doesn't matter!

Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro actually fits with the song. The song's all about the duality of things and how some people's happiness is built on others' misery and how when someone's wish comes true, another person's dreams fall apart.

Now I'm not dismissing the new songs cause I haven't heared them yet. I'm just eager to actually hear them to see how the songs will justify these titles. I'm personally having trouble picturing these titles actually work but I think Hikki can pull it off.

Originally Posted by Lee-chan

Track six's "Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro"; something along the lines of "Concerning Granting Someone's Wishes".

Has anyone heard of this Yamada Musash(i) before?

I purposely didn't romanize/translate track 6, since I thought it obvious that it was Dareka. Eh heh heh...

As for Yamada Musashi, he's the vocalist of THE BACK HORN. I bet that Hikki met him through her husband, Kaz.

Weeklan, you'll want to avoid those sweeping generalizations. Even though you didn't say "all" J-pop, you pretty much called out all popular music in any case. Music that most of us are fans of.

Music that is popular is so because most people like it. Sure, there's definitely music out there that sells well and is of questionable value, but that's everyone subjective opinion which would no doubt cause pointless debates about who is better. Please listen to more music besides anime themes and a couple albums here and there. Japanese music is more diverse than it seems.

In any case, I'd like to throw some recommendations your way, although unforunately most of them would probably be considered "mainstream".

I'm a big fan of m-flo and I think within their recent "m-flo loves" albums, where they work with so many different artists (which means many types of songs) most people find at least a couple songs that they're fans of.

If you're looking more in terms of R&B, I like both Chemistry and EXILE. They've got the singing duo thing down pat. Emi Hinouchi is a singer that I wish more people had a chance to listen to because I think she's fantastic, but she only has one album out which was released in 2004. Yoshika isn't that bad either, but my exposure to her is limited (only through the m-flo loves songs). What I've heard though, I like.

Another recommendation that I'd throw out there is Rip Slyme. I'm a sucker for the "bunch of MCs and a DJ" groupings that have been popping up recently, but Rip Slyme has been doing it for awhile and quite well.

Technophile, I believe your gripes should lie with the Japanese educational system on how they teach English. There have been plenty of songs with titles that "don't work" that were excellent. But yeah, as you said, you're not disliking them prematurely, just noting the questionable English (which, IMO, isn't as bad as some others).

I would love to listen to a song called Bukkakke Diarrhea Froth. It already sounds awesome.