Wahuhohh wahwahuhohh (this song's chorus)

Paraele Stripes - Prototype

Genre: dance rock, electronic pop rock
Song style: Daft Punk meets Owl City

This is a pretty catchy tune that I've been casually listening to on repeat as I do my research. Their other songs have been a little too Owl City for me, but this song is really fun and friendly.

It's nearing the end of the year guys!! This means I can expect to spend 2500-4000 yen a meal on Christmas parties and end-of-the year parties, oh whyyyy. Tonight, lab end of year party, tomorrow Keio Christmas party, Sunday my circle's Christmas party. All all-you-can-drink, blehhhhhh but yay?

Long time no see! And I'm off--

MiChi & The Telephones - Wonder Woman

Genre: new wave, pop-rock, electronic
Song style: catchy, dancey

Looking at this song, I actually wouldn't mind MiChi replacing The Telephones' vocalist! Seems like she's an indie songstress with a half-British, half-Japanese background. These guys made it briefly on the Oricon charts - congrats to them!

So as you can see, I've been MIA for quite some time. Being back at home got me into a routine that kept me away from Japanese indies - and I also wasn't running across any great gems. While I still have a long list waiting, I still want music to be excited about posting every once in a while! Things will continue to be irregular for a while. I leave for Japan in little over a day (almost exactly 36 hours!) I'm very excited :-) But I'll be moving around a lot for a while, so won't have internet access. But I'll definitely be discovering a lot of great music! So when I reconnect to the internet world, I will keep you posted.

This was the hottest spring of the year

Princess Princess - 世界でいちばん熱い夏

Genre: pop-rock
Song style: 100% 80's female electro-pop

So this music isn't exactly "rock", "indies", or exactly my style but these girls are so cute!! There's something I just admire about them - a bunch of girls in the 80s in Japan standing up to stereotypes of what a band should be and going on to make tons of number one hits. They've inspired many of the female artists of today. I just saw a movie now where their popular song Diamonds appears in karaoke and I couldn't ignore it. These girls were active from 1983 - 1996. Cheers to days where we can just enjoy being silly princesses haha. Speaking of which, I'm starting cake decoration classes next week!

Gothic pink

Tommy Heavenly6 - Gothic Pink

Genre: hard rock, pop-rock
Song style: gothness and cuteness combined

This song comes out of one of Tomoko Kawase's many musical projects. She began as the vocalist for the band The Beautiful Green, but also began to pursue a solo career - first as pop artist Tommy February6, but then diverging into the second, more "rock and roll" character of Tommy Heavenly6. I like the mix of her cuteness but also the slightly hard edge to the music.

On a random other note, I'm finally graduating college in the next couple of days! I should be excited and nostalgic, but instead I feel antsy and a little negative. I hope the next days and my last weeks here come to a good, fulfilling close.

New release roll

Out of all of the new releases that have come out today, I pick the following as my favorite...

Prague - Distort

Genre: pop-rock
Song style: Slow but dancey pop-rock

This song gives me a very different impression of Prague versus their previous single I covered (Light Infection). They seem more grown-up here and sound quite a bit like サカナクション. Just so you know, I believe the jittering in the beginning of the video is intentional.

Along with this single CD of "Distort", there are also singles from:

Vamps - Devil Side (covered yesterday)
Screw - "Cursed Hurricane" - a very stereotypical softish visual-kei type song. I think they can do better.
Flow - "Calling" - way too stereotypical and poppy a tune, so hard to put on this blog. But I remember getting a better impression of Flow elsewhere, so they may go up on here another time.

I'm sure many more artists have new releases, but it's so hard to keep track! So perhaps expect a stream of new songs coming after today too.

Tranny palindrome

中村中 - 事勿れ主義

Genre: jazz rock, pop-rock
Song style: powerful jazzy rock, sorta 90s ish

It's great when artists have a palindromic name (though only for reading, not for saying). I've had such a wonderful past week and have fulfilled much of my desires. Today went to a May Day festival and yesterday did some square dancing. :-) Anyways! Guess the big secret of Nakamura Ataru (this artist). She was born male! Yes indeed, here's a powerful female tranny singer - wow. Could you have been able to tell? It's a catchy video too, let's all not get knocked down by the people around us, etc etc. I discovered this song randomly while watching TV a year ago or so. Her other songs apparently tend to be either jazzy like this, or more like enka ballads. So I'm not sure if you would enjoy her other works, but this song is at least good for a playlist or two.

More halfie attack!

Alma - 鼓動

Genre: electronic, pop-rock
Song style: a lightly hoppy electronic pop song

I randomly found these guys on Youtube about a year ago and thought they seemed cute, fun, and light-hearted. It wasn't until much later that I realized this half-Japanese half-Spanish vocalist was the brother of famous actor Yuu Shirota (this vocalist named is Jun Shirota). I'm on a halfie roll this week, with first Olivia and now this guy. The video seems a little strange and almost like a cultural commentary. What's with Jun swinging a stick at this poor Japanese guitarist? And we always see them standing next to each other, displaying the obvious height difference between the two. Life as a halfie can be complicated. Some people look white, some people look half, some people look Asian. Instinctively, one would feel like Jun is very different from his bandmates, while Olivia's belonging varies based on her hair color. I look white so I get a lot of surprise from both Americans and Japanese people. Unfortunately I suppose it's good to be "white" in this age of still present discrimination, etc, but it's sad that I can't ever be one of my own Japanese kind. Many halfies are entering the Japanese entertainment industry now. It will be interesting to study their difference in treatment, maybe I should do some actual sociological research on it.

I can't

Olivia - できない

Genre: pop-rock
Song style: somewhat heavyish pop-rock

The name Olivia has been one of the strongest presences in my entire life. I'm glad to see the name has manifested itself as this half-American half-Japanese singer Olivia Lufkin. I received a collection of this gal's stuff from one of my closest friends a couple of years ago. Though some of it sounded predictable and some sounded amateur, something about it is endearing and catchy. I am also happy to see halfies succeed in the industry! This girl has gained popularity through her songs in the film Nana, though she is still mostly under the radar. So here's a post of girl-power - thanks to the Olivia in my life, and to the friend who gave me this other Olivia. I want to be done with the other gender. This friend and I will be going out tonight and hopefully fulfilling what we've been looking for.

I wanna dance, I wanna dance in the light

Orange Range - おしゃれ番長

Genre: electronic, pop-rock
Song style: silly and fun

So, secretly the video I actually want to post is Imma be Rocking that Body by the Black Eyed Peas because I think the mash-up is so amazing and I love the dancing robots in the video. I've downloaded their cd and it is my current playlist. So to get out of that urge, I have decided to present to you guys a similarly mainstreamish (sorry for the indies fail) electronic group - Orange Range. Most Japanese people have probably heard of them, and this was their newest (2009) fairly popular single. Even though they're popular, I find them really catchy and enjoy their album musiQ in the car every so often. Sometimes it's nice when a band doesn't take itself too seriously (contrasted with the previous post). So let's enjoy one brief reprieve from the deep, contemplation of indie music and instead dance the night away!

Light Infection

Prague - Light Infection

Genre: pop-rock
Song style: light with a lot of vocal movement

This song feels so close but not quite there. Almost catchy and fun, but the singer goes all over the place, which sometimes ends up in him missing the note he's looking for. But I'm interested to see if this band ends up going the indie route or the mainstream route. They started just at the end of last year (September 2009), and will be releasing their third single CD "Distort" on May 12 (and I believe the song is out - though no music video has hit the youtube waves). I wish the best of luck to these guys.

By the way, I saw Jonetsu Marie and Shabondama High School, and they were amazing! Very charismatic and they put on a great show that even translated well to an American audience. I didn't end up watching Uzuhi or Spirit + Noise, but I saw Uzuhi at their merch booth.

Again

YUI - again

Genre: pop-rock
Song style: a cool gal rocking it out alternative-style

YUI is an extremely popular female singer/songwriter who walks the line of rock and pop in the catchiness but heartfeltness of her songs. If you know Japanese music, you've probably heard of her. Nevertheless, I'm a big fan of her songs (especially this and Love & Truth). Not much of a contemplative spin to add here, except that she's always been hovering around in the background in my exploration of music (I've always known about her but never really explored her). Sometimes her songs can get repetitive, but I have a deep respect for her. On a completely unrelated note, my computer's charger is broken and has been smoking so I'm awkwardly fooling around in the library right now...

New releases EVERYWHERE: Monkey Majik

Of what I know, three bands released new material today (3/17/10)! Here are three blog posts in commemoration of this mid-March material, from "worst" to "best".

Monkey Majik - Sakura

Note: not a particularly recommended song. BORING! Bronze medal.

Genre: pop-rock
Song style: soft, slow, and boring.

I have to say I'm not much of a fan of most of Monkey Majik, and I don't know if they would be considered indie cause they're pretty poppy and mainstream. But since I've featured them on this blog before, I figure it's only fair to mention their new single Sakura. I think the video is at least funny / interesting!

I'm not Incanto Shine

Acid Black Cherry - Black Cherry

Genre: pop-rock, light visual-kei
Song style: jazzy turned to rocky, catchy big band

Note: Because the video has a long (and I feel boring) silent intro, I have made the video start from the song. Feel free to rewind and start from the beginning!

Though Yasu's (singer of Janne Da Arc) project "Acid Black Cherry" has been hitting up the mainstream for a while, I find their music very catchy and listenable, with pop-like hooks but catchy heavy riffs. The lyrics for this song are also pretty exciting and scandalous (along with the video)! I feel like this song can really show the power of J-rock - I've shown this video to my American friends, and by the end of it, they ask me to show them more. The past couple of days I've been constantly eating delicious Japanese food out with my family (ahh nice to be home) so it's fitting to put a very "stereotypical" (but fun!) J-rock band in here. These guys have been my wake-up alarm for half a year now.

I need a change

Monkey Majik (with the Yoshida Brothers) - Change

Genre: pop-rock, alternative
Song style: rock-and-roll shamisen, elements of soft alternative, melodic singing, and mild white-dude rap

I had a warped perception of this song for the first couple of months I knew it. This was thanks to my Latvian friend who would always put this awesome song into the karaoke register, and we'd all sing along not at all knowing how it went. Despite this, the catchy melody made it through our slightly off-key voices and I liked the song so much I went to download the album. The real thing is better! Though I have to say Monkey Majik is a bit too soft for me, this song is amazing (especially with the complex shamisen back-up provided by the awesome Yoshida Brothers). This band is a "hybrid band," consisting of two Canadian brothers (who can handle Japanese) and two Japanese members. The band earns special props from me for their name "Monkey Majik" - in reference to the song of 1970s Japanese rock god Godiego (expect to see them on here!)

Cover & Oldies: Strange foreigner

久保田早紀 - 異邦人

Okay, so this above song is not quite "indies" or "rock" or anything like that. It was a popular Japanese pop song in 1979. Don't you dig the camel? But it's also a very important song to me and I can justify it with this catchy rendition below.

Acid Black Cherry - 異邦人

Genre: pop-rock
Song style: old school Japanese pop with an electronic twist, somewhat androgynous vocals

I first heard the original 異邦人 when my mom bought her first CD off of Amazon Japan something like ten years ago and started blasting it on her cd player. My sister and I ran upstairs to see what the strange noise was and saw our mom dancing around and singing along to this song. My sister and I started imitating the dance and had a fun and bizarre night. This was our first ever exposure to Japanese music. For the longest time after that night, we thought our mom had some strange hidden history as a Japanese popstar.

Ten years later, my sister and I got into this band "Acid Black Cherry" for their catchy single "Black Cherry" (which I will post soon!). It really surprised us when we discovered their cd "Recreation" (2008) which features solely covers of old, nostalgic Japanese pop tunes. I really give props to Acid Black Cherry for continuing a modern tradition of Japanese pop-rock but not forgetting its roots.

It seems like this is a popular song to cover, too. If you would like to hear a more truthful rendition but with extra guitars, check out this cover below featuring Tak Matsumoto and Zard. Matsumoto is lead guitarist of popular pop-rock band B'z (which doesn't quite fit my tastes so might not make it on here...) and Zard was a female singer who unfortunately recently passed away from cancer.

Tak Matsumoto of B'z & Zard - 異邦人

So with all these songs of foreign romance, hope you all have exciting and mysterious weekends!