• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Japanese Music (Pop, rock and all 'dat) |OT|

Kurita

Member
The artist contribution list for the today announced STRAIGHTENER 20th Anniversary Tribute Album "PAUSE" is impressive.

ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION、ACIDMAN、9mm Parabellum Bullet、go!go!vanillas、THE BACK HORN、the pillows、SPECIAL OTHERS、back number、My Hair is Bad、MONOEYES

http://natalie.mu/music/news/243783

I'm so freaking excited for this, and it's not even the full list yet.
Really wonder what we'll get given their massive (and incredible) library.
My wishlist :
Monoeyes - Rocksteady
My Hair is Bad - The Remains
Asian Kung-Fu Generation - Magic Blue Van
Acidman - Lightning
back number - Synchro
the pillows - Little Miss Weekend
The Back Horn - Dead Head Beat
go!go!vanillas - Donkey Boogie Dodo
9mm Parabellum Bullet - Tornado Surfer
Special Others is a tough one since they're mostly instrumental lol
 

Aizo

Banned
Seeing TK from 凛として時雨 and downy tonight.
I was going to see downy, so TK is a bonus.
 

Aizo

Banned
I'm already in love again. Glasses is cute.

and that new ZOMBIE-CHANG is fucking great.

---

DAOKO × 米津玄師『打上花火』MUSIC VIDEO
zzz...not like this.
Was about to post that. Jesus. I used to love both of these musicians. What a boring song. That's worse than being strange and bad. It's just fucking dull.

I don't wanna shit on it too much, because I know there are people who will like it, but this is the most disappointed I've been in a song in a long time. Liked them both from their indie days. How did we get here?
Rhetorical. Please don't answer.
 
I don't wanna shit on it too much, because I know there are people who will like it

Doooope. Yonezu always delivers.

96Fr4Tw.gif
 
Honestly I don't even care about yet another underwhelming DAOKO single. I guess being bland by-the-numbers pop is her thing now and more power to her but it's been so long since I've cared about any of her music and there are so many cool artists that play in the same sonic ballpark she used to, so it's not even a particularly big loss at this point.

I've always wanted to like ZOMBIE-CHANG but have always found it easier to admire her than love her, but that video/single is neato. Will have to keep an eye out for her next release. (I still love that song she did with Yosa and Salu.)
 
What do you love that you find sonically similar to Daoko?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ2-3-HagEc

Izumi Macra for one but there's a number of them

Yeah, that's the artist I haven't really explored yet but gets mentioned most often as one of DAOKO's contemporaries.

Caveat: I am traditionally bad at objective categorization of music artists, so consider this a list of people I find scratch the same itch as DAOKO. I've been leaning more towards the poppier/city pop end of the whole "Japanese women doing cool laid-back raps" spectrum lately, which is closer to DAOKO's self-titled than her earlier stuff. Another caveat is none of them necessarily do the whole whisper-rap thing DAOKO used to do. But right now here are my picks:

chelmico and suzuki mamiko
iri
MCpero
G.Rina

There are a couple of male-vocal groups that also do similar things but I haven't looked as much into that and I expect them to be more common anyways. TOKYO HEALTH CLUB and JABBA DA HUTT FOOTBALL CLUB come to mind. The Omake Club label has been pretty reliable for finding stuff in a similar vein for me.
 

Kansoku

Member
What do you love that you find sonically similar to Daoko?

Aside from what was already mentioned, Bonjour Suzuki goes full in on the whisper-rap thing

Do you all play any instruments?

5~6 years ago I was taking classes for (electric) guitar, but my teacher had to move to another state and since the following year would be my last year of high school and I would be getting into an university I didn't get another teacher so I focus on studies and since then I never gone back. I still want to learn tho.


What does it take for Nakata to leave them alone and someone else starts producing them?
 
Do you all play any instruments?

there are no fewer than 7 guitars in my line of sight as i type this

Yeah, not a fan. This kind of song is what people were asking for when they were saying Nakata had run out of ideas?

fuck no XD

for the record, the Natsume Mito album is quite good. there's a difference between him being lazy and making D-tier knockoffs of his own greatest hits and him "not changing"
 

llehuty

Member
fuck no XD

for the record, the Natsume Mito album is quite good. there's a difference between him being lazy and making D-tier knockoffs of his own greatest hits and him "not changing"
Yeah, he has integrated trap better before in Perfume tracks, like in sweet refrain. But then again, I don't like trap to begin with, so it's a harder sell.
 

Peru

Member
Hmm I like the song a lot outside of the breakdown.. feels way too heavy. We'll see after some listens.

It's true "I'll Do My Best" is his best production work this year... one of the best singles of the year.
 

Aizo

Banned
This is extremely my shit

Also, just a PSA if anyone's curious : you can subscribe to the Japanese Apple Music even overseas just by using Japanese gift cards. It actually has waaay more music than Japanese Spotify (Victor Music or Columbia artists are on it for instance).
My life will never be the same.
I didn't know it had more than J Spotify, which is what I use. Maybe I should make the jump.
 

Kurita

Member
I didn't know it had more than J Spotify, which is what I use. Maybe I should make the jump.
Yeah at this point I don't think there's any reason to use it over Apple Music, cause everything you'll find on Spotify is also on Apple Music
 

Aizo

Banned
no, i'm just old
Hahah. Still, awesome collection. Three of my guitars are back home, and I sold on it my Japanese ones, so I just have one right now. I moved into a smaller place, so there isn't much more space left with the full size keyboard and guitar... even though I want another guitar and a bass..
 

Aizo

Banned
They both cost 980/month, and Apple Music has 3 free months
I wish Apple music had a PS4 app. Then there would be absolutely no downsides. I think I'll still make the switch. Thank you, Kurita.
speaking of guitars i want a cream strat so bad because of that UNISON SQUARE GARDEN mv
Well I want a Spectrum 5 because of that one indigo la end MV.
 

kasane

Member
I wish Apple music had a PS4 app. Then there would be absolutely no downsides. I think I'll still make the switch. Thank you, Kurita.

Well I want a Spectrum 5 because of that one indigo la end MV.

i find it refreshing the amount of variety Japanese artists has with guitars honestly. Though its also common for them to just use strats and teles there are some interesting ones out there.
 
This is extremely my shit

Also, just a PSA if anyone's curious : you can subscribe to the Japanese Apple Music even overseas just by using Japanese gift cards. It actually has waaay more music than Japanese Spotify (Victor Music or Columbia artists are on it for instance).
My life will never be the same.

ooo thanks for the heads up!.
 

Aizo

Banned
I saw those guys at a music festival once. I remember there was hardcore dancing in the mosh pit, and I laughed really hard.
 

Kurita

Member
Pretty cool interview of Scott Murphy (MONOEYES) and Rivers Cuomo (Weezer) about their love for Japanese music, and how they write songs in Japanese

”We weren't trying to make it a J-pop album per se, but we were going to have to at least make it not feel out of place among other Japanese artists," Murphy explains. ”If you listen to U.S. pop, it's the same chords over and over. Japanese pop is more about crazy chord progressions and key changes. Most U.S. pop is made for people to dance to, whereas most Japanese pop is made for people to sing karaoke to."
”You can't ‘translate' lyrics from English to Japanese," Murphy says. ”I guess that's the correct word for it, but you really can't just copy what you said. Because of the way the syllables work, you have to filter down when making it Japanese because English will have twice as much."

”For some reason, in Japanese, you can have really simple, basic lyrics that affect in a way that they wouldn't if written in English," says Murphy.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/20...-rivers-writing-japanese-lyrics/#.WY3Lr3erQb1

Agree with a lot of things in it, especially the "basic lyrics sound better in Japanese than in English" part.
 

PillarEN

Member
Pretty cool interview of Scott Murphy (MONOEYES) and Rivers Cuomo (Weezer) about their love for Japanese music, and how they write songs in Japanese



http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/20...-rivers-writing-japanese-lyrics/#.WY3Lr3erQb1

Agree with a lot of things in it, especially the "basic lyrics sound better in Japanese than in English" part.

We were on the same record label, so I came into the office one day and there was a stack of Weezer CDs on the desk," Murphy says with a laugh. ”They were like, ‘Rivers Cuomo from Weezer came by and he said he wants you to check out his band.' As if I've never heard Weezer!"


Lol. I love Rivers.

Kind of a side question. For those of you bilingual in Spanish and English. It seems like it's pretty common for some artists to record songs in both languages. Sometimes at least. Whether it's because they feel like it or because of marketing reasons. Obviously Spanish is as far away from Japanese as is is English. But do the Spanish/English versions of songs feel like it's easy to flip flop between those two languages? Or do those versions of songs feel pretty non-compatible as well?
 

Peru

Member
I do wish more western songwriters used 'more chords' and had the melody travel more. Not because I don't like western pop but because I'd like that kind of sound too to exist here.
 

llehuty

Member
Kind of a side question. For those of you bilingual in Spanish and English. It seems like it's pretty common for some artists to record songs in both languages. Sometimes at least. Whether it's because they feel like it or because of marketing reasons. Obviously Spanish is as far away from Japanese as is is English. But do the Spanish/English versions of songs feel like it's easy to flip flop between those two languages? Or do those versions of songs feel pretty non-compatible as well?
Well, I think language isn't a problem if the song is composed from the groundup for a language, the problem is they normally want to keep the meaning and sentences of the song, so we end up with messy songs like some Beyonce spanish songs, or some of the Shakira dual tracks. It's not a big deal when the translated section is its own thing, like English version of Despacito. Most of the times, the issue comes from having a main version and getting exposed later to the translation, which will always be more awkward.

I honestly think that language is one of the least important things in what makes japanese music what it is. For example, the Your Name OST in english still feels like japanese music for me, but the lyrics still work, IMO.

I do wish more western songwriters used 'more chords' and had the melody travel more. Not because I don't like western pop but because I'd like that kind of sound too to exist here.
Yes, I really like how adventurous asian music is most of the times. Even if there are obvious trends, and groups releasing "me too" songs, it feels like they are more proactive in doing their own spin or pushing new thing forward.
 
Top Bottom