The Japanese music industry is the second largest in the world, behind the United States
Konichiwa! With their love for all things colourful and kooky, it’s no surprise that the Japanese are passionate about their pop. The J-Pop genre (ジェイポップ) refers to homegrown musical talent and was coined to distinguish Japanese music from international (it includes pop, rock and r&b).
And how does J-Pop sound and look? We’ve picked a few interesting examples, but this is really just the tip of the iceberg – last year WAPS was lucky enough to browse the racks of HMV and Tower in Tokyo and there are seemingly thousands of quirky acts to choose from.
MEG was remixed by British grindie band Hadouken! on her 'Freak' single
28-year-old MEG (メグ) from Hiroshima was one who grabbed our attention. She sings cute, auto-tuned electro-pop in both Japanese and English. Her songs, videos and artwork all have an extremely kooky style – to get a feel for her work, make sure to watch her videos ‘Precious’ (includes dancing cats), ‘Skin‘, ‘Freak‘ and ‘Beautiful‘. MEG released her 6th studio album ‘Beautiful’ in May and released a mini album called ‘Journey‘ in August. More about MEG on her official website.
MEG: Droplets (this is actually in English)
Other current Japanese artists to check out:
- Scandal is a foursome of high school girls from Osaka. They’re mixing up pop with indie. Check out ‘Shojo-S‘.
- Ayumi Hamazaki has been dubbed ‘the Empress of J-pop’ due to her popularity and widespread influence in Japan (she’s sold over 50 million records). Next Level is quite pleasant.
- Immi released her album ‘Switch‘ in 2008. It’s an electro pop album and if we have to put a label on it, it’s a mixture of Kylie and Rachel Stevens. Check out her single ‘Klaxon‘. More about her recent EP ‘Alice’ on MySpace.
- Utada was born to Japanese parents in America. She’s probably the best known J-Pop artist outside of Japan, due to her collaborations with Ne-Yo and Timbaland and two solo albums in English. Check out Heart Station. She’s playing London in the near future but tickets are said to be sold out already.
- If you’d like to discover more J-Pop artists, make sure to check out J-Pop Asia.
- And we can’t have an article on J-Pop without mentioning Towa Tei and Kylie‘s super-cool ‘GBI‘ collaboration from 1998. Towa Tei was also part of the amazing Deee-Lite.
- Oh and one more for you – Pizzicato 5‘s classic ‘Twiggy Twiggy‘. Sadly the group disbanded in 2001 but we still love them!
Check out the other countries covered in Pop Atlas. And on that note, sayonara.
See also
Tags: Ayumi Hamazaki, Immi, J-Pop, Japanese pop, Kylie Minogue, MEG, Pizzicato 5, Scandal, Timbaland, Towa Tei, Utada
Y0u guys should check out “Reason” by Nami Tamaki too – it’s a J-Pop epic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD-1ndkRQOo
super post, thx
GREAT. Good to see a very welcoming post to the Asian pop community.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci8REzfzMHY&feature=youtube_gdata
Utada’s “This Is The One” is one of my fav albums of the year. I like the idea of the Pop Atlas – keep it up guys. Your post has pushed me to purchase the Immi EP. iTunes has been recommending it every time I look up BoA – your comparison to Kylie and Rachel Stevens is spot on. Just what I thought! Good stuff!