About 8 months ago, I decided that I wanted to get into Japanese music. I never expected there to be *so much* of it. Japan must produce more music per kilometer squared than any other country in the world, in every style you can think of. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that over the past 20-25 years Japan has become the second best place in the world for music, especially if you like variety (sorry Brits). And thanks to all the otakus most of it is easy to find.

This isn't meant to be a comprehensive list, and there's still tons more I need to listen to, so if you want to add anything or ask for more specific descriptions/recommendations I'd be happy to. And there's a decent chance you might come up with something I haven't listened to yet. Title is to the fact that I also have a decent amount of Chinese music and a bit of Korean, Vietnamese, and Thai music, so I may add sections on those if anyone's interested. IN PARTICULAR, if anyone happens to have anything by the Taiwanese band LTK Commune/Loh Tsui Kweh Commune/濁水溪公社, PM me.

If you get anything at all out of this, post here and let me know! The World Music forum deserves more attention, since nothing very exciting has been going on in North American and Western Europe lately.

Introduction to Japanese Music

The Stuff You Already Know

There are a handful of bands/artists already known to the Western indie rock crowd. Actually, they are probably more famous here than they are in Japan. I'm going to exclude a couple here, as they fit more comfortably into another category. In any case, you should have no problem finding reviews and samples for these from reputable English-language sources.

Boris

Acid Mothers Temple (and so on)

Boredoms

Melt-Banana (a personal favorite)

Ghost

Guitar Wolf

Afrirampo

Mono (not my bag but they seem pretty popular)

World's End Girlfriend

Envy

YMCK

Polysics

Ruins/Koenjihyakkei

Mainstream Pop/Rock/R&B

A left turn, but personally I feel that the best place to start when investigating any country or style is with what's popular. It's what most people like, and there's usually a reason for that. And, ultimately, it's the same background that makes this differ from American pop music just as the other bands here differ from their Western counterparts. I'll just mention some varied acts of particular interest to me. A couple of these placements, particularly the bands, are debateable.

Utada Hikaru - I can't say much here without going into incomprehensible raving. She was my serious introduction to Japanese music, and less than a year later I would easily put her in my top 10 artists of recorded history. She's also unbelievably popular, with the 1st, 4th, and 8th best selling albums in Japan. There's another English-language album coming out in March, but it's taking a quite different tack, mostly produced by Stargate, whereas her Japanese albums since her 3rd have been entirely self-produced & written. Deep River, Ultra Blue, and Heart Station (my top album of 2008) are the best places to begin; her first two Japanese albums are also excellent, but more in the vein of contemporary R&B, and her first English album is a bit strange - worth the effort, but not your first stop.

Bonnie Pink

Halcali - Only the first album.

Mika Nakashima

Aya Kamiki

Ai Otsuka

YUI

Kaela Kimura

the brilliant green

Love Psychedelico

lecca

MINMI

Perfume

Indie & Alternative

Probably the section of most interest here. Like the above, some of these placements are pretty arbitrary. But selling zillions of records never stopped people from calling Pearl Jam and Nirvana alternative, right?

Shiina Ringo/Tokyo Jihen

Judy and Mary

GO!GO!7188

Spangle call Lilli line

Number Girl

advantage Lucy

Supercar

9mm Parabellum Bullet

Base Ball Bear

ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION

the pillows

noodles

相対性理論/Soutaiseiriron - Hi-fi Anatomia is an early contender for album of the year.

Coaltar of the Deepers

Thee Michelle Gun Elephant

miaou

Quruli

clammbon

Fujifabric

Metalchicks

Boom Boom Satellites

Visual-kei

Um, this is a complicated genre to explain. It's mainly defined by looks, not music, and most of these bands have little in common, ranging from power pop to symphonic metal to goth rock. Much of it is god-awful, but a lot is also staggeringly brilliant. I'm only going to list the latter, obviously.

X Japan

Luna Sea

Malice Mizer - These top three are probably the most important bands to the development of the genre.

hide

Glay

L'Arc~en~Ciel

Dir en grey (#2 on my 2008 list)

Kagrra,

Gilles de Rais

Hizaki Grace Project, Versailles, Schwardix Marvally, etc.

Electronic music (excluding shibuya kei)

Yellow Magic Orchestra (Ryuichi Sakamoto)

Kashiwa Daisuke

Akira Kosemura

Yuichiro Fujimoto

Susumu Yokota

Daisuke Miyatani

Minamo

Midori Hirano

Piana

Sawako

Tujiko Noriko

Aoki Takemasa

Geskia

EeL (perhaps more on the experimental side)

Shibuya-kei & picopop

Cornelius/Flipper's Guitar

Pizzicato Five

Cibo Matto (technically based in America, but whatever)

Buffalo Daughter

Kahimi Karie

Takako Minekawa

Yukari Fresh

Hazel Nuts Chocolate

Strawberry Machine

The Aprils

Chocolat

capsule

Hip-hop/chillout/broken beat/nu-jazz

Nujabes

Shing02

Vongaku

Lantern Parade

Kenichiro Nishihara

Indigo Jam Unit

Jazztronik

Kyoto Jazz Massive

Punk & Hardcore

Midori

Mind of Asian

Red Bacteria Vacuum

GitoGito Hustler

54 Nude Honeys

Mummy the Peepshow

Lolita No. 18

Metal

Sigh

Gallhammer

Endless Dismal Moan

Tyrant

Sabbat

Magane

Folk

Kazuki Tomokawa

Kan Mikami

Morita Doji

Quinka, with a Yawn

Free Improv/Noise/Experimental/Psych/Other - from harsh noise to free jazz to primitivist pop, so everything else, basically

Toru Takemitsu

Kaoru Abe

Masayuki Takayanagi

Masahiko Togashi

Bondage Fruit

Happy Family

Maher Shalal Hash Baz (and Reiko Kudo, etc.)

Otomo Yoshihide (Ground Zero, etc.)

Sachiko M

Ikue Mori (Death Ambient, Phantom Orchard, DNA, etc.)

Keiji Haino (Fushitsusha, many many other projects)

KK Null (Zeni Geva, etc. - you may have noticed by now that the Japanese love side projects)

Hijokaidan

Hanatarash

Les Rallizes Denudes

Flower Travellin' Band

Taj Mahal Travellers

Merzbow

Masonna

Haco/After Dinner

Jun Togawa/Guernica

Phew

eX-Girl

mama!milk

Taku Sugimoto

Nobuko Hori

Satoko Fujii

Michiyo Yagi

Chieko Mori

Chu Ishikawa

I can go on and on, but that's a pretty varied list.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: odysseyandoracle,

http://www.last.fm/user/odysseyandoracl

Free and Legal:
Juango Dávalos - Un Niño Antiguo
Emilio José - Chorando Apréndese (scroll down)
Bomb the Music Industry! - Scrambles

Well done O&O. As a fan of Jap rock and avant garde musiks, I really appreciate what you have done here to bring greater awareness.

I can't get on board with you re that Hikaru chick. Bland as all hell I reckon, but then again it's always nice to see someone so head over heels in love with an act.

Good work listing Susumu Yokota. Been a long time fan.
I don't see Asa Chang & Jun Ray listed though...
now that is the top drawer Japanese sound for the last 10 years I feel.

I'm in China, which has a music scene best described as not anything like Japan, unfortunately. The government tend to discourage any music with an edge, but there is some cool stuff coming out of Beijing, though decidely uncommercial.

Great to see a thread on Japanese/Asian music.

I've had Julian Cope's Japrocksampler site bookmarked as it saves me from buying the book (much as I'd love to have it).

Most of the Japanese music I have ranges from psych (Flower Travelling Band) to beat (the Mops) to more modern garage, power-pop and surf groups (the world's greatest surf band is Japan's Surf Coasters).

Have to admit I can get hooked on good J-pop and I've enjoyed what I've heard so far from Soutaiseiriron, as well as the more R&B side of Utada Hikaru.

Also enjoy the Cambodia Rocks series of 70's psych, beat, folk and dance music.

Yeah, I've had a really hard time finding music from mainland China, and I'd say that your assessment of the music as lacking an edge largely applies to Taiwan and Hong Kong as well, though admittedly it's very hard to find any of the underground stuff online. I do really like what I've heard from Cui Jian, and I mentioned Li Jianhong in my 2008 list. To be fair, China obviously has no recent history of free dissent, and Taiwan has a very limited one.

I am hoping/planning on moving out to Taiwan around May (to teach English, natch ), and one of the things I'm most looking forward to is hitting up some old record stores. May I ask what you do in China?

I think one of the things that makes Japanese music more interesting is the tendency towards extremes in the culture there...you can see this in film and manga/anime as well. Whereas Chinese music tends to be more middle of the road and 'harmonious.' But again that could be because the fringe members of society don't have much money or rights.

I'm an English teacher, natch.

Ah, how's that going for you?

I've got a great job, but then I'm working for the Australian government, not some private school, so day to day hassles of foreign teaching don't really affect me.
Can't stand China though. God help us if the CCP become as influential as the US.

One of my favourite Japanese songs is "Pop Star". It's very catchy.

This thread needs life.

I've seen increased critical attention to R&B lately, so it's unfortunate that the attention is being given to artists who don't really deserve it. Anyway, some of the best contemporary R&B/soul in the world today comes out of East Asia.

One singer/songwriter I've been listening to a lot lately is Khalil Fong, who is based out of Hong Kong but sings in Mandarin. There's certainly nothing edgy about his music, but he does what he does very well, with no gimmicks.

Some samples:

"Love Song"

"夠不夠" (roughly "Is It Enough?" or something like that)