Gaming World Forums
General Category => Entertainment and Media => Topic started by: nickmasterx on December 24, 2008, 08:51:20 am
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can anyone recommend me some Japanese music? I'm learning Japanese and I want something that's easy to understand.
my tastes are more towards metal but I like a of rock and might even delve into pop if it has a good singer.
Here's some bands I know of and what I think of them:
X Japan- not too big on the ballads but I like the heavier metal stuff like kurenai
Gackt- I like the song Redemption. That's about it most of the stuff sounds the same.
L'Arc~En~Ciel- were alright. Don't know what songs are best though.
Onmyouza- I liked the song I heard
Blood Stain Child- I don't like techno
Maximum the Hormone- I couldn't get into them.
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Acid Mothers Temple
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Teriyaki Boys
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Pokemon Rap
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For rock music, go for...
TETRA-FANG: This is a band made for a tokusatsu show named Kamen Rider KIVA. Its notable feats were their creative use of violins in a rock music, especially in their first song: "Destiny's Play", for sake of the vampiric Kamen Rider. Other notable songs of that band were:
Supernova
Eternity Blood
Innocent Trap
Individual-System
Shout in the Moonlight
Silent Shout
Rainy Rose (their first stunt in singing mellow songs)
Galneryus: For me, this is the Japanese counterpart of "Thursday" in terms of their song titles and themes. Notably named are:
Cause Disarray
The Flame
Mark of the Revolution (?)
As for J-Pop, I now prefer Chiaki Ishikawa (from See-Saw & whether anime or not), Riyu Kosaka (famed also for singing the songs for Sky Girls OVA & Kamen Rider the NEXT), Yui Makino & Mamiko Noto
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violins in rock music fucking hell that's ground-breaking that
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Try watchin' their MV, though this is Kamen Rider KIVA-ed ^_^
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melt banana
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I'd recommend 'Move'
and also songs drom anime..
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the only japanese music i remember liking was a little bit of gackts stuff and that band that did the music for flcl, i cant remember what theyre called.
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^The Pillows
Also Yellow (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbtEjhCOFPs) Magic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQN5xKcJ-X8) Orchestra (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPkBd7k6Kng) is (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSZ9v2t67aQ) the (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy-15AiBWdU) best (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXItw-TK0vQ). Not much in terms of vocals, and few of the more "pop-ey" songs are on Youtube, but whatever. ;)
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Teriyaki Boys
i think Giant Panda is far better if you're seriously recommending them
edit: i just realized that a lot of their stuff is english but it has some japanese too
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man is it possible for any Japanese dude to look like the dude from Acid Mothers Temple (Kawabata Makoto)
because that would be awesome if that was the default style for Japan
and you should listen to Yellow Magic Orchestra it's like the precursor to all game music
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Nightmare.
Some of their stuff is really good, while others is bleh. But overall they're listenable.
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The Pillows and Serani Poji are the only ones that are listenable, and Serani Poji is only really good for chilling out when driving and/or trying to take a nap.
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I think the band the seatbelts? they did the theme for cowboy bebop. i dont even know if they are japanese
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the boredoms, flower travellin' band and some speed, glue n shinki.
that's all you need.
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There's a cool japanese band called Downy. They enjoy a bit of post rock, do the japanese.
http://www.myspace.com/mudaiforaoki
no idea what that url's about, but hey.
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[youtube]http://ca.yI
Try watchin' their MV, though this is Kamen Rider KIVA-ed ^_^
I couldn't keep watching this afterlike 10 seconds
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Oh I forgot Does. They're pretty good too
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Luna Sea is rather excellent. Their album "Mother" in particular is really good.
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I always thought Utada Hikaru had a pretty good voice and tolerable stuff, but yeah the pillows are the only thing that come to mind that you might like.
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the only stuff i like that is explicitly japanese is melt banana and acid mothers temple.
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I like Ayumi Hamasaki a lot, but a bunch of her music is girlie pop, so be prepared to sift through garbage.
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I kind of had this issue for a while since I took Japanese all through high school and wanted to maintain the second language while at university. I also find vast majority of Japanese music pretty bland. This isn't exactly surprising since it's a lot harder do find music beyond the usual obvious mainstream pop type stuff when you're searching in a second language. It's also made a lot more difficult by the fact that the internet is full of people who take Japanese as a second language because "its the language of anime and animes my life desu" and anime opening themes tend to centre around fairly inane pop music. In a lot of ways it's usually better to ask people who don't speak a word of the language (or want to) about Japanese music. At least they won't tell you to listen to fucking 'opening theme of soul eater its greatest'.
I did my own research on account of not having anyone good to ask. The first thing I came across was that Japan actually makes some pretty decent Hip Hop. Over time, a lot of the production has diverged from what's going on overseas and become a bit more jazzy and relaxed. Stuff I like includes:
- King Giddra: Not to be confused with King Geedorah, an MF Doom side-project, these guys are more Public Enemy than Viktor Vaughn. The three-headed monster consists of K Dub Shine, DJ Oasis and Zeebra. They're sometimes referred to as the grandfathers of Japanese Hip Hop. Shinjitsu no Dangan (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_isAxs_h-5E) is an excellent song and a great demonstration of how superb K-Dub's flow and Oasis's production are. Not a great example of the whole 'jazzy and relaxed' thing.
- Gagle: Big Bang Theory (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qskiZgkDrF0) is the title track of their album. It's also representative of the kind of stuff you can expect from Gagle. They're a lot more relaxed sounding than King Giddra, and from the songs I can understand, less political. Gagle is also pretty enjoyable to listen to, whether or not you can understand the lyrics.
- Rip Slyme: The name is a pun. "Rip Slyme" and "Lips Rhyme" sound exactly the same if you use only Japanese phonetics to pronounce them. Much more party music than the above two. I think they even did the opening to some anime thing. The album 'Five' is pretty good. I can't find my favourite song off Five so here's the anime thing: I like it okay (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKWIaIggAO). Guess I'm quite the hypocrite now, huh!
- DJ Krush is pretty well-known in Hip Hop circles, I think. He sometimes works with Japanese-speaking MCs but I'm going to link a song he did with some guys from anticon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgLikM17d4s) instead because I like it a lot. He also did what seems to be a completely awesome album with trumpeter Toshinori Kondo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72ryniqyKOY) which I cannot fucking find anywhere other than in youtube clips.
Stuff other than Hip Hop I like tends to be instrumental or use a lot of English, so while Flower Travelin' Band are great, and MONO are good if you feel like post rock, you're not likely to pick up much Japanese from listening to them. I did find the band "FANTASYS CORE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awBvOZ8kcg0)" ("We can't speak English but we can speak Rock & Roll") and pick up their album Nagasaki Atom (http://cdbaby.com/cd/fantasyscore) from CD Baby, which turned out to be money well spent. I also came across this guy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_FARqeU4Fc) who was both an influence on FANTASYS CORE and seems to have inspired Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys (hence the naming). I am not entirely sure why I like him but I cannot find any of his albums anywhere.
If you want something easy to understand then you could go with generic J-Pop if you're okay with being very upset with yourself once you can understand the lyrics and realise what you've been listening to.
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I like Ayumi Hamasaki a lot, but a bunch of her music is girlie pop, so be prepared to sift through garbage.
This
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envy
eastern youth
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anyone who takes japanese in high school or college is a huge fag
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Well some of my favourite J-artists listed below:
Makako Hiyusimi
Suzuki Mooniki
Mini-Mikiki "Pink Blouse" Miyoziki
They're pretty J-indie so I don't know if you'd have trouble finding music by them. I really like Masaki Osaka's J-prog style but I prefer the above much more.
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hi japan sucks ass
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envy
Envy fucking rules
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Doesn't Japan have like some really good ambient music guy
like Kitaro but I didn't like Kitaro actually
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SHIT
Try watchin' their MV, though this is Kamen Rider KIVA-ed ^_^
I didnt think i could dislike you more. I have proven myself wrong.
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Ownage
hell fuckin yea.........
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can anyone recommend me some Japanese music? I'm learning Japanese and I want something that's easy to understand.
I just now read this part and that's going to be pretty tough. I've been taking German for a while now and I can still only understand parts of songs, Japanese doesn't have the advantage of being similar to English either. You'll have a hard time finding songs that will be easy for you to understand unless you've been learning Japanese for a while now.
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Really.. how can nobody even not mention SEX MACHINEGUNS?!?
Dunno what this is callled, but it's kinda cheesy. He's got a killer voice though.
The classic: SEXY HERO REVOLUTION (warning long intro)
And finally TEKKEN 2 (what the hell does tekken mean?). This song's pretty cool actually.
Yeah. Go Sex Machineguns. Go!
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I just now read this part and that's going to be pretty tough. I've been taking German for a while now and I can still only understand parts of songs, Japanese doesn't have the advantage of being similar to English either. You'll have a hard time finding songs that will be easy for you to understand unless you've been learning Japanese for a while now.
Yeah I figured I would avoid songs in Japanese too, at least watch like some TV show or something. I figure even in ENGLISH most songs have about a 10-word vocabulary and you can't understand the lyrics either (I still think it's 'blinded by the light, revved up like a douche in the _____ in the night') and at least a show would be good for knowing if you got the words right, like if you think somebody just said GERBIL and somebody starts eating a gerbil then they probably said gerbil
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Music is more good for getting used to the sounds of the language and hearing varied sentence structure etc than building vocab in terms of language learning. It's easier to do then sitting down and watching TV since you can just load songs/albums on your mp3 player and listen while you do other things.
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Ryuichi Sakamoto and Joe Hisaishi are the best dawg.
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Really.. how can nobody even not mention SEX MACHINEGUNS?!?
Yeah. Go Sex Machineguns. Go!
because theyre fucking terrible.
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Heh, welcome to the club. I've been studying japanese for two years now and
most of the music I listen too is japanese. Here are some bands you might want
to try:
Miyavi: Singer/Songwriter who started out as a guitarist in the band 'Due Le Quartz'.
He has a very distinct and interesting style of playing (something I've been trying
to mimic for over a year now) and has interesting lyrics. I suggest you check the
album 'Galyuu' for his harder and earlier works, or 'dokusou' and 'This Iz the
Japanese Kabuki Rock' for his newer, more interesting works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV1eBdllZng << awesome
Shiina Ringo/Tokyo Jihen:
Japanese alternative pop. I can't explain why i think she's the most awesome
japanese singer ever, but I do.
Her reportoire consists mostly out of pop, but albums like 'Shouso Strip'
and 'Muzai Moratorium' bear a somewhat experimental personality, the former
being a bit more traditional japanese.
She also fronts a band called Tokyo Jihen, a band formed out of musicians
from various bands. I suggest you look up 'Dynamite Out' on youtube or
listen to some songs from the album 'Kyoiku'. The songs 'Ringo no Uta' and
'Gunjyou Hyori' are some good examples.
Gunjyou Hyori
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OJoUgK6aZI
Ringo No Uta
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg3DmKVWYbQ&feature=related
HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR
I can't really say much about this band. It's a form of metal with a rather
cliche setup, the female singing in clean vocals and the male vocalist doing
screams and stuff. I discovered them while watching the third BLEACH season,
for which they provided the soundtrack (Ichirin no Hana). If you haven't
heard it yet, look it up. Their best album is Gouon Progressive.
Ichirin no Hana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTL_lR7KglQ
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Music is more good for getting used to the sounds of the language and hearing varied sentence structure etc than building vocab in terms of language learning. It's easier to do then sitting down and watching TV since you can just load songs/albums on your mp3 player and listen while you do other things.
Yes but in that case you need really clean music where the lyrics are really easy to hear which...isn't at all like the majority of jpop/rock/etc. He'd be better of with something like recordings of folk music or something, that would probably be the most beneficial to him.
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Yes but in that case you need really clean music where the lyrics are really easy to hear which...isn't at all like the majority of jpop/rock/etc. He'd be better of with something like recordings of folk music or something, that would probably be the most beneficial to him.
Actually, I've learned that learning Japanese through listening to music
is not as easy as it sounds. It's very hard to pay attention to the lyrics
when you're just listening, especially in Japanese. This way, the sounds
will register, but you'll hardly benefit from it in the long run.
Also, a lot of japanese music is written in poetry form.
I've gotten my hands on Pimsleurs Course Japanese, which has worked
much better for me. It might also help watching Japanese Live action films/
series, but only if you already have a good basic understanding of the language.
Other than that, never try to learn Japanese by watching anime. The sentences
and word combinations used in most anime are in no way suited to base
your Japanese fluency on.
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Well usually I wanna sing along so I find a lyric... I learn a little that way
Anyway, my faves are Flow and Nightmare
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M-Flo, yes.
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M-Flo? Nah, I was talking about this one (http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=bGwv_yqHuWg)
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I know. M-Flo was my recommendation. :p
It was a half-joke, because I know a lot of people don't like them, but they're the only Japanese artist on my ipod.
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i don't feel like typing up a whole bunch of stuff about each band and for the most part i think japanese music is horrible, but here are a few bands that i think are alright. i've uploaded and linked to some stuff so just click on their names to hear some of their music.
boris - pink (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X11G5u0v2k8)
choukoku no niwa - fukurou (http://www.gazup.com/AKw2j-03_-_fukurou.mp3-download-mirrors) (ps this is the best song)
ginbae - audiotrack 5 (http://www.gazup.com/aOO9N-05_-_audiotrack_05.mp3-download-mirrors)
ginbae - audiotrack 2 (http://www.gazup.com/9iF6K-02_-_audiotrack_02.mp3-download-mirrors)
actually you know what? just download the whole ginbae album here (http://lix.in/-3741e0) because it's really good.
flower travellin' band - satori part 5 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XGLys7ViOc) (i don't care that flower travellin' band sings in english because they are better than anything that anyone else has suggested so far)
flower travellin' band - satori part 3 (http://www.gazup.com/p6HlO-03_satori_part_iii.mp3-download-mirrors)
ok here is my advice: do not listen to jrock or jpop or anything these people are suggesting. do not listen to dir en grey or gackt or malice mizer or miyavi or any of these fucking people (okay listen to yellow magic orchestra, boredoms, and melt banana). basically what i am saying is do not trust anyone who tells you to listen to japanese music because 99% of the time it will be jpop garbage. in fact you can even go so far as to say that you shouldn't listen to anything someone who tells you to listen to japanese music says.
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Japanese do good experimental and freakout music and that's it really.
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I like Atari Kousuke though. He has a beautiful voice and his music is simply beautiful :)
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in addition to chef's post, check out cornelius who do some neat shit. also kaoru abe if you're out your damn mind, and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU2eG1Zh6Hg but i cant find any albums. also i have some great afro jap jazz mix shit.
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World's End Girlfriend (http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=JdWMH1XGX30) & Kashiwa Daisuke (http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=0NCF1OHi6lw) for post-rock/contemporary classical/whatever. Both are immensely talented and highly recommended. Think Godspeed You! Black Emperor but more electronic.
Seconding Boris, but Pink & similar albums are not at all what they are best for. Drone (http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=in-7DO-tTKY) or get out.
Chaos Royale (http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=ha83-hlZraQ) for fucked up noise / hip-pop mashups. And Noise/Girl (http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=cLdU-0wmW1M) (his older project) for equally fucked up harsh disco.
大野まりな (http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=vurRnBCtLz8) and とろ美 (http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=KtcPaMTx7eQ&feature=related) for trve kvte akiba-pop.
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this topic is full of faggots, fuck. the octave doctor is pretty much right with what he said.
also, recommending him post-rock shit is useless, he says he wants to use it to learn the language, i don't think world's end girlfriend even HAS lyrics. i don't even know how you're going to try learning a language through music??? i can barely even understand a lot of english artists now, this sounds like the stupidest way to do it.
also, as far as japanese goes, asobi seksu.
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Back-On, if nobody said it already.
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I listen to japanese jazz/fusion every now and then, it's mostly pretty ridiculous (they have incredible amounts of embarassing jazz fusion crap)
Hiromi (saw this live a while ago (I HAVE 5 CDS 2 OF WHICH ARE AUTOGRAPHED (FUCK!!!)))
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mK2fv7y9YY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5WnLSmA35w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcccRCdOx2Y
Masato Honda (hilariously gay fusion but i looooooove it)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N6h-DHmyJ0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0Yxj90AR30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj9VexmEqM8 (from T-SQUARE, a band he used to play in)
PE'Z
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDSf8Lo2pU0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngXcbynPtGo
Then there's Yellow Magic Orchestra, Flower Travellin' Band and Boris which Chef already mentioned. I think this is pretty much all japanese music I've ever really listened to. Japanese music is mostly garbage, but that's probably true with every country
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boris fucking rules and i'm disappointed i had to go to page 2 to see them
ALSO:
ghost if you like dumb trippy japanese folk music. guitarist michio kurihara was on boris' album "rainbow" and tours with them, he's awesome.
and choukoku no niwa like chef said. they only have one song and it's on a boris split. basically i love boris!
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in addition to chef's post, check out cornelius who do some neat shit. also kaoru abe if you're out your damn mind, and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU2eG1Zh6Hg but i cant find any albums. also i have some great afro jap jazz mix shit.
!!!!!!
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steel don't you like epik high isn't he a jap???
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well he's rap i guess and he raps in english too but i'm pretty sure there is some japanese in there
OR IM JUST RETARD
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He's just some Japanese Internet celebrity, but this guy (presumably a guy) named Hyadian does some cool videogame music adaptations. His best ones would have to be Street Fighter and the four fiends from FF4.
Japanese is a nice language for music; the fairly even distribution of consonant and vowel sounds in the language make it flow quite fluently.
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steel don't you like epik high isn't he a jap???
i think he's korean.
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HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR
I can't really say much about this band. It's a form of metal with a rather
cliche setup, the female singing in clean vocals and the male vocalist doing
screams and stuff. I discovered them while watching the third BLEACH season,
for which they provided the soundtrack (Ichirin no Hana). If you haven't
heard it yet, look it up. Their best album is Gouon Progressive.
Ichirin no Hana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTL_lR7KglQ
I can sing that :)
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I've been lilstening to Afrirampo quite a bit the past week. Can only really describe it as to japanese women shouting and making dolphin noises over amt-lite drum+guitars, with elements of like mild j-pop or whatever.
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that kind of reminds me of OOIOO which is 4 japanese women making some awesome experimental music. although what you described sounds really good, i'm def gonna get that now
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I like Akeboshi, but I guess he is more of Japanese folk rock more though. but yeah, my opinion
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I really like this, managed to find a couple of albums a while ago. Now I'm listening to them while drinking coffee every morning :rockout:
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My favorite japanese band hands down is maximum the hormone. i don't watch anime, and i liked this shit before deathnote was even released in america. i first heard their single 'koi no megaraba' in a japanese supermarket, and i've liked em ever since. they would be a horrible band to try and learn japanese from though. my japanese friends say they can't even understand what they're saying most of the time.
i dont really care for m-flo, the pillows are kinda nostalgic for me, and theyre much easier to understand. i used to hear them on radio stations. fuck gakt, fuck all male popstars. and let us all agree: FUCK YOU SMAP :fogetfu:. japanese rap is horrible. dont let anyone covince you otherwise. i remember watching japanese mtv and these fucking japs are the biggest poser tools. they fall way short. the only japanese rapper i will say that is half way decent is hannya.edit: and that's only because he's hilarious. i am going to say that most japanese music is just fucking retarded. i was pretty big into the osaka underground scene however. there are some talented artists. 2 of my friends are in different hardcore indie bands. watching their shows was a fucking blast.
they both sing in english so check out their sites:
Eardrum (http://www.myspace.com/eardrum)
Sabnack (http://www.sabnack.com)
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Linkin pakr are my favourite JPOPP group
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:fogetshrug:
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I really like this, managed to find a couple of albums a while ago. Now I'm listening to them while drinking coffee every morning :rockout:
Holy shit give me.
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hey, i found a flower travellin' band album from before they were flower travellin' band. it's alright, a little disappointing because most of it is covers (they're pretty good but i like their original music a lot!!), but it's a neat album, especially for anyone who's already a fan of the band. so yeah i'll upload it if anyone wants it. it is very, very 60s.
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Holy shit give me.
zoo'd
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I do like Japanese music too especially the one with Arashi songs ...they are my favorite Wish and Love So Sweet
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Flow, SOUR, Joe Hisaishi, Antic Cafe, Maximum the Hormone, Asian Kung-Fu Generation, and Orange Range. those are some ones i like.
EDIT: Shakkazombie and Heartsdales for J-Rap too
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Merzbow is all I have to say - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJj-eMIulZY
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Merzbow is an excellent Japanese band I also recommend it to everyone who wants to listen to real music from Japan but not his anime J-rock :blarg:
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Merzbow are allright but they're nowhere near as good as AMT, Ruins, Afrirampo, Cotton Casino and so on.
Everybody should check out Acid Mothers Temple's 'Om Riff from the cosmic inferno'. 60 minute cover of the Gong Track ' Master Builder'. Great suff.
Talking of Japanese music, got some Acid Mothers Gong albums on order. Combination of two of the most psyche bands around (AMT and Gong), so it's awesome.
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les rallizes denudes rules
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I like Ayumi Hamasaki a lot, but a bunch of her music is girlie pop, so be prepared to sift through garbage.
I'd Recommend her "My Story" album - It's probally her best.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Story_(Ayumi_Hamasaki_album)
If you like rap try M-Flo's cosmicolour and beat space nine albums
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So I download that Ginbae album chef uploaded. It's really good if you are into psychadelic rock, or classic rock or even metal probably. also i second, third, whatever flower travelin band
also, whoever mentioned afrirampo, kawrou or dr.octagon or whatever, they are pretty great
again, i second third whatever, melt banana.
I don't think any of these will help you learn japanese though
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you got two of my names wrong :fogetshrug:
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Don't have a cow, k-dong.
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haha, sorry, i was a little drunk when i made that post
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[seriously ][/seriously]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nda3VIp_1O0&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nda3VIp_1O0&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/dohtml]
Radwimps- "Me Me She"
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As a DJ of a weekly radio show for 12 years, I've been trying to listen to a lot of new and interesting music generally. Lately, with my studies in Japanese language getting more focused, I've been seeking out a lot of the more obscure and interesting bands I can find in Japan. I'll post for you a list of some highly recommended Japanese bands that I've been into recently.
The Tenniscoats - amongst the more muted and subtle stuff that I like. Here's a wiki entry on 'em: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenniscoats
Maher Shalal Hash Baz - similar in nature to the above mentioned band. The discordant elements mixed with beauty, it's good... I think: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Shalal_Hash_Baz
Kimitaka Matsumae - This guy has done a variety of video game music and commerical tunes... but he's also got some really "balls out experimental" type stuff that's freaky, weird, and fun to listen to. Looks like the shares up at the Mutant Sound blog are still good for "Anata Wa Kitsune" one of the best places to start if you're looking to see how crazy this guy can get in his music: http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2007/03/kimitaka-matsumae-you-are-fox-1-4-cds.html
Shugo Tokumaru - Back to kinda' the more subtle and folky domains of the first two groups I posted... although his stuff is more polished in sound and has some interesting production incorporating electronic type elements. I'd highly reccomend picking up his album Exit or Night Piece. His MySpace page is here: http://www.myspace.com/shugotokumaru
Halcali - Alright, I gotta' break across genres and post something more "fun" I guess... this is a female hip-hop duo who's music is really catchy and enjoyable. Start with their earlier album Halicali Bacon and go from there, I'd say: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halcali
Rip Slyme - Another Japanese hip-hop group... also really fun sounding music: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_Slyme
The Moools - (pronounced kinda' like "moles" with a drawn out "o" sound... not how you would initially think "ooo" would be pronounced. Yeah, I've butchered this one on the air myself... oh well). Japanese indie band that I've seen play three times in Olympia, WA (where I've been living up till now). They played twice at the Yoyo A Gogo Festival and once at a house show I went to. Really great sound to them. They have a MySpace page here: http://www.myspace.com/moools
Hidari - This is a pretty upbeat and fun sounding indie rock band from the Kansai area of Japan. They incorporate some fun and playful electronic synthy type stuff into the mix. Originally a line up of three Japanese fellows... now it's two Japanese guys and one guy who came from the college I've been attending (The Evergreen State College) and came to Japan on a similar exchange program as the one I'm going on at the end of the month now. They have a site here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidari
Hi-Posi - A Shibuya-kei style group fronted by Miho Moribayashi. While a few things I've heard by them leave me a little "blah"... generally most of what I hear from them is really great and enjoyable to listen to... so don't give up on them if the first few tracks you hear don't catch you, is what I'm saying. The webite for Hi-Posi is here: http://www.hi-posi.org/
(a note on Shibuya-kei in general) - Mentioning the above band leads me to think it would be good to mention other Shibuya-kei genre bands in Japan. There are too many for me to go into... but I've generally found a lot of music in this grouping of bands that make me really happy. Some of 'em are: Capsule, Takako Minekawa, Plus-Tech Squeezebox, Pizzicato Five, etc... Here's a wiki entry that might explain things more for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibuya-kei
Yann Tomita - This man is a genius, plain and simple. Working as a composer and producer of music... he's got some really beautiful, funny, original, and just plain odd releases out there. If you're into weird cutesy stuff his release by The Doopees "Doopee Time" is pretty insane and almost frightening at times. His other cds "An Adventure in Inevitable Chance", "Music For Astro Age", and "Music For Living Sound" are also well worth obtaining for the gems of sound within. I'll post a discogs page here: http://www.discogs.com/artist/Yann+Tomita
Nobukazu Takemura - This guy has some wonderful electronic/experimental type stuff. His stuff also has a sort of wide-eyed childhood innocence to it all. He's the founder of the Childisc label that also puts out some other interesting Japanese electronic artists (like Suppa Micro Pamchop). "Hoshi No Koe" on the Thrill Jockey label is a good place to start with him (that where I started at least). His collaboration with Aki Tsuyuko (another great musician) titled "Songbook" is a fun one to listen to. Wiki page is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobukazu_Takemura
And there you have it... I'll just stop there since that's a lot to focus on at the same time. I will mention... if all the "modern scene" is getting you down... perhaps you could track down some good tunes from older Japanese performers worthy of a listen like Meiko Kaji, The Peanuts, Kyuu Sakumoto, Arai Yumi (aka Yuming), and the like... Either way, I hope these above suggestions, links, and descriptions are helpful and informative for some of you seeing new and interesting stuff that Japan has to offer!
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http://www.last.fm/music/Kazuki+Tomokawa