My gateway drug was Pizicato 5 in 2001, followed quickly by Utada Hikaru and Yamaguchi Momoe. Then I got into Hello! Project which took up a lot of time because there were so many different groups and keeping up with all of them took up a lot of time - so many radio appearances, tv appearances and live concert recordings (the fans took it to new levels, sometimes recording from more than one radio mic simultaneously so you'd have separate recordings from each mic.) I finally weaned myself off all that in around 2009 - most of my favourite members had left and Tsunku was taking more of a back seat on the writing/production and the newer songs just didn't appeal to me as much. Nowadays when I listen to JPop it's mainly older stuff: The Peanuts, Ishida Ayumi, Candies, Yamaguchi Momoe, and Shiina Ringo's earlier stuff.
Since the brief here is more mainstream pop music, I'll post my favourite song by TM Network. This so far, however, is the only song by them that I like so far. It's in my opinion a great bit of 80s pop. 'Rainbow Rainbow'. I can't find this (original?) version on YouTube, so here is a Spotify link. RAINBOW RAINBOW
I love Shibuya-Kei from the 90s/early 2000s and Golden Era Morning Musume a lot. It's nice seeing some P5 & Aya Matsuura here. I'll try and post some of my fave raves later.
Radio Foundation "Brain Washing" by a really cool indie/alternative band; never been able to find a release of it or by them on physical format sadly. Just over 10 years old I think, probably more famous for having a music video directed by Shota Matsuda who I'd seen in a couple of films
Here's some good stuff... Shibuya-Kei queen Kahimi Karie with production and vocals by Horie Hirohisa and written by Momus... A phenomenal song.
One of the cornerstones of Shibuya-Kei music Flipper's Guitar with Groove Tube. Keigo Oyamada would go on to become Cornelius and be a central figure in the Shibuya scene.
Pizzicato V's first incarnation and first single, The Audrey Hepburn Complex. Pizzicato Five went on to become the biggest Shibuya-Kei export. The band at this time were founders Konishi Yasuharu, Keitaro Takanami along with vocalist Mamiko Sasaki and drummer Ryo Kamomiya. They released a few singles with this line-up on Yellow Magic Orchestra's Haruomi Hisono's label Non-Standard before moving to Sony and losing Ryo.
Pizzicato 5's first Sony release was Couples. An album of gently jazz songs. It was the last Pizzicato Five album with Ryo and Mamiko.
For the next 3 albums, all under the Sony label, the Pizzicato Five line-up stayed as Yasuharu Konishi, Keitaro Takanami and new vocalist Takao Tajima. They made an album of 'blue eyed soul' music called Bellisima but their following album, On Her Majesty's Request and it's sequel - a semi-remix album called Soft Landing on The Moon - really pointed the way to the core of the Shibuya scene's sound.
And then this happened... Vocalist Takao Tajimi left to form his own band - Original Love - and new vocalist Maki Nomiya joined as they moved to Columbia records. Their 1991 'Countdown to Ecstasy' series - three EPs and two albums released over a 5 month period - solidified the Shibuya-Kei aesthetic. One EP being acoustic Jazz, one album a easy listening TV soundtrack and the rest a mixture of every genre under the sun. One track, from their album 'This Years Girl', went on to be their best known tune...
Glad to see another Morning Musume fan! I could never get into the minutiae quite to that level and I'm struggling right now just to get a handle on all the Hello Project stuff that there is ... the concert vids on youtube are still pretty good to watch, however I jumped ship in 2009 because I thought Tsunku had gone off the boil when actually he just changed direction. He has been writing all of Mornign Musme C-ute and Berryz Koubo songs since 2010 though so I don't think he took a back seat until recently - he's unwell and probably exhausted. WHilst I think he wrote many of his best songs in the 2000s (He won't ever top The Peace! period) the work he's been doing in the 2010s is light years ahead of most idol groups (Ok, Momoiro Clover Z and Dempagumi.Inc perhaps an exception, but they are stylistically so different anyway) and I think the 20th anniversary best discs are perhaps my favourite all time pop CDs. I play them more than the earlier ones now, though that might just be burnout ...
Thank you for these. They are nothing if not different. I haven't really encountered Shibuya-Kei much so this is pretty educational for me. I do love this - sounds very French This band are definitely on my get-to-know list now!
Apologies if I came off a bit aggressive there. Jpop is a wide, wide net and I guess I have my own opinions about what does and doesn't classify. It's even harder when a genre is essentially a western construction designed to put a bunch of disparate stuff in a box. I'm happy to keep the net wide, of course, I don't want to be policing other people's tastes!
Yeah there's a lot of stuff, especially as I delved back into all the stuff I'd missed from 1997 onwards. Looks like I jumped ship around the same time you did, 2009. The only H!P groups I paid attention to after that was LoVendoЯ and Hangry & Angry. Like all good H!P things, they didn't last long. LoVendoЯ started to go awry when one of the guitarists left and the group lost their unique sound, and to really stick the boot in, one of their two singers Tanaka Reina paid more attention to her personal projects and the group just kindof faded away. I saw Hangry & Angry (Ishikawa Rika & Yoshizawa Hitomi) at Camden Underworld in 2010. They disappeared a year later. Nobody seems to want to stay in the same place too long, or if they do - management has other plans.
Any group willing to call themselves, SEAGULLS SCREAMING KISS HER KISS HER gats a big 'ol thumb's up in my book!
LoVendoЯ - Kono yo ni Shinjitsu no Ai ga Hitotsu dake Aru Nara Hangry & Angry - Kiss Me Kill Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBSui-ux7ZI
I think semi-western style Japanese pop got started with The Ventures' tour of Japan and the eleki bands that followed in their footsteps. They made some great music. This is Munetaka Inoue & His Sharp Five playing "Haru no Umi". The band in the photo is somebody else.
I wonder if a lot of these post graduation groups are contract related. Like, they promise these girls that there'll be a post Morning Musume career (or whatever group it is) for them but in truth it's a few singles or an album depending on how well it sells. Even Maki Goto disappeared when she got significantly into her twenties. They just don't want older girls hanging around for whatever reason, which I think is a real shame and doesn't make Upfront look that classy imo and I'm always hoping it will change in some significant way - I actually thought that Reina was being given a good shot to do what she wanted to do post MM but yeah, it fizzled out. That said Lovendor were no Scandal and their records didn't sell that well ... but I think with a bit of pushing and a couple of signature songs she could and should have had longevity ... she's got on camera charisma like few do.
I was really into Musume in the early 2000s. I have a 90% collection of everything H!P from the start until about 2004. Shortly after the hellopocolypse wiped things out, when Ai Kago got sacked twice, when Yaguchi quit Minimoni, when Charmy called the fans creepy and they freaked out, when H!P kids came into being, when Tampopo weren't Tampopo anymore - the dark days.