eX-Girl is a Japanese synth pop band. They claim to hail from the planet Kero Kero. They are described as psychedelic, space rock, jazz fusion, jagged alternating vocal harmonies, sugary synthesiser pop, punk, prog, epic/atmospheric, noise-rock, wavering 3 part a capella, borderline operatic vocals, often in the space of a single song. Live performances are known to include home-made costume during the show, synchronised robot dancing and frog-related items. Enthusiastic supporters include Mike Patton and Jello Biafra:

“eX-Girl are a beautiful example of information overload. Jagged 3 part vocal harmonies, adventurous arrangements, and songs that hook you like the sucker that you are. Take all of these treats, wrap it in an ultra-bright technicolor live show with surreal homemade costumes, and you’ve got the sensation of being strapped in on an out-of-control carnival ride that will leave you standing in line waiting for another turn.” - Mike Patton

Alternative in every sense of the word they bear no direct similarities to other artists as a whole.

eX-Girl formed in late 1997, the brainchild of Hoppy Kamiyama who gathered a trio of females, each with a strong singing background. Despite having no previous musical instrument experience, the girls were already touring after a minimum of practice, even releasing their first album Heppoco Pou in 1998, six months after being founded by Kamiyama. A brief tour to the United States followed due to Heppoco Pou being accepted warmly on a San Francisco college radio station.

By 2002, eX-Girl had a new lady on guitar in the form of Keikos, formerly of Super Junky Monkey and were touring Finland to support the release of “Back To The Mono Kero” over there. Following this was possibly the biggest break for the band, being invited by Siouxsie & The Banshees to open for them for their United Kingdom tour, after having impressed them during their opening slot in the US tour leg. Further solo touring came afterwards along with recording of the Luna Rose single, used in a COSE lipstick commercial in Japan.

2003 saw another member, drummer Fuzuki, part ways with the band. Her replacement was Chapple, who brought another new dimension to the band’s sound. Keikos too parted ways after new material for the fifth album was completed, being replaced by Zorek. During a festival in San Francisco, former Dead Kennedys frontman and Alternative Tentacles label owner, Jello Biafra saw eX-Girl’s performance and praised the band greatly, offering to release their next album in the United States. In 2004, eX-Girl’s latest (and most polished) album, Endangered Species was released on the AT label.

This year sees the return of Keikos to the fold and new drummer Yoko, taking over duties from a departing Chapple.

Kirilo/Kirilola - Bassist, synth player, vocalist and co-writer of all material with band manager/producer Hoppy Kamiyama. The only remaining original member left, she tends to be the leading figure of the group and comes up with most of their costume designs.

Keikos - Guitarist and vocalist. Her entrance into the band brought a meatier guitar and more aggressive guitar sound, most likely due to her time in Super Junky Monkey. Replaced Chihiro, departed, returned to the fold again.

Yoko - Drums and vocals. The latest addition to the eX-Girl lineup, replacing Chapple.

eX-Girl in Helsinki

pop muzik

Tofu Song

Source: Wikipedia

Yui is a Japanese pop artist who writes her own songs and plays acoustic guitar. Since the age of 16 she’s been writing her own songs and performing. She hails from Fukuoka, Japan. She is still relatively unknown outside of Japan, but her song “LIFE”, from her single by the same name, was the 5th ending theme for Bleach, a popular Japanese anime series, which has brought her some international fame.

Upon leaving Fukuoka for Tokyo, YUI wrote the song “feel my soul”. She was planning to release it on an indie label as a tribute to her hometown, when the song caught the ears of Fuji TV producer, Mr. Yamaguchi, who happened to see the demo video clip. He claimed YUI’s voice haunted him so much that he went out of his way to visit the recording studio himself. He even made his channel’s prime-time drama “Fukigen na Gene” an extraordinary tie-in with YUI’s debut track.

Check out the official site of this beautiful 20 year old artist: Yui

I also brought some of her youtube videos to you:

Title: Life

Title: Feel My Soul

Title: Rolling Star

Source: wiki.theppn

Namie Amuro - the dethroned Queen of Pop after her fame was eclipsed by Ayumi Hamasaki. Ouch. But that hasn’t stopped Namie from performing and churning out music over the years. She was noted in her early years for her Westernized dance music and popularized fashion whose followers came to be nicknamed Amurā (Amurer in English). Debuting in 1992 as part of the quintet, Super Monkey’s, she later debuted solo in 1995 to phenomenal success with producer Tetsuya Komuro. Severing her ties with Komuro in 2001, Amuro has reestablished herself as a R&B artist. Her last album, Queen of Hip-Pop (2005) debuted at #2 and has been certified double platinum since its release. She has nine #1 singles, five of which have sold over 1,000,000 copies.

Namie Amuro was born in Naha City, Okinawa, Japan. She is the daughter of Emiko Taira who is Japanese-Italian. Emiko’s father’s identity is unknown. Amuro is the last of three children Emiko had with her biological father before their divorce. Amuro’s parents divorced when she was a toddler.

Amuro got her start when she was discovered by Masayuki Makino, the president of Okinawa Actors’ School, after coming along with a friend who was currently enrolled in the school. It was him who later at the age of 14 placed her in a group called Super Monkeys along with Minako Ameku, Nanako Takushi, Hisako Arakaki and Anna Makino. They left the school and made their major label debut with the double a-side single, “Koi no Cute Beat / Mr. USA” on September 15, 1992 on Toshiba-EMI.

After she got out of the band, Namie became a single artist and a succesful one at that. She took a little hiatus in the year 1998 to give birth to her baby, her fame declined. Mostly due to the fact that she hadn’t done any promotional work and the fact that being married with a kid takes a blow on your music career as you are longer as cool as a young, chic and hip popstar.

However, in 2004 until present, Namie’s stardom is on the rise again and she is back in full force armed with new genres (she immersed herself in R&B in the interim period) and a new look. Read more about it here.

I think her songs are pretty good. Check them out:

Baby Don’t Cry

Can’t Sleep

No

Enjoy!

Source: Wikipedia

Next to Utada Hikaru, I’d say Ayumi Hamasaki is second although many would beg to differ that Ayumi is first and so on. But let’s not getting into a pissing contest, let’s get into details of this talented singer.

Ayumi Hamasaki is a Japanese pop singer. She is one of the most prolific and influential Japanese pop singers in Japanese music history, and is dubbed “the Empress of J-Pop”.

Since her debut in 1998 with her first single “poker face”, she has sold more than 46 million copies, with the releases of her eight full-length studio albums, one mini-album, two compilation albums, 40 singles, and several non-studio albums, being the top selling solo and female artist and the fourth top selling Japanese artist in the history of Japan.[1] With the release of her 40th single “Blue Bird”, Hamasaki’s single sales have passed the 20 million mark, making her the first solo and female singer to do so.[2]

With the release of her 39th single “Startin’ / Born To Be…” in 2006, Hamasaki became the first female singer to have 27 #1 singles (the most #1 singles a Japanese female artist has ever achieved) and 38 singles in the Top 10 of the Japanese Oricon charts. She has 15 consecutive #1 singles to date (starting from “Free & Easy”). Hamasaki is also the first Japanese artist to have her first original eight studio albums top the charts.

Ayumi has also won the Grand Prix at the Japan Record Taishou (the Japanese equivalent of the Grammys) three times in a row, from 2001–2003. She refused to be nominated in 2004 due to the Avex-Matsuura incident (see My Story era in Ayumi’s wikipedia profile). Ayumi Hamasaki no longer accepts awards. Oh well. I guess she did what she thought is right.

Anyway let’s look at some of her video clips:

Videoclip for the song, Dearest

Videoclip for Fairyland

Videoclip for AngelSong

Frankly, I prefer Utada Hikaru to Ayumi anytime. I cannot appreciate her voice - it’s just too uhm…whiney. Oh don’t hate me Ayumi Fans :P

And you need to spell it that way too - no caps and with a period at the end. w-inds. is a J-pop group that gain their fame from a humble beginning in Shibuya and Yoyogi Park, performing every Sunday for the crowd there. Then in 2001, they released their album w-inds.~1st message~ to the public and the rest is history.

My ex-flatmate loves them and would order their special edition DVDs all the way from Japan. Yes, a fanatic. And that means we all get our fair share of w-inds. whenever the speakers are on. They’re alright, typical boyband to me so i don’t really dig them all that much. Actually, she should be the one writing this post since she’s such the w-inds. fangirl that she is. This post will be at least 2000 words long because she will be including her analysis on each and every songs but anyway, she won’t be writing I will so…yea. LOL.

w-inds. has a wide and strong fan base around Asia. They are especially popular in Taiwan and was the only Japanese artiste to be invited to perform on MTV Chinese Awards in Taiwan in 2006. They have held concerts in Taiwan twice (2004 and 2005) both receiving good response from fans. In 2004, their concert tickets sold out within 23 minutes and that set a record in Taiwan for the “artiste with the fastest selling tickets”, as not even one Taiwanese artiste was able to beat that. Several popular Taiwanese celebrities have attended their concerts as well.

They have yet to go to Hong Kong. However, so far, they have only held video conferences with their Hong Kong fans. They have been to China to perform in 2002 and has taken part in a China-Japan music festival in 2006.

Their success is pretty much like BackStreet Boys but Japanese version if you know what I mean. EAch of the member of w-inds are loved by teeny boppy girls from these asian nations -my ex-flatmate included.

The members are:-

Name: Keita Tachibana
Role: Vocalist, dancer
Birth date: 16 December 1985
Horoscope: Sagittarius
Birth place: Fukuoka, Japan
Height: 183cm
Blood type: B
Keita is especially famous for his incredible voice which can go up to 5-8 octaves above normal males.

Name: Ryohei Chiba
Role: Background vocalist, dancer
Birth date: 18 November 1984
Horoscope: Scorpio
Birth place: Hokkaido, Japan
Blood type: B
Ryohei is well-known for his dancing, break dancing to be specific. He has done many breaking stunts during performances. Even so, he is constantly seen trying to improve his breaking skills.

Name: Ryuichi Ogata
Role: Background vocalist, dancer, rapper
Birth date: 17 December 1985
Horoscope: Sagittarius
Birth place: Hokkaido, Japan
Blood type: O
Ryuichi is renowned for his rapping in their studio work as well as dynamic live rapping during their concerts. Touted as one of the best rappers for his generation, Ryuichi have also learned under the study of famous Da Pump.

Some videos to appease your curiousity of their talent; if you have any:-

Source: Wikipedia; w-inds.

I love this American born Japanese singer. I think she’s really talented and I love her sultry sweet voice. When i was a teenager (not too long ago, mind you :P), I use to listen to her songs all the time. My favorite song of All time is Final Distance - you have to see the videoclip (directed by her husband) - i was in my emo-stages in life at the time and this song just calls to me. Apparently the song Final Distance was dedicated to a little girl who died…:( And another of my fav. from her is Hikari - I was less angsty then and the song cheers me up whenever. And OMG, i saw an interview of her on Channel V a few years back and she has the most cutest accent…a hint of american and japanese all mixed together… i know I sound like a teeny bopper but I have a thing for accents and languages. That’s why i took Linguisitcs as a minor in University!

Hikaru Utada was born in New York City, New York, United States to Japanese parents, who both had roots in the Japanese music industry: her father, Teruzane Utada, was a producer (who produced her records too), while her mother, Junko Utada, was an enka singer (she performed under the stage name “Keiko Fuji”). She made her first professional recording at the age of twelve, and recorded her first album, Precious, in 1996 under the pseudonym Cubic U. The album led to her career overseas. In an MTV interview (MTV’s You Hear It First, October 2004), Utada said: “Someone in Japan heard it, at a Japanese record company, and he said, ‘Oh, can’t you write in Japanese? You speak Japanese.’ And I didn’t want to say no, so I had to try it.”

She is currently married to Kazuaki Kiriya, a photographer and film director. He has directed several of her music videos, including “Final Distance”, “traveling”, “Hikari”, “Sakura Drops”, “Deep River”, “Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro”, “Be My Last”, “Passion”, and “Keep Tryin’”. Also, “Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro” is the theme song of Kiriya’s directorial debut, Casshern.

And what has she achieved in 2006?

* Rank 10th HMV’s Top 30 Best Japanese Singer of All Time
* -Golden Disc- Song of the Year (Be My Last)
* Rank 3rd – Total Female Artist Sales in Japan
* Oricon 40th Special Anniversary “We Love Music Awards” From Jan 4, 1968 ~ April 24, 2006

* Rank 1st – (First Love)
* Rank 4th – (Distance)
* Rank 8th – (Deep River)

* Rank 4th – Oricon Favorite Artist of 2006 from rankings of 20,000 fans[9]

There. I think it’s quite a feat :)

Videos clips of Final distance and a lot more:

And while i was searching for videoclips, i came upon this little gem. She did a remake of Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Greenday! I still like the original version better but damn, she sang it pretty well because that song hits a high note:

Hikari:

English version of Hikari, i love love love this version :)

I hope you enjoyed her talent as much as i did today. It’s a pleasure to be writing about her actually :)

Source: Wikipedia; Utada Hikaru Official Site

The Lonely Planet guide to Japan recommends in the entertainment section to go out and see some bands based on how silly their names sound. While I never got around to trying that myself, I did start collecting silly band names. Here are some of them:

• Ogre You Asshole - a pop/rock outfit from Nagoya
• Bump of Chicken - rock band from….somewhere
• Analog Fish - an indie group based in Tokyo
• ashphalt frustration - more indie musicians, this time from Chiba
• Chatmonchy - all girl indie group
• Thee Michelle Gun Elephant - now defunct rock band from Chiba
• Yum! Yum! Orange - “Girl pop meets ska”
• Missile Innovation - rock band with former Do As Infinity’s frontman
• Intestine Baalism - thrash and death metal band

There’s oh-so-many more bands I could list here, but I thought I would let you, dear readers, comment with more. Seriously, they must just go through an English dictionary and find some words they like the sound of to get their band names! Anyway, what strange Japanese band names have you heard?

Perhaps I’m hypocritical for saying this, but I don’t mind a bit of idoru j-pop now and then. I bet if it was in English, and if I saw the singer plastered in commercials/the news everywhere, and if the record companies tried forcing the music down my throat, then I would probably loathe it like I loathe the Britneys and the Jessicas of the western pop world.

They probably do all that here as well, but thankfully my lack of Japanese has insulated me from the bollocks. Hence, I can enjoy the odd piece of J-pop music, particularly the quirky, weird, boppy stuff that I’ve come to associate with Japanese pop culture as a whole.

One of these idoru that I don’t mind is Ai Otsuka. There’s a lot of mundane crap on her album LOVE COOK but the album was worth buying just for the song 3 Minute Ramen Cooking. It’s insane and my new cooking anthem.

Also worth listening to are SMILY and U-Botto. I have no idea what that means.

Anyway, comment if you can recommend something similar. iTunes fails for not having Ms Otsuka listed.

FUJI ROCK FUJI ROCK FUJI ROCK FUJI ROCK! Sweet googlymoogly YES! I can’t wait for this festival. The Fuji Rock Festival - Japan’s largest outdoor festival - gets in excess of 100,000 attendees and attracts big-name international acts. This year’s lineup include Franz Ferdinand, The Hives, Jet, Mogwai, The Scissor Sisters and this little band you may have heard of, known as Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

Sweet googlymoogly YES!

But there’s also plenty of Japanese bands to go with the internationals. I’m looking forward to Asian Kung-Fu Generation, personally.

It’s a three-day weekend festival where you camp (or hotel, if you’re that type) in the forests of Niigata prefecture. Niigata isn’t actually anywhere near Mt Fuji as the name suggests. The festival used to be held near Fuji but was nearly destroyed by a typoon in its first year. Hence, it’s new, permanent home in Niigata. It makes for an excellent weekend out in the Japanese summer, with slight relief from the heat of Tokyo in the last weekend of July.

Now’s the downside…the three day pass is ￥39,800 (about US$400), or ￥16,800 for one of the 10,000 one-day passes sold each day. Add an extra ￥2,500 for camping, and ￥2,000 per day car park. The shinkansen there is another ￥6,000 or so, depending on where you’re travelling from. Then there’s food, souvenirs, alcohol…

It’s an expensive weekend out, for sure. But it’ll be a festival you’ll never forget, either.

Links:
Fuji Rock Festival - official page in English
Wikipedia article on the Fuji Rock Festival

I learned of Morning Musume from some fanboys who showed me pictures and said “Isn’t she gorgeous? Wouldn’t you just drool over her?” to which my response was “No, I don’t bend that way”, to which they said “But! But! It’s Morning Musume!” to which I said “What’s a Morning Musume?”. True story.

Morning Musume is a strange project not unlike western music talent quest shows like American Idol. It is a all-girl pop band made up of many members who auditioned for the part on a television show. Every year there are “graduations” and new recruits, all of which is televised.

Most of the “graduates” (that is, members who leave the band) move on to other bands which are part of Hello! Project, the bizarre…well, project that concocted Morning Musume. Some of the failed auditioners also get recruited into other bands in the Hello! Project.

There are too many girls (all considered idols, or idoru) to name or even remember. Apparently Morning Musume also comprises of sub-groups that also release songs under a different name. The band and it’s sub-bands can get “major reshuffling” as if it’s a corporate organisation. Which I guess it is.

They have their own weekly television show known as Hello! Morning where the band primarily features, but other Hello! Project groups also appear. It’s all incredibly confusing and I’m amazed anyone can keep up with the band’s current member count, never mind the girls’ names.

The youngest member ever recruited was 12 years old. There are currently 10 members. If you expect me to name them or to go into any further detail, you’re crazy. I think I broke my brain just trying to work out Hello! Project.

The members of Morning Musume which I believe is accurate as of February 10th, 2006.

Links:
Wikipedia’s article on Morning Musume
Wikipedia’s article on Hello! Project