6th Station ~Other Bands for H!P Fans~

[Starra]

Because that was originally a stage song, lol.
[youtube]8AggWkcP0DE[/youtube]

[esm]

Okay, so I haven't been paying attention to non-H!P J-Pop for many years now, and I noticed that the charts are dominated by mostly idol groups and K-Pop artists these days. Are there any good "real" artists (well, people that write and play their own music, maybe, or people that can really sing) out there that still releases material?

I think a lot of the artists I used to listen to aren't really active anymore. Still need to listen to YUKI's album from last year though.

edit: hmm, Otsuka Ai's singing in a band called Rabbit now.

[youtube]QVbsSAx_67A[/youtube]

[TotallyUncool]

That sounds pretty good.

've been listening more to retro Taiwanese pop, ancient HK pop, and Kpop. As far as Jpop goes, I've reverted back to my tendency to like marginal/semi-obscure things -- the current version of ZONE, Hatsune Miku (who isn't obscure, but isn't human, either), and IOSYS/Touhou doujin stuff -- but I'd like to find some things that are current and at least semi-popular...

[Reina]

Lead, they debuted for 10 years and managed to survive under a market dominated by Johnny's Entertainment, and without the mass media reporting about them much.
(I think they are kind of similar to Morning Musume... they have a group of loyal fans who stayed with them since 10 years ago)

[youtube]1QyZDRDTEdg[/youtube]

and compare it to their debut single 10 years ago hahaha

[youtube]q5Mv5x1G9gU[/youtube]

[esm]

I listened to Lead since their first album. Didn't even know they're still around.

[PureLight]

That Rabbit stuff sounds fantastic.

[Starra]

[youtube]SoxbQEmufG4[/youtube]

This is so cute, but so bad. Dammit, Japan.


Also, they remind me of Da Xiao Jie.

[Zunu]

In case it's not obvious, that is an old classic.



In other words, those little munchkins sound like...

SPEED on speed!

[TotallyUncool]

And that SPEED videos is so old that they all look like they're about 12 years old...

Spoiler: show

I think that a lot of us have reached the point where we've developed a long personal history with Jpop. I thought that might bother me, but it doesn't so much, I guess, because it's not like my looonnnng personal history with American pop music, which is far too tied in to my emotional history when I was younger (one of the main reasons why I've been taking an indefinite vacation from Western pop culture in general).
My personal history with Jpop and Asian pop culture is tied into my emotional history over the past ten years or so, which has had its serious ups and downs; but that's still far, far better than the godawful self-destructive emo craziness that I went through during my teens and twenties.

[Reina]

^ during the same year...

[youtube]gPcPseeICjs[/youtube]