Ho! Ho! Ho! Christmas is around the corner and here I wishes all readers a very Merry Christmas! Christmas is a very special moment for many people, same goes to the Japan music industry because many artists will release single to celebrate this wonderful day. And here I will continue the tradition by sharing Christmas JPOP songs with you all!
Well, there are a total of 13 Christmas songs in the playlist I created. And I also include Christmas songs from ๅฎๅฎ (Hiromi) again that I featured last year, this is because I think Hiromi’s songs are really nice and worth a listen again! And many of the songs are love related, perhaps during Christmas season, many will want to celebrate with the their most loved. Songs like “Christmas Love” by Nishino Kana is really sweet and lovely, while “my Secret Santa” by moumoon is cute and perhaps YU-A‘s song best reflect my situation. Read on to access to the playlist!
One of Japan biggest attraction is the blooming Japan Pop and Entertainment business, where it has a lot of popular artists, movie works, music releases, gossips and more. As a J-Pop lover, it will be so good if able to keep track and follow the latest news and updates. Well certainly you can read the latest news by newspapers or visiting Japanese News sites. But are there any sites that is in English?
I found a couple of websites that dedicated to bringing the latest news from Japan Entertainment industries to the J-Pop fans! Hurray! All of these sites are very up to date and talks variety of topics like music reviews, drama ratings, happenings and more. Here I present you the J-Pop websites that you can check it out and follow!
It’s been a while since I last update this blog and I would like to take opportunity to wish all the readers a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Hope you guys enjoy your holiday! ๐ Here I share with you two lovely Christmas songs from a great Japanese singer Hiromi from her album call “Hot Chocolate”. I really like her songs and she is one my most favorite artists in 2009.
It’s been a very busy year for me as you can see I can’t keep up with the updating of the blog, and I had been thinking to get this blog a fresh new look, but with the busy schedule, I don’t know whether I can make it or not. Hopefully in the future I will get back to be more active in blogosphere again. Once again, Merry Christmas!
To be honest, I was a little shock that ARASHI already formed for a decade! Time is running really fast and really congratulate them for their success! It’s not easy to be together for such long time and prove that they are really a fan favorite group. I still remember that I actually bought their first album 9 years ago which together with a big poster and I still keeping it. Ah what a nostalgic moment when I look at the poster. But actually they seemed didn’t change a lot compare to their early era.
To celebrate this great moment, ARASHI released a compilation album which I think is a great collection. Inside the tracks there’s a song call “5×10” which is really nice and meaningful, especially in the lyric it says “Because of you (fan), we are able to shine and be until this moment”. What a great song! ๐
I’m a fan of Sakura (cherry blossom) flower, I even make it as my blog’s favicon. As some of you guys already know, around March and April where spring season is coming, cherry blossom flowers blossom beautifully in Japan. Besides this, many Japanese artists also appreciate the beauty of their national flower by singing and composing Sakura related songs.
Sakura gives a lot of feeling to us, mainly are positive, happy together and love. Different artists describe this feeling uniquely in their own way. So today I present you the year 2009 edition of Sakura songs, a playlist that consists of this year’s new Sakura songs with some old one :D. Please enjoy. You can also go here for the Sakura songs that I compiled last year.
Today I’m back with year 2008 edition of Christmas J-Pop songs! Time is running really fast, I posted “Celebrate Christmas with J-Pop Music” about a year ago and now 2008’s Christmas is just around the corner. Same like last year, it’s going to be a lonely Christmas for me again.
This year, many popular artists release winter and Christmas related songs, at here I collected 13 songs from 12 artists. Most of them sounds really good and I really like songs by CHEMISTRY, Fukuhara Miho etc. Without saying anymore, below are the Christmas J-pop playlist for your ear pleasure. And not forgetting wishing you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! ๐
Today we are going to appreciate the beauty of illustration style Japanese music CD cover art. CD cover art is something unique, some covers are designed to reflect the music styles and atmosphere, and some are to portray the personality of the music artists or groups. Many of them are using illustration instead of using their own appearance to design the CD covers, and it does giving an artistic sense of the artist itself. This also shows that art and music are inseparable!
Various illustration style can be apply to the cover design, for example some using clean vector style, and some are using hand drawing to illustrate the cover. Plus, it does not restricted only Japanese Pop music, many other music genres also using illustration style especially rock/alternative music. Well I don’t want to touch much on anime related soundtracks, because most of them are illustrated! Ok, below are the 23 covers selected by me.
Well this is it. I hope you like some of those cover designs. To check out the larger versions of the cover, I created a Flickr sets to store all these nice covers above and will upload more J-pop nice illustration style CD covers in the future.
Well, I was rarely to share my own story in this blog, eventhough this blog is mine. But today is an odd day, i’m going to talk about my Japanese Pop heroes. These artists brought me to the world of Japanese Pop music and since then, got addicted and never turn back. They influenced and played a big role in my life, and the artists are SPEED, Ayumi Hamasaki and W-inds.
SPEED
SPEED is the first Japan music group I know and can be say that is SPEED that introduced me to the Japanese pop music. I bumped into them in year 1999 when watching an Asian MTV related music show. Actually is a little late to know them, but during that time, Japan influence started to blow in Malaysia. The show was showing “White Love”, probably their most popular song. The first thing that floated in my mind is that they are so pretty in there, and the song was great too. Since this, I start to listen to their music and they become my idol.
Among the four members, I like Takako Uehara the most. Well, a year later they decided to split and I was a little sad that time. I bought their graduation album CD “Carry On My Way” which is the first ever CD I bought. After SPEED disbanded, three of the members are going solo and one continue for studies. But none of them are become popular as compared to SPEED era. I wonder what they are doing now.
Ayumi Hamasaki
After SPEED disbanded, I found Ayumi Hamasaki. During that time, she already quite popular in Japan so in Malaysia, I can read some news about her. The first song I listened was “SEASONS”. The song was so nice and immediately she became my second idol. In my high school days, I always listen to her songs, buy her new album CD and so on. I spent quite some money on her CDs (although is not really that much). But since I was exposed to the MP3 thing, I start to collect her music in digital format instead.
Her songs are marvellous, although now I start to decline in listening her songs recently. Plus, her current music was least nice than her older day songs. But, in the end I still praise her as my idol and respect her hardwork and contribution to the J-pop scene. Recently, there is a news said that to celebrate the tenth year debuted as singer, Ayumi will release a complete single best album in mid September. This is a great news for fans including me. I will definitely purchase this best album when it is available.
W-inds.
W-inds. can consider as my high school heroes. W-inds. consists of three male teenagers and have a very youthful and clean image. Well this has to thank a local radio show that aired their song. When I first listen to their song “Feel the Fate”, I was stunned: the song is very nice and their voice is like girls voice! Besides that, they also dance really well which make me also start to learn how they dance through their song’s PV.
I can say that W-inds. songs are well fitted into my high school music taste, as well as life style. The songs, the shirts they wear, the dance move.. everything just cool. Actually one funny thing about them is when first debut, three of them was almost same height. But after that, the lead singer Keita suddenly grew so tall, almost half a head taller than the other two member. So I can see their pictures, Keita’s posing was adjusted in order not to look too tall.
End note
When writing this, I feel so nostalgic! What a nice memory of my early J-pop era. Although now I’m not like them as much as before, but never a doubt SPEED, Ayumi and W-inds. is my J-pop Heroes! About the radio show I mentioned earlier, is called “Simon san no Rakuen” of FM98.8. I rely on this show a lot when the Internet is not that convenient as today. So big thanks to the host too. The show is still going until today and I will seldom tune in too.
I wrote too much. And I want to ask fellow J-pop fans, who is your J-pop heroes?
Today is Father’s Day, so I take this opportunity to wish “Happy Father’s Day” and dedicate this song “Arigatou” by FLOW to my dad and every father in the world too ๐ . Arigatou means thank you in Japanese. I think the song’s Promotional Video is meaningful and touching, so I embed it along with this post. Hope you like it too.
THANKS father. Thank you from my heart, and this feeling will continue carry on, no matter what day. Happy Father’s Day.
FLOW – Arigatou
arigatou kokoro kara itsu no hi mo kanjiteru kono omoi woโฆ
toki wo kasanete sukoshi de mo bokura ha otona ni nareta ka na?
tabihitasura ni jibun dake wo shinjite yatte kita kedo
ito mo tayasuku taisetsu an mono wo ushianeru mijukusa ni
iyaki ga sashite nasu jutsu nai mama tohou ni kurete ita
demo doushite hongurai yoru no
fuchi ni tatteru no ni konna ni atatakai no?
Aisubeki hito no tashika na hikari ga ima boku wo oshiageteku
arigatou kokoro kara
komi ageru kimochi wo koraekirezu ni
afureru namida no sono naka ni utsuru no ha kimi datta yo
tomaru koto naki toki no naka nokosareta wazuka na jikan wo
kyou no inochi wo bokura ha dore kurai taisetsu ni omoeru ka na?
tada koushite sugusu mainichi wo kazoekirenai hitotachi no sasae no naka de
ikite iru koto no shiawase kanjiru kara nanka honto ni ureshikute
eien ni hakanasa wo
nageku mae ni kittoyareru koto ga aru
โimaโ to iu shunkan wo
sakiokuri ni suru no ha yametanda yo
mou dou shiyou mo nai! tte omoi ga tooku ikiba wo ushinatte
hitori BERANDA ni tobidashita
futo miageta yozora no tsukiagari ga yasashii yo
itsumo mimotte kurete itanda ne
arigatou kokoro kara
komi ageru kimochi wo ima ari no mama ni
nagashita namida to sono egao wo mou nido to hanasanai yo
One way check out the latest hot musics in Japanese music industry is by looking at their music charts. When speaking about Japanese music charts, the first thing that comes to mind will definitely is the Oricon. But there is more other charts that worth checking out too that I introduce in this post.
Oricon Style
I visit Oricon Style regularly. The ranking is based on the sales of the singles/album. Sorted by daily, weekly, and monthly, Oricon itself is already sufficient to check out the latest hit music. English version can be found at ThePPN.
Japan Billboard Hot 100
A Japanese music chart based on Billboard style calculation.
Yahoo! Music Ranking
Another impressive music charts brought to you by Yahoo!.
Recochoku Chaku Uta Ranking
A chart site dedicated to hand phone music tone (Chaku Uta). Normally the upcoming release songs will be first release as Chaku Uta. It is quite an important chart to look out because Japanese people used to download songs through hand phone.
