When the opening notes to the Rihanna hit “We Found Love” played over the QVC Marine Stadium sound system Sunday night, the packed-tight crowd erupted louder than it had at any point in the show. Glow sticks were thrust into the air harder and ...

“I’m Yours!” is the third album to come out of the partnership between Japanese pop singer Miu Sakamoto and The Shanghai Restoration Project, an American outfit led by Dave Liang that merges traditional Chinese instruments with contemporary electronic music. They’ve been handling the production ...

Something tells me Her Ghost Friend doesn’t believe in the concept of guilty pleasures. The duo of DJ Obake and singer Shinobu Ono create pop music with bouncy hooks that isn’t too far removed from the songs currently topping the Oricon charts. Her Ghost ...

Kansai-based trio √thumm’s music doesn’t just mix clashing styles together, but also touches on two cultural representations of Japan today. The group attracted attention around Kansai with two albums of maximalist techno-pop, futuristic numbers resembling the modern overload of Perfume, albeit without big-company money. ...

At this time last year, Tokyo’s Cuz Me Pain label was a collection of artists recording dark and dreamy dance tracks from their bedrooms, and that got them a smattering of overseas attention from various music blogs. In 2012, a lot has changed. Various ...

Please show sympathy to all those involved in tengal6. The six-person pop-rap group is “supported” by Tenga, a Japanese adult-toy company (first line of their online concept: “The future of masturbation is here!”). I can just imagine the members of tengal6 dreaming of pop ...

The biggest event of the year for AKB48, the 48-member pop group that’s the most popular music act in Japan today, arrives next Wednesday. Thousands of fans are expected to fill the historic Nippon Budokan to watch, while Fuji TV will broadcast the three-hour ...

It’s fitting that the leadup to Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s debut album has focused heavily on her image. She’s a fashion blogger and model now pursuing music, her clothes grabbing as much attention as her songs. Her savviest move was releasing three bonkers music videos ...

“Prolific” doesn’t even come close to describing Hideki Kaji’s career. Since the mid-90s, the Tokyo artist has been putting out albums and singles of upbeat indie-pop music at a constant clip. None of his releases are amazing, but his entire discography is still consistent. ...

“Mindful Beats Vol. 2″ has one of the most simultaneously accurate and misleading album names of the past year. On a literal level, the title tells no lies — it is a second volume of beats made by Osaka producer Masaki Konagai, who records ...

Last September, music magazine Spin wrote that America was experiencing an “electronica revolution.” Spearheaded by speaker-destroying producers such as Skrillex and Deadmau5, Spin wrote that a “new rave generation” has helped make electronic dance music an inescapable presence on the nation’s music scene, to ...

It has been a good year for Japanese pop music so far. The Oricon charts still house the likes of AKB48, Arashi and a slew of acts that make me want to bang my head against the wall, but a crop of J-pop artists ...