Overseas it was a year of big rollouts. There was a lot of hype behind releases by Lady Gaga, Kanye West and Miley Cyrus. But will these acts be remembered for paparazzi fights and “twerking” more than their music? Instead of ranking the year’s releases, The Japan Times music writers ...
While boy bands such as Arashi and Exile continued transmogrifying midtempo pap into Oricon gold, the interesting twists and turns ...
Back in June, I picked up on minimalist psychedelic postpunk trio Extruders’ “Colors” as the album of the year so ...
Few albums this year rewarded repeat listens as generously as Yosi Horikawa’s “Vapor.” The Chiba-based producer makes fecund, wide-eyed electronica constructed from manipulated field recordings, percussion, ethnic chants and slightly new-age keyboards. If that sounds awful on paper, it’s intoxicating in practice: each track ...
If there’s one thing I’ve taken out of 2013, it’s that the kids are alright. Perhaps as a result of growing up Internet savvy, with easy access to decades of music and countless genres at their fingertips, Japan’s young artists have spent the year ...
Variety wasn’t something the Oricon Charts delivered much over the course of 2013. With few exceptions, the biggest sellers were the same as they ever were — Johnny’s boy bands such as Arashi, Kanjani 8 and Kis-My-FT2; AKB48 and their affiliated projects; and a ...
Jazz pianist and singer Emi Meyer has a lot of fond memories of the holiday season. “For me, a lot of it, is seeing family and traveling. On New Year’s I have really fond memories of going to the temples in Kyoto and spending ...
This year, the Ozzy Osbourne-fronted Black Sabbath released its first studio album since 1978, and while it was a fine album, I think they may have been “out-Sabbathed” by Japan’s very own doom-metal band, Church Of Misery, who released its fourth album, “Thy Kingdom ...
The big music story of 2013 hasn’t been the emergence of a bright new artist or genre. When people look back on this year they’ll think of Robin Thicke’s creepy uncle routine, Miley Cyrus giving oral pleasure to builders’ hardware or Kanye West’s Nietzschean ...
One of the most interesting questions guitarist Juan Manuel Cañizares has been asked by a Japanese fan had to do with his fingernails. “The fans always ask me very (detailed) things. From my nails to the way I play, they want to know everything,” ...
For the final Jazz Notes column of the year I met up with writer, blogger and presenter of InterFM’s “OK Jazz” show James Catchpole to talk about the year in jazz at Eddie’s Lounge in Tokyo’s Arakawa Ward. It’s run by our mutual friend, ...
You watched the video for their comeback single on YouTube, devoured the reviews and retweeted the hype. When the album came out, you bought it immediately and had it on repeat for weeks afterwards. And then you waited, waited … but they never came. ...
This was supposed to be the year that changed the Japanese music business. Back in March I wrote that major international streaming services Spotify and Rdio would likely launch in Japan “sometime in the next few months.” That, I confidently predicted, would be a ...
This past weekend’s Red Bull BC One breakdancing event in Seoul was something of a battle of titans. In the world of breakdancing, BC One is one of four major international competitions in the year — Battle of the Year, UK B-Boy Championships and ...
Dancers displeased with the anti-dance law and the shutdown of a popular club in Osaka are taking their arguments to the screens this month in a documentary titled “Save The Club Noon.” Noon, located in the Nakazaki-cho district of Osaka, was forced to shut ...
