I wouldn't want to shout about it (since it might upset your New Year's hangover), but 2009 might just be the year that J-pop goes global. Several heavy hitters have set their sights on Western domination this year, and more than ever, their chances seem good.
Let's start with one of Japan's biggest-selling artists of all time: Hikaru Utada.
Before she actually tried it, foreign industry insiders and artists from Elton John to Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes predicted for some years that if any Japanese artist had a chance at truly cracking the West, it was Utada. It wasn't simply about numbers; although she boasts the No. 1, 4 and 8 biggest-selling albums in Japanese history, with more than 10 million sales of her 1999 debut album, "First Love," what really marked Utada out for international stardom was that she is fully bilingual, a product of her New York upbringing, and has a truly unique voice.