Music

Despite being a fraction of the size of Tokyo, Osaka boasts a long history of underground music that pushes boundaries. The tradition is being kept alive by experimental musician Koshiro Hino. His newest project, "Geist," is a multisensory sound-and light-show that features 13 performers, live ...

Minoru Mukaiya is one of the world's most played musicians, with millions of people across Japan listening to his songs every day — but most of them don't even notice. Mukaiya is a composer of hassha merodii, or train departure melodies, short jingles that whisk ...

More than 100,000 people are expected to attend this month's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in the Southern California desert. While heavyweight North American pop stars such as Beyonce and The Weeknd are grabbing the most attention, the lineup also features dozens of ...

"I have lived a life alongside jazz," says Kiyoshi Koyama, jazz critic, journalist and radio host. This is apparent on a recent visit to his home in Chiba Prefecture, where he and his wife live surrounded by walls of neatly organized records, CDs, books ...

Now that Spotify playlists have supplanted albums as the preferred method of consuming an artist's work, the concept of greatest-hits compilations feels both prescient and redundant, like releasing DJ mix albums in the era of SoundCloud. For the musicians themselves, though, such compilations can ...

Concert halls aren't just venues to enjoy music, they're landmarks. And among the many scattered around Tokyo, Suntory Hall has had the distinction of being described as a "jewel box of sound" by Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908-89). The hall, which will hold a ...

Around 60 people gathered at YouTube Space Tokyo on Tuesday to welcome Johnny & Associates to the 21st century. It was a day before the launch of the talent agency's first official YouTube channel, devoted to its Johnny's Jr. acts. It's a huge development ...

The members of Chai aren't content with "kawaii." That word — meaning "cute," but in a kind of pitiable way — gets tossed around a lot in Japan and by people overseas, who use it to refer to almost anything Japanese. "The media defines it ...

The South By Southwest (SXSW) music conference and festival in Austin, Texas, has long been a destination for Japanese acts looking to get noticed in the U.S. market. This year's gathering, which runs March 12-18, presents more options than ever for Japanese acts to ...

Bruce Foxton pauses for thought. "How would I describe what I'm doing? I suppose I'm flying the flag for those great songs." Foxton was bassist in The Jam, the mod revivalists who, spearheaded by Paul Weller, became one of the biggest bands to ever come ...

When was the last time you found yourself "in hell"? For Adam Graham, frontman for Japanese rock act Joy Opposites, it was last year. "The creation of this record was hell in a lot of ways," Graham says with a laugh. "Not in that it ...

Growing up as an ethnic Korean in Japan has given Kunihiko Ryo a unique perspective on the big picture, something that is especially useful in his role as music director for the opening and closing ceremonies at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. A pianist, composer and ...