The greatest japanese artists.

Vivaldi Amuro · 08-31-2006, 05:42 AM

The artists I mention here are here because I feel they can be classified as legendary. Excessively popular.

One artist in particular is personally my favorite in all of music-dom. However, he has not been around for long enough to topple who I feel defines Japanese music.

(Madroll I'm sorry =()

While I am not heavliy knowledgeable of the bands themselves, I hope you understand my choices of inclusion.

Spitz

I PERSONALLY feel these guys are the Japanese "Beatles". Their catalog is extensive, and their melodies are extremely pleasant. I'm sure most of you know of "Robinson". MUST I continue?

Classics: Robinson, Cherry, Umeboshi, Songs with kanji in them :P,
B'z

These guys just scream "classic" when you hear the lead singer's classic voice sing amongst the rock and rollin'. Real hard, loud music.

Classics: It's SHOWTIME!!, Lady Navigation, Liar Liar!!.. hell man, you have no clue how many of these guys' songs made it on japanese charts. Oricon fer life :p

Tomoyasu Hotei

Another guy who's singing voice just makes you think "classic". It's excessively charming and mature, and his songs are ones you can go back to over and over. GREAT guitar solos too.

Classics: Thrill, Circus, A song in Kanji that I like tons <.<, Nocturne No. 9

Chage & Aska: These singers DEFINE 80's music.. (If it wasn't for my top pick) Their soothing tunes have aged extraordinarly well throughout the years. You know guys have hit the big time if Miyazaki animates a 6 minute long music video for ya

(Check it out here! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8N-d7cT9mE)

Classics: HEART, YAH YAH YAH, On your mark

TUBE: Amazing vocals, and wonderfully written music that hardly ever gets boring. The powerful lead vocalist really absorbs you into it.

Classics: Only You, ALOT of Kanji songs, Ding! Dong! Dang!

Verbal (M-flo): Yup. This guy is the most talented song of a bitch in music. It's safe to say 99.999999999% of what he touches is spectacular. Anything this guy is involved with is mindblowing. Hell, Dragon Ash is fucking terrible, and he made a insanely great song with Kenji.

Classics: Dopamine, Let go, miss you, come again, the love bug, Starstruck!! tooooooooo many

Mr. Children:

He does have alot of lovey dovey boring stuff that I don't like, but what's good is INCREDIBLE. Stuff that will stick with me for years. His "It's a wondeful world" album is probably my favorite ever album.

Before I reveal my top choice, let's get something out of the way:

Smap

While these guys have some wonderful tracks, the amount of boring trash they come out with FAR outweighs it. I CANNOT understand their immense popularity.

Dragon Ash
hahahahaha So fucking bad.

TM Revolution
Cheese Cheese Crap borrrrriiing.

Ayumi Hamasaki
YOU CAN'T SING FOR SHIT. GOD ITS SO BAD. I mean the songs aren't terrible but holy shit she CANNOT SING.

And more recent Japanese artits that I certainly can tolerate:

Heartsdales: 2 beautiful Japanese women, born in Ney York, fluent in English and Japanese, their existance made possible through Verbal. They can rap, they can sing. I like.

Soul'D Out: Amazingly unique vocals. I love the ideas these guys come up with. They just scream cool, and their music cannot be ignored.

Koda Kumi: With her sexy mature vocals, and sexy mature... everything else, it's hard to hate her. Her music is so stylish.

Monkey Majik: Two Canadian guys, living in Japan, singing japanese songs. Real laid back pleasant music.

OK GUYS NUMBER 1 -- THE DEFINITION OF JAPANESE MUSIC:

Kuwata Keisuke (Southern All Stars):

Shame on you if you don't know this guy. He's been around FOREVER and as I said before, his music is pretty much the definition of Japan.

I am a dork, signing off.

Nocturne Cycle · 08-31-2006, 12:08 PM

i'm definitely checking these out... thx for the info

maruchan_192000 · 08-31-2006, 12:15 PM

what? No Utada Hikaru, BoA, Bennie K, The Pillows, Otsuka Ai?

I do AGREE on M-FLO I love them, Taku Takahashi is the coolest DJ. Koda Kumi just screams HOT i.e.Butterfly Music Video. SOUL'd OUT are great Diggy Mo and Brother Hi are insane.

But where is DREAMS COME TRUE??????

Vivaldi Amuro · 08-31-2006, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maruchan_192000

what? No Utada Hikaru, BoA, Bennie K, The Pillows, Otsuka Ai?

I do AGREE on M-FLO I love them, Taku Takahashi is the coolest DJ. Koda Kumi just screams HOT i.e.Butterfly Music Video. SOUL'd OUT are great Diggy Mo and Brother Hi are insane.

But where is DREAMS COME TRUE??????

I was seriously considering DCT for inclusion, but they just to match up to what I consider legendary.

They do have ALOT of bad songs :/ but I LIKE them , don't get me wrong.

The Yellow Monkey is also really cool.

As for your list: Utada Hikaru has a wonderful voice but falls short of THE LIST., BoA.. well she's talented, I'll give her that. Good choice.
Bennie K... Unfortunately I've just heard DREAMLAND from her, so I'm not too sure what she is really like.
The Pillows and Otsuka haven't wowed me once.

OH YEAH SHIT SHIT SHIT

Legendary ======= LUNA SEA. I don't believe I forgot to mention them.

L'Arc En Ciel is GOOD TOO :O

noisy doll☆ · 08-31-2006, 01:26 PM

While I certainly agree with M-flo being an awesome group, and do enjoy nearly all the artists Vivaldi listed, I had originally imagined this topic to cover a broader scale of music.

What about Joe Hisaishi? He's not J-pop, but I feel that his work really brings emotion to small string ensemble that I've never really heard anywhere else. Usually I can't stant string quartet music, but his scores for Miyazaki movies like Spirited Away, Mononoke Hime and Nausicaa top my iTunes playlists every week.

Also, The Gospellers are in my opinion one of the greatest Japanese musical groups ever. They started as a college a cappella group a little more than 10 years ago and have moved on to include some pop and R&B, but their strength has always been in their composition, which is always done within the group to maximize the potential of their individual and group talents. They sing clearly and with feeling, and although understanding the words probably helps, I think that if any of you listen to it you'll know it's the sound of true love. If anybody wants to try them out I recommend Machikado, Promise, and Towa Ni, and will send a song or two on request.

Vivaldi Amuro · 08-31-2006, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by noisy doll

While I certainly agree with M-flo being an awesome group, and do enjoy nearly all the artists Vivaldi listed, I had originally imagined this topic to cover a broader scale of music.

What about Joe Hisaishi? He's not J-pop, but I feel that his work really brings emotion to small string ensemble that I've never really heard anywhere else. Usually I can't stant string quartet music, but his scores for Miyazaki movies like Spirited Away, Mononoke Hime and Nausicaa top my iTunes playlists every week.

Also, The Gospellers are in my opinion one of the greatest Japanese musical groups ever. They started as a college a cappella group a little more than 10 years ago and have moved on to include some pop and R&B, but their strength has always been in their composition, which is always done within the group to maximize the potential of their individual and group talents. They sing clearly and with feeling, and although understanding the words probably helps, I think that if any of you listen to it you'll know it's the sound of true love. If anybody wants to try them out I recommend Machikado, Promise, and Towa Ni, and will send a song or two on request.

Your comments and opinion is greatly appreciated, for sure.

My list was merely the artists that left a big impact on the music industry. Artists that EVERYONE knows, that grew up in that time.

Regardless I'm glad you can contribute, as it gives me something look look into.

(and I hope your back is doing okay :O)

Novasonic of /flex · 08-31-2006, 02:34 PM

List needs more Dir en Grey.

Vivaldi Amuro · 08-31-2006, 02:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Novasonic of /flex

List needs more Dir en Grey.

Probably. If your favorite Japanese band is not on my list, I probably haven't gotten the chance to listen to their stuff =(

ben. · 08-31-2006, 02:43 PM

It's funny you say you like Mr. Children, but were never wowed by anything done by the pillows. Their music is incredibly similar I gotta say, and then there's the fact that he also appeared on a tribute album to the pillows.

Anyways, you didn't include X Japan, who were popular for, if not defined, the visual kei genre. You didn't include Maaya Sakamoto, who has a great voice and is a rather talented singer/songwriter/seiyuu. You didn't include Yoko Kanno who is a great composer, although she gained notoriety through her work on Cowboy Bebop, she's done work on movies and other television series as well. You also forgot bump of chicken. They're popular and have a lot of well written and composed songs. And I'm gonna second the Joe Hisaishi recommendation, I can't believe you didn't put him on the list either. So much for a comprehensive list of the 'greatest japanese artists'.

Vivaldi Amuro · 08-31-2006, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChibiShin

It's funny you say you like Mr. Children, but were never wowed by anything done by the pillows. Their music is incredibly similar I gotta say, and then there's the fact that he also appeared on a tribute album to the pillows.

Anyways, you didn't include X Japan, who were popular for, if not defined, the visual kei genre. You didn't include Maaya Sakamoto, who has a great voice and is a rather talented singer/songwriter/seiyuu. You didn't include Yoko Kanno who is a great composer, although she gained notoriety through her work on Cowboy Bebop, she's done work on movies and other television series as well. You also forgot bump of chicken. They're popular and have a lot of well written and composed songs. And I'm gonna second the Joe Hisaishi recommendation, I can't believe you didn't put him on the list either. So much for a comprehensive list of the 'greatest japanese artists'.

Well, this is a message board. Feel free to use the reply button (which you did)

That is the point of this thread.

I like all those artists you mentioned, save for Joe Hisaishi, not familiar.

I didn't even say it was comprehensive. Man, are all japanese music listeners this testy?

Alonso · 08-31-2006, 02:51 PM

What about Janne da Arc? they're pretty talented.

noisy doll☆ · 08-31-2006, 02:54 PM

Well, I didn't mean to be mean-spirited in any way; I just wanted to add to the list and broaden the range so we can make this a nice long discussion :3 ChibiShin's totally right about Yoko Kanno; her stuff is so diverse and yet I always secretly hope she'll put out more of the same since I like all of it so much.

And thanks for asking about my back =D Apparently it's a strained ligament injury, but it's supposed to get better.

ben. · 08-31-2006, 03:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vivaldi Amuro

Well, this is a message board. Feel free to use the reply button (which you did)

That is the point of this thread.

I like all those artists you mentioned, save for Joe Hisaishi, not familiar.

I didn't even say it was comprehensive. Man, are all japanese music listeners this testy?

It's not so much that we're testy, it's that the tone of your original post purports what you're saying to be fact, whereas it's simply your opinion on artists that you like and dislike that happen to be popular. That's all.

Vivaldi Amuro · 09-01-2006, 03:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChibiShin

It's not so much that we're testy, it's that the tone of your original post purports what you're saying to be fact, whereas it's simply your opinion on artists that you like and dislike that happen to be popular. That's all.

Not really, the main groups I mentioned up top can basically be considered legends.

That's all.

Glad to see you adding to the list.

maruchan_192000 · 09-01-2006, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vivaldi Amuro

I was seriously considering DCT for inclusion, but they just to match up to what I consider legendary.

They do have ALOT of bad songs :/ but I LIKE them , don't get me wrong.

The Yellow Monkey is also really cool.

As for your list: Utada Hikaru has a wonderful voice but falls short of THE LIST., BoA.. well she's talented, I'll give her that. Good choice.
Bennie K... Unfortunately I've just heard DREAMLAND from her, so I'm not too sure what she is really like.
The Pillows and Otsuka haven't wowed me once.

OH YEAH SHIT SHIT SHIT

Legendary ======= LUNA SEA. I don't believe I forgot to mention them.

L'Arc En Ciel is GOOD TOO :O

BENNIE K is TWO girls an MC and the Vocals