r/japanesemusic

Any recommendations for Japanese gothic or darkwave bands?

Recently started exploring this style.

Open to both classic and modern artists.

Hello Japanese music enjoyers! Hope this is okay to post but, over in r/popheads, we are currently rating three of the most iconic Japanese pop albums, those being Hikaru Utada's First Love, Ayumi Hamasaki's LOVEppears and Sheena Ringo's Muzai moratorium.

Rates are a monthly activity we do in popheads where 3-4 albums or a group of songs with a certain theme are chosen, and participants score them from 1-10 (with one optional 11 and 0) during the course of 5 to 7 weeks, after that the songs are ranked and the results are revealed in a live event. For this month, we selected 1999 J-Pop Ultimate, a rate I pitched because I think these are important albums and more people should discover & celebrate them.

This rate accepts ballots until 15th of May (with extensions possible) and reveals the following weekend over the course of three days. If you'd like to participate, it'd be awesome! More detailed explanations are in the Reddit thread I linked above and at the end of the post, and discussion of the music usually happens on the popheads Discord, which you can join in if you want to chime in (or to keep up with listening parties and similar announcements regarding the event). If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask! And have a nice weekend!

Rate info: https://www.reddit.com/r/popheads/comments/1saqgys/1999_jpop_ultimate_rate_hikaru_utada_vs_ayumi/

thanks for your help. will listen to each one you suggest.

I've tried using Apps to listen, or describe to the AI with what few lyrics I hear, but after three days I need a human who might recognize the song, I feel like it's probably a popular song so I have my fingers crossed somebody recognizes it!

This is a duo consisting of Miyuki Hatakeyama and Daisuke Kojima.

The vocalist, Hatakeyama, is also active as a solo artist, and I really love her voice.

I would love for you to give them a listen.

I'm Japanese. Honestly, "J-pop" feels like such a broad term—I'm never quite sure where it begins and ends. I don't really listen to it much anymore either. This is actually my first time in this community, and it's kind of surreal seeing so many overseas fans who know so many Japanese artists. That got me curious—I wanted to hear what people here think about a couple of artists.

Suzume no Tears. And Nakanishi Lemon. Neither of them is particularly well-known yet.

Japan has a tradition called min'yo—work songs, folk music, really old stuff that even most Japanese people don't listen to anymore. If I had to compare it to something, it's kind of like Japanese soul music. This group takes that and blends it with Western influences. I only discovered them recently myself. I'm curious how it lands for people outside Japan.

These two guys who had massive success with Bling Bang Bang Born and Otonoke are going to be at Coachella tomorrow and they’ll be releasing a new song. Really interesting that it’ll be a mix of their take on hip hop and sexy drill.

“Recently there’s this genre called sexy drill, which I was inspired by. I used a toy piano and warped that sound until it got this strange tone that you’ve never heard before.”

Also I think it’s cool they cite the music of The Blues Brothers. I knew the movie was relatively popular in Japan back in the day but I rarely ever hear about it from Japanese musicians.