J-rock / j-pop

[katya]

Konnichiwa! Ok, I know there're at least a couple of Japanese music fans around here. Personally, I like rock a lot better than pop, but I guess this thread can be for both. OK?

So, what are your favourite bands and why? What do you think about visual kei? How do you hear new songs? If you're wanting to hear some, I can direct you to a number of good MP3 rotation sites (for evaluation purposes!). Do you actually understand any Japanese, and if not, do you read the translated lyrics? (Oh, and if you have the lyrics in kanji and preferably romaji too of a song you want translated I might be able to help you.)

My new favourite band right now is Plastic Tree. I looove their music, and the lyrics, and Ryuutarou.^^ I can't believe I wasn't listening to them a long time ago.

[Linaewen]

Utada Hikaru! Her older stuff. Apparently her new album (all in English) is a bit rubbish. But I love her other songs.

Oh, and I don't understand any Japanese, but the I have songs in some 20 languages on my computer and I for goodness sake could not understand them all. :p

[katya]

Wow! That's a lot of different languages! I only have songs in 4, maybe 5 languages. I don't really mind not understanding what they're saying though.

The only Utada Hikaru songs I know are "Simple and Clean" and "First Love". The latter was one of the first songs I understood most of the words without looking anything up.^^ It's a sad song, sorta.

[Linaewen]

Simple and Clean- Hikari? (I think) That rocks. I hope you got the normal version- which I had trouble downloading. Kept getting the terrible remix. :rolleyes: I have a whole bunch of them on VCD- a lot of her video clips. Some are REALLY funny. Like the 'Simple and Clean' one, she spends virtually the WHOLE time cleaning dishes! Get 'Addicted to You' and 'Final Distance'. I love them.

So what Jap songs do you recommend? :)

[katya]

Well, I guess that depends on your taste. As I said, I really like Plastic Tree these days. I haven't heard that many of their songs though, and I guess I like them all almost equally.

Have you heard much Gackt? I've only heard three of his songs, and they all sounded pretty different from each other, but "Fragrance" I absolutely love. I forced my friend to listen to it, and even though she usually gets annoyed when I talk about j-rock or something, she really liked it. So maybe it has some universal appeal, I guess.^^

Other than that, I can only recommend stuff I like.

Cleaning dishes huh? I did that last summer. Not fun. >_< I like doing them at home though.