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J-pop : don't stop till you get enough

Introduction | Music is a pretty big part of my life, and I listen to it in all kinds of shapes and forms. One of the more obscure (considering I live in Northern Europe) genres I love is j-pop, which is a term used to refer to Japanese pop music [ For the voyeurs among you, a look at my j-pop stuff ]. Like popular music in just about any territory on earth it's inspired by and derived from the original American sounds of pop, rock, soul and R&B. However, while they started out on common ground, popular music in Japan is in many ways different from the sounds currently popular in the US and, by extension, the rest of the West.

The soundbytes | On this page you can listen to audio samples of a large selection of Japanese pop artists found in my CD collection. I've focused on female vocalists for the simple reason that my personal preference leans in that direction.

(Note that the artist links in the text below lead to their official websites, in order to listen to the songs you have to click the icons on the left)

You can listen to the two reigning queens of j-pop, Ayumi Hamasaki and Hikaru Utada, the latter of which managed to sell some 8+ million copies of her debut album, which ranks it as the best-selling record of all time in Japan. Or maybe you prefer the queen who reigned on the throne a few years ago, Namie Amuro.

There's also the rocking sounds of Nanase Aikawa, Ringo Shiina and Hitomi Yaida. Or how about the Hello! Project, a stable of artists produced by Tsunku, including Morning Musume, Maki Goto and Aya Matsuura? His brand of happy, bouncy tunes performed by cute young girls is enjoyed across all age groups in the land of the rising sun.

Morning Musume could arguably be said to have picked up the slack left behind by the extremely popular 4-girl group SPEED, which disbanded in 2000. Three of the girls, hiro, Eriko Imai and Takako Uehara, are currently enjoying successful solo careers, though. But zetima and Toy's Factory aren't the only record labels looking to tap into the young-girl-group market, avex trax has their own units like Folder 5 and dream.

But it's not all hype and cute, young girls. There are also groups like Dreams Come True and ZARD, which, despite also featuring beautiful female lead vocalists in Miwa Yoshida and Izumi Sakai respectively, transcend the genre and produce modern classics with no expiration date.

Dream factory | It's worth noting that 9 of the singers/groups featured on this page (Namie Amuro, SPEED, hiro, Eriko Imai, Takako Uehara, Folder 5, MAX, Rina Chinen and Olivia) are products of the Okinawa Actor's School where young boys and girls are trained for stardom from a young age [ 1 ] [ 2 ]. You might say OAS is to j-pop what The Juilliard School is to classical music.

Picture perfect | One anomaly, among many, of the Japanese pop scene is the plethora of photobooks available. Most of these artists have their own books consisting mostly of glossy full-page photos. The contents of these books can be described as ranging from tour documents to swimsuit model shoots. You can see a couple of examples here, one starring the girls of Morning Musume, the other featuring Akina, the lead singer of Folder 5.

System requirements | The audio samples in this section of the site are encoded in RealAudio format and optimized for streaming. You'll need RealPlayer/RealOne installed on your computer in order to hear these "soundbytes". If you don't have one already then you can download a free player from Real.com's website. Note that the embedded audio streaming only works in Explorer and Netscape. If you're using Mozilla or Opera, please see this section for help.

How it works | Once you click one of the image buttons on the left, a new window will pop up and the embedded audio will automatically start playing. It does this using streaming, meaning it plays the audio file while it loads so you won't have to wait until it's fully downloaded before listening to it. If you're on a very slow connection this may result in playback pausing and restarting if your modem can't keep up. To stop the music, just close the pop-up window. If you have an up-to-date browser you can do this by simply left-clicking anywhere in the window.

Audio specs | The RealAudio files are encoded in 20.7kbps mono. The audio quality is relatively poor, but the small file size allows for smooth streaming over most modem connections. The low quality is also meant to deter digital piracy. If you like any of these songs, please consider buying the original CD at a retailer like CD Japan or YesAsia. Song information, including CD catalog numbers, is provided, so you should be able to find the corresponding CD quickly.

Audio backup controls | If your browser of choice is having trouble dealing with the RealAudio plug-in required to stream the music samples through your browser (i.e. you're not hearing any sound in those pop-up windows) then you can use the links below to listen to the audio samples.

[x] Ayumi Hamasaki: evolution
[x] Namie Amuro: a walk in the...
[x] Mai Kuraki: Delicious Way
[x] Hikaru Utada: Can you keep...
[x] SPEED: STEADY
[x] hiro: Your Innocence
[x] Eriko Imai: Our Relation
[x] Takako Uehara: Glory
[x] Morning Musume: Say Yeah!
[x] Maki Goto: Ai no Bakayarou
[x] Aya Matsuura: Tropical...
[x] Miki Fujimoto: BOOGIE TRAIN '03
[x] Yuki Kimura: Summer Rain
[x] Hitomi Yaida: Andante
[x] Nanase Aikawa: Yumemiru
[x] Ringo Shiina: honnou
[x] Ryoko Hirosue: Maji de Koi...
[x] Ami Suzuki: BE TOGETHER
[x] Rina Chinen: Wing
[x] BoA: NO.1
[x] MAX: Love is Dreaming
[x] Folder 5: Believe
[x] Earth: Boys like that
[x] dream: Heart on Wave
[x] SILVA: Almost love
[x] Yuki Koyanagi: take
[x] Dreams Come True: Nante...
[x] ZARD: Mou Sukoshi Ato...
[x] Olivia: Into The Stars
[x] Koda Kumi: TAKE BACK
[x] Do As Infinity: Tooku Made
[x] Every Little Thing: fragile
[x] SAYAKA: ever since
[x] Maki Ohguro: Ne!-Onna jounetsu
[x] Misato Watanabe: Baby
[x] Mari Hamada: Cry For The Moon

Note that you still need RealOne/RealPlayer installed on your computer to make use of these samples. The only difference is that the audio stream is sent to the RealPlayer instead of the web browser.