About This Site
Each month I select 20 songs (10 songs twice a month) that I am either hooked on or am curious about. Most of the music I select are rock, hip-hop, R&B and pop songs.
My song selection comes from 20-30 CDs I get from various sources each month, as well as recommendations from iTunes and Amazon. I also check out the charts in US, UK and Japan.
0000
D.O.G.S. is Japanese indie grunge rock band, that has been struggling to maintain full band member for the past several years. Within that struggle, the lead singer, Koji Tamura and guitarist Katsumi Yokota managed to recruit semi-temporary members to finally record this EP titled, Over The Walls. To launch this album, D.O.G.S. decided to head to Seattle to do a mini tour, the place where they have always dreamed of playing. The track “Go Down” is one of the stand outs from the new album, and was also the crowd favorite in Seattle. Check out their official website:
http://dogs-official.com/
I had a chance to see Utada (or “Hikki” as she’s referred to from her hardcore fans) perform live to US audience recently. With two English albums under her belt, two-thirds of her setlist consisted of English songs, and the other third was her Japanese mega hit songs such as “Automatic”, “First Love” and “Can You Keep A Secret.” It was my first time seeing her live, but I couldn’t help but to notice that she didn’t have much stage presence. She sounded great, and she interacted well with the audience (speaking 95% of the time in English), but if I hadn’t known, I wouldn’t believe someone telling me that she is the biggest pop star of Japan. I’ve only had a chance to listen to her latest album, This Is The One, a couple of times, but I was surprised to hear that she chose this track as her second US single. I sort of cringed with lyrics like “And in my fantasies, I love you long time”, “Doing my nine to five, I’m thinking six and nines” but at least the beat is catchy, especially when it is remixed for club release. I’m not sure if this track will reach the mainstream America’s ear, but at least she is trying to be different.
Hikaru Utada is one of the biggest popstars in Japan (if not THE biggest). She tried to crossover to the US market and released her debut album, Exodus in 2004. Despite having a superstar producer, Timbaland producing the album, it didn’t crossover well to the US audience (though it was a hit in her native country of Japan). Utada was raised in New York part of her life, so compared to other Japanese popstarlets, her English is fluent. For her second US album, she teamed up with Mariah Carey’s producers, which I’m still not sure was the right move. This single totally sounds like a cheap knock off of Mariah. Utada is a good singer, but not a great singer like Mariah, and when she tries to sing in high note toward the end of the song, it is so thin that it is almost so hard to listen to. I also noticed on her previous album, Exodus, that Utada’s English songwriting is kind of weird. I think she has true talent when comes to mixing English and Japanese lyrics, but when she has to use 100% English, the lyrics are either too literal or unrelateable.
Album: BoA
BoA is a major pop star in her native country Korea. She’s also a huge star in Japan, as she can sing in both Korean and Japanese. Now that she has conquered the charts in both Korea and Japan, she is ready to take on the US. Her US debut will be in mid March. The first single, “Eat You Up” is a dance tune with vocal alteration, which doesn’t show case her singing talent, but the beat is pretty good, and it actually was a moderate hit on the Billboard Club chart. I’m not quite sure why this remix with Flo Rida wasn’t released for sale, but it was leaked on the internet. I like the original with more techno beat, and this remix featuring rapper Flo Rida, who is hot now with a number 1 song in the US.
Album:
Velvet Ballads
Cradle Orchestra is a Japanese jazz/classical band that plays live instrumental music for hip-hop artists. The group consist of DJ, bass, violin, flute and piano. On their latest album, Velvet Ballads (only available in Japan so far), they enlist guest rappers including Black Thought (of The Roots), CL Smooth and Talib Kweli, just to name a few. This track features Rhode Island underground rapper, Need Not Worry. His flowing delivery and beautiful melody from Cradle Orchestra make this a unique song.
no sample
Japanese rock duo, Love Psychedelico had been releasing hits after hits in their native country since their debut in 2000. Singer Kumi and guitarist Naoki create music familiar to fans of Beatles, Bob Dylan and Sheryl Crow. Most of their songs are in English with some Japanese words mixed in, but Kumi sings those Japanese words as if they were English words, which is very unique. Now they are getting their shot in the US by releasing their US debut album, properly titled, “This is Love Psychedelico.” All of the tracks on this album are gathered from their previous albums in Japan. With so many good songs, I had a hard time choosing just one song, but went with “Standing Bird.” I love the intro of this song. It stays in my head, and even though I don’t know what she’s saying half of the time, it grabs me. My other favorite tracks from the album are “Lady Madonna”, “Your Song”, “Everybody Needs Somebody” and “Last Smile.”
Marie Digby is half Japanese, hence, her name is pronounced Ma-ree-eh. She actually has an accent mark on “e”. Recently she was in Japan for radio interviews and I was surprised to find that she is fluent in Japanese. Justin Nozuka, who is also half Japanese, was recently in Japan for Fuji Rock to promote his single, “
After Tonight”, but he doesn’t speak the language at all. I had briefly heard of Digby’s music, mostly because her cover of Rihanna’s “Umbrella” was YouTube sensation, but I didn’t really listen to her other songs. A friend of mine in Japan has told me I should check out her music, and I enjoyed her pop sounding piano songs. This track, especially had a feel good vibe found on Sara Bareilles or Daniel Powter.
I’ve been trying to get this song for a very long time. This song was used on Asahi beer commercial in Japan in 2005, and released as a single only in Japan. And finally this will be included on the US release of Best of Yoshida Brothers album. I got to see them live at a very small venue, and I enjoyed every minute of it. The way these guys play the traditional Japanese instrument, shamisen, is like seeing Jimi Hendrix rip it on the guitar. Check out their cool music video.
Last month, I went to see a show called Japan Nite, where half a dozen Japanese Indies band performed at a small livehouse. I guess they toured across the States performing at various big cities. I’ve never heard of any of these bands before: Scandal, Detroit 7, The Beaches, The Emeralds and Petty Booka, but apparently Petty Booka is fairly famous in the underground (?) market. Petty Booka consists of two Japanese female singers and they both play the ukulele. When they sing, they sing in that cutesy Japanese girly voice that they almost sound like they belong in the movie The Chipmunks.
But the concept is cute as they cover traditional American songs using ukuleles. I selected this song, but they don’t really sound like this on the other songs. Check out songs like, “Puka Puka Pants” or “Ukulele Lady” on iTunes or Amazon and you’ll know what I mean. They didn’t perform this song live, but I feel like I know this song from some movie. I want to say, the jazz singer performed this on Lost In Translation, but I don’t know if that’s it. Anyone know where it’s from? I also found out that the girls I saw at Japan Nite are the new third generation of Petty Booka (meaning completely different from the ones that recorded the album in the past)
This small local bar band in Japan, called Tiernan, was picked up on Tokyo's popular station, InterFM's morning show. The lead singer, Laurier Tiernan is from Canada, and along with ex-US Navy bassist and Japanese drummer they have been slowly gaining popularity in Japan. Something about this song is really catchy. Tiernan sings "Arnold Swarchenegger will be President of the United States...." and the consequence of that. Their songs can be purchased on their former
label's website.
The quality is not that great, but you can see them perform this song at What the Dicken's (one of my favorite live houses in Japan):
Live performance of Tiernan's "End of the World" Here is their myspace link:
www.myspace.com/tiernanband
Album: Do You (Single)
A few months ago, Ne-Yo announced that he will be selecting best female singers from various countries and record a duet version of songs off of his recently album, Because of You. From Japan, he selected, Utada, no doubt the country's biggest popstar who also happens to share same label as Ne-Yo when she released her US debut album a few years ago (which bombed despite Timbaland producing it). Utada is said to be working on a second US album. Hopefully that will be better than "easy breezy Japanesey" song she had.
Avril Lavigne decided to sing her latest single in multiple languages. The verses are still in English, but she does her best to sing the chorus in different languages. And each of these songs were released separately. I don’t know if there was anyone that was suckered into buying all the different versions, but I was too curious to hear her sing in Japanese, so I ended up getting this version. She also sings in French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Portuguese and Spanish. When asked in an interview if she had a difficult time recording in Japanese, she noted that Japanese was easy, but Chinese was the most difficult. But on this Japanese version, I can only understand every other sentence (and there are only 8 lines).
no sample
Yoshida Brothers are real life brothers that play awesome shamisen. Shamisen is a traditional Japanese guitar (some even say “Japanese banjo”). Traditionally shamisen is used to play more slow mellow songs, but Yoshida Brothers have taken old and boring sound to new heights. Just catch them on YouTube. You will be amazed.
no sample
D.O.G.S. is a Japanese grunge band based in Tokyo. If they were discovered in Seattle 10 years ago, they may have been signed to Sub Pop.
D.O.G.S. recently went through some member changes, but the vocalist/guitarist Koji Tamura has continued to push the band. After performing at numerous local pubs and live houses in Tokyo, as well as contributing a fan favorite, “Hold On” to an independent film titled
Life, they finally went into the recording studio to record their debut album, Out of Prison. For a grunge album, each song seems to last a minute too long. Their live shows are dynamic and Koji definitely has the rocker presence.
Embodying the rags-to-riches rap dream, Jay-Z pulled himself up by his bootstraps as a... 