Station To Station: Music Station For 02/05/2010 Featuring Kaela Kimura, flumpool and TOKIO

I’m never ever home for Music Station, making my original intent of liveblogging the show seem like a total joke at this point. That means it’s time for a rebranding! From now until I stop being remotely social, I’ll be ignoring the actual Music Station program in favor of listening to the tracks being performed…

Missed The Station For 1/29/2010 Featuring KAT-TUN, L’Arc~en~Ciel, FUNKY MONKEY BABYS And Exit Wounds

Right above this line of text is the reason I’m missing Music Station this week. For a bad Steven Seagal-DMX (redundant, I know) flick. Then I’m following that up with a Jersey Shore marathon. I’m total trash, I wouldn’t blame you if you never read this blog again. Anyway, lets listen to the artists featured…

Missed The Station For 1/22/2010 Featuring Norah Jones And Kaela Kimura

The first real episode of Music Station in this new decade…and I have other engagements to attend to. Great way to kick off this feature in 2010! This week’s episode features a few Japanese pop heavyweights and an appearance by adult contemporary bulwark Norah Jones. Lets take a listen to this week’s crop. Aqua Timez…

Nice And Slow: Ayumi Hamasaki’s “Ballad”

If you are a regular reader of this blog (insert self-deprecating sentence here), you’ve most likely seen me mention the “J-Pop ballad problem.” It refers to the challenge of critiquing a slow, ballad-type tune by a Japanese artist, partially because the central-to-the-song lyrics are in another language, but primarily because it seems like every single…

Controlled Karaoke: 2009 In J-Pop Condensed Into Six Loud-Ass Minutes

YouTuber and apparently Internet famous guy (check those stats!) Hyadain recently released the 2009 edition of his annual “Japanese Song Battle.” It’s a six-minute mix of Hyadain covering snippets of popular J-Pop tracks from the recently retired year. The first thing you’ll probably notice about it is the brain-pummeling volume – turn the noise way…