#20 Cicada Formula It’s easy to recreate the past, as no shortage of Japanese bands borrowing from ’80s city pop and ’90s acid jazz have shown in recent years (and, really, globally…this is all Daft Punk’s fault). Cicada’s earliest work slid in nicely to this safe but oftentimes overly familiar space. But Formula decided to…
And now the final list begins…here is part one of our “best albums” list, featuring our favorite Japanese releases of the year. #30 Wata Megumi Blindman Wata Megumi’s nervy pop has always felt just off, regardless of whether she was taking aim at society as a whole or otherwise. Blindman aims for something more ambitious,…
Half of this entry should be relatively self-explanatory — these are albums that, for various reasons, just missed our final cut. All of them are worth your listening time, and them falling just outside of the top 30 really shows just how much good music came out of Japan. The other, though, is a bit…
Another year draws to a close, and that means its time for the annual rush of year-end blog posts looking back on the year that was. And, again, I try to write an intro to this collection trying to say something original, about putting together lists and what it all means. But at this point,…
Busy week over here at Make Believe Melodies’ headquarters…and also a bit mismanaged when it came to blog planning. Originally, I wanted to run year-end coverage this week, but hey turns out that takes a lot of time, which I didn’t have. Yay excuses! So that will happen next week…favorite songs on Monday, honorable mentions…