30. Michiyo Honda “Paradise Lost” J-Pop remains an easy punching bag in 2011 because most of the criticism lobbed at Japanese mainstream music ring true. A large chunk of acts crowding the upper reaches of the Oricon chart are 90’s holdovers with appropriately bland tunes. Labels seem to be in an arms race to see…
Another year draws to a close, but 2011 wasn’t just another run-of-the-mill desk calendar for Japanese songs. The past 365 days saw an abundance of great tunes from Japan-based artists, ranging from shadowy electronic movers from Tokyo to dreamy pop numbers born in Osaka to space-tripped clackers via Kyoto. Just as exciting, though, were how…
J.P. DuQuette over at Japanzine counts down his top 10 Japanese album of the Aughts in the publications January issue, available online over here. You got your usual suspects popping up – didn’t Vision Creation Newsun come out in Japan in 1999 though? Wikipedia has my back here – but the real draw to DuQuette’s…
Oh, it’s the most wonderful time of the year -the arrival of countless best-of-the-year album lists on the Internet. And in magazines if you are still into that sort of thing. We at Make Believe Melodies aren’t remotely above the rest of the blog-sty and present to you our (OK, mine) 25 favorite albums of…