Since one can only ride the English teaching gravy train for so long…and this blog isn’t making me rich though it’s fun to write ya’ll!…I’ve started contributing to other publications about Japanese music. This week, I wrote up a live preview of Osaka oddball Oorutaichi for The Japan Times. Go here and read it. Instead…
The other week I paid a visit to Osaka to do some music shopping. This excursion via the Kintetsu railway used to be a common part of my life, the sort of thing I’d mentally pencil into my weekend plans if nothing else of interest materialized. Which, turned out, happened a lot. Yet my forays…
J-Pop artist Miwa recently made Japanese music history when her debut album Guitarissimo reached the number one spot on the Oricon album charts. The 20 year old became the first Heisei period-born singer (this period started in 1989) to climb to the top of that list. This feat coupled with a movie-worthy climb to musical…
Discussing pop music usually ends up being less a slippery slope and more like hiking up a waterfall. The act of just identifying “pop” can quickly turn into something contentious, one individual decrying the “vapid” works of Katy Perry before reminiscing about Green Day’s glory days. “Pop,” to many people, has become a bad word…
“If you’re young and starry-eyed, here’s your chance to get in ahead of the game: Grab a cheap guitar or a cheap keyboard, a four-track or a boombox, and make what you can. Someone, somewhere, will love you for it.” Nitsuh Abebe, Twee As Fuck, on Pitchfork in 2005 The above sentence captures the charm…