10. The Mornings Save The Mornings The past year saw a lot of Japanese bands trying to fill one of two molds – some groups tried to capture youthful exuberance via a lot of yelping in an effort to be like early Los Campesinos!, while another batch tried fast-talking over math-ey guitar patterns like they…
20. Kido Yoji Call A Romance On his debut release, Kido Yoji makes dance music for people who like spending significant amounts of time staring out on bright0lit cityscapes. Call A Romance certainly moves – check the easy-breezy disco shake of the title track, or the irresistible pop of “Hot And Cold” – but beneath…
Man, Super Girl really did end up being the worst-case scenario for KARA. Whether because they wanted to spike sales even more or just because they have absolutely no idea how to embrace something that doesn’t sound like the year 1993, the J-Pop powers-that-be pigeonholed one of Korea’s hottest exports into the bland box of…
The past year saw plenty of worthwhile releases from Japanese artists, from the sort of stuff highlighted at major music stores in Japan to free albums posted on Bandcamp with little fanfare. Yet all 30 albums on this list were special to us here at Make Believe Melodies in some way or another – whether…
Regardless of what claims borderline-nationalist J-Pop fans squawked out, Korean pop artists locked themselves into the Japanese pop-culture landscape this year, going from foreign curio to accepted face on the music charts. Girls’ Generation and KARA started releasing Japan-only songs and albums, releases which did very very very well. K-Pop boy bands started hitting the…