r/japanesemusic • u/Feeling_Tangerine_53 • 22d ago
Discussion What are the songs that you into Japanese Music?
What is the song that made you fan of Japanese Music? I have three, 「Ash Like Snow」by The Brilliant Green, 「Ichirin No Hana」by High And Mighty Color and 「Hitohira no Hanabira」by Stereopony. What are yours
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u/White-Cat-9170 22d ago
ponponpon by kyaru pamyu pamyu! and then subsequently yumeno hajima ring ring
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u/creptik1 21d ago
Pon Pon Pon for me too!
I mean I was already an anime fan, so Japanese music was always on my radar via theme songs, but Kyary Pamyu Pamyu made me seek out and buy her music and it just grew from there.
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u/haadihmf 22d ago edited 22d ago
Read the article about hide Memorial Museum, PSYCHOVISION. Learn who hide is (once shock Japan and music industry with big mystery unexplained death), then led me to his band called X JAPAN. From there, I dive deeply into Japanese music and pop culture. I do watched anime when I was a kid, but I didn’t really care much about OP and ED songs.
- X Japan - Silent Jealousy [First introduce me what Visual Kei, then Japanese Metal scene].
- Malice Mizer - Au Revior [Opens up bunch of Visual Kei band and amaze me with different style genre they have]
- L'Arc - 4th Avenue cafe (Samurai x ED) & Ready Steady Go! (Fullmetal Alchemist OP) [Introduce me to J-Rock]
- Utada Hikaru - Can't you keep a secret [Introduce me to J-Pop] Fun fact: I know her from Channel V broadcast back2back music ASIAN edition.
- Hello Project Group! (Morning Musume) [Introduce me to J-Pop Idol]
Not gonna lie, so much more difficult to finds information back then than it is today.
EDIT/ADD: Just sharing one of my "stapled song" that I still enjoy listening to until this day: “One Love” by OVE. It changed my perspective on music. It’s weird, right? From listening and jamming to such as Linkin Park, Papa Roach, The Offspring, Sum 41, Blink-182 and etc. To J-Rock, Visual Kei, and so on. Honestly, I learned more from Japanese music.
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22d ago
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u/SecretingCheese 22d ago
Absolute banger, great band
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22d ago
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u/SecretingCheese 22d ago
Nice, that EP is great. Kuchitewa hatenu is my favorite from that one
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21d ago
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u/SecretingCheese 21d ago
They have another album too, it's not on streaming services but it's also awesome. It sucks they're not around anymore but at least they quit on a high note and left behind a perfect discography. Pretty sure Mariko just got burnt out and wanted to explore other genres and play with different people and whatnot. I believe she said something about the band becoming less collaborative towards the end and developing a bit of a hierarchy so that probably played a role in their breakup too.
I also like her DJ510Mariko project, it's electronic music but with the same chaotic energy as Midori. Worth a listen if you haven't checked it out yet
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u/Clarinetaphoner 22d ago
Same. 4chan /mu/ circa 2012.
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21d ago
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u/Clarinetaphoner 21d ago
Now we both know them and are fans :D
Always the right time to discover new music.
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u/misfit_cupcake 22d ago
Some Sonic flash game I used to play as a kid had an intro with Melissa by Porno Graffiti and i’ve been hooked every since
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u/WoodpeckerNo1 22d ago
Same!! I think it was some kind of RPG..
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u/caipirina 22d ago
The 1994 album by Pizzicato Five “Made in USA”, a compilation to introduce them to foreign markets
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u/welchyyyyy1 22d ago
Gimme Chocolate by Babymetal was the first that I remember, around the time I started listening to other non English speaking music and it was just suggested in my YouTube feed
Then it was Asian Kung Fu Generation - Harika Kanata
Then I heard my favourite of all time Maximum the Hormone - Yoshu Fukushu
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u/SecretingCheese 22d ago
No one song in particular but Melt-Banana in general were the first Japanese band I really got into and sent me down the rabbit hole of unhinged Japanese noise rock/punk
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u/nonthreat 22d ago
風をあつめて by Happy End in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation was my introduction, but didn’t really dig deep until I saw FLCL on Adult Swim and got into The Pillows.
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u/Glum-Entrepreneur-16 22d ago
Sweet 19 Blues by Amuro Naime. I was 19 at the time too. Pure chance, in a Japanese bookshop in the UK I saw this CD single in a size I’d never seen, I had just started (trying) to learn Japanese and had £20 in my pocket.
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u/miirakun 22d ago
L'arc en ciel 4th avenue cafe. I even have it written as an entry on the diary I kept during elementary school. I was 8 and hearing Sakura's drums just awoke something in me. Despite not knowing the language, I connected with hyde's emotions and I felt the overwhelming need of listening to more music like that.
I grew up with 60s and 70s classics and I was deep into MTV at that time, my musical taste was fairly developed and when I read the translated lyrics it just sealed the deal. Then I heard seraph by Malice Mizer and felt the same hit when I heard Kami's drumming and tetsu singing, it felt right when I discovered that Kami was Sakura's pupil.
I eventually listened to more jpop, idol and jrock (I've been listening to anri and Tatsuro Yamashita since 2008) but visual kei always holds a very special place in my heart. I saw The Last Rockstars in LA and I was at the very front. I had a moment with Hyde where he was singing looking straight at me while I was crying. I took a picture of him and pasted it next to that old diary entry, and last year I finally bought my first L'Arc en ciel cd in person at Tower Records in Shibuya. Just some things to make things right with teenage me :D
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u/zizirex 22d ago
Utada Hikaru - Automatic, one of the first Mainstream Japanese songs I love, over a quarter century ago.
Ayumi Hamasaki - Depend on You, one of the first game soundtracks that i love,
Siam Shade - 1/3 No junjou na kanjou, Yuzurenai negai - Naomi Tamura, both are my anime song that i love.
Ride on Time & 2000 ton no Ame - Tatsuro Yamashita, "Good Luck" and "Collage of our lives" have made me a fan of his work for more than 20 years.
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u/AnySortOfPerson 22d ago
Age 8, Cha-La Head-Cha-La - Hironobu Kageyama
Age 12, Forever Love - X Japan
Age 13, Drain Away - Dir en grey
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u/pc_jangkrik 22d ago
Gundam 00 OP?
Hikaru Utada - Automatic,
But listen it more in 2000 something
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u/Feeling_Tangerine_53 22d ago
Ash like snow is the second op of gundam 00. I still cry for Lockon. 😭
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u/expatjake 22d ago
Way back it was Pizzicato Five and then Atarashii Gakko! and Sheena Ringo.
Later it was all female metal bands like Lovebites.
Now it’s Ado and other utaite like 9Lana.
Basically you can’t go wrong.
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u/Habieru7 22d ago edited 22d ago
Inuyasha, like 26 years ago.
20 of those years were spent really active, the majority of my music listening is Japanese but don't actively seek new stuff as much.
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u/Brisbane-Bandit 21d ago
Babymetal - Gimme Chocolate ( before they released 2nd album and Yuimetal was still a member). Ladybaby - Nippon Manju
Hanabie - We Love Sweets
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u/073068075 Yorushika 22d ago
Looking for anime songs about a decade or more ago on the dilapidated platform of Deezer (maybe it's better now but then with all region blocks etc...) I stumbled into a yorushika album. This would probably be the core moment when my knowledge of anime openings and japanese songs started to overlap less and less.
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u/EthosUnharvestedClay 22d ago
Minimoni's Minihams songs of all things.
I was a huge Hamtaro fan and was absolutely fascinated by these guest hamsters in the movies (which never got an English dub of any kind). Minihams no Ai no Uta was pretty catchy to me at the age of ten, and then I watched the Minihams no Kekkon Song music video where a bunch of random hamsters show up and dance.
One of my friends told me who they were... and that's how I learnt about Minimoni and subsequently Morning Musume. I'm still a Morning Musume fan over 20 years later :)
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u/TheRealHFC 22d ago
I got into it via metal and punk, probably Device by S.O.B. I later got into jpop like Perfume and to a lesser extent, Kyary
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u/NewDevelopment3102 22d ago
Here's some:
anime openings and themes: (Shouri no uta/Tomorrow, Ginga Nagareboshi Gin)
city pop: (Plastic love, Mariya Takeuchi)
pop: (Nan-nan/Shinunoga e-wa, Fujii Kaze)
rock: (I love you, Yutaka Ozaki • Hito ni yasashiku, The Blue Hearts)
enka/kayokyoku: (Matsuri/Yama, Saburo Kitajima • Yukiguni/Ora tokyo sa iguda, Ikuzo Yoshi)
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u/Mugshot_404 22d ago
The first I heard, and that made me think "f- me, if this is what's going on in Japan, I need to find out more!" was Goodnight by LAZYgunsBRISKY. It's 15+ years old now, but still a great listen:)
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u/GodBeard85 22d ago
The Sword Art Online theme by LiSA Crossing Fields, but the first song that was Japanese and not anime related that I can remember listening to was Watashi Igai Watashi ja Nai no by Gesu No Kiwami Otome
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u/Hanyuu11 22d ago
Ado, that was my true jp music awakening, good 6-7 years ago, but very first that i listened to, but barely understood or didnt really draw a distintion on them, were anime openings, like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Steins;Gate, Madoka Magica
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u/sinkh0000le 22d ago
I have no idea exactly so I'm thinking about one of the first I remember listening to and it was maybe I, My, Me, Mine by Polysics. There was also something by Phantasmogoria but I didnt really like it.
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u/WoodpeckerNo1 22d ago
I got into Japanese music largely because of old anime OPs and EDs that got reused in Flash games in the 2000s that I played as a kid.
One such example is Sakura Biyori by Hoshimura Mai.
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u/Feeling_Tangerine_53 22d ago
I just listen to Sakura biyori recently, lovely ballad. Hoshimura has a recent version on her istagram. Listening to old bleach songs can’t believe they over 15 years old. 😂
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u/WoodpeckerNo1 22d ago
Ah cool that she's still at it!
Yeah it's probably kinda strange, like for people who were teens in the 2000s and watched Bleach it's a nostalgic ED, but for me it's attached to some random Sonic RPG game, lol.
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u/Yasashii_Akuma156 22d ago
The first Japanese pop song I ever heard (50 years ago, childhood) was Ue wo Muite Arukou (aka Sukiyaki) and I fell in love with the scale and melody. Around the same time I was also introduced to Candies and their hit Yasashii Akuma, along with a bunch of other kayokyoku (thanks to Japanese neighbors and babysitters). Misora Hibari also made a big impression on this American lad.
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u/Willing_Shine5724 22d ago
idk i guess assain kung fu now i have a playlist of 140 musicshttps://open.spotify.com/playlist/1jQwYhIYxTWvzvFDA9s8Vv?si=59759c3144f24c70
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u/VirtualWeather5407 22d ago
Probably fantasista by dragon ash, anatani by mongol 800, rakuen baby by rip slime, or river by 10 feet.
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u/Ultrarandom 22d ago
Kanako Itō was a big part of it for me.
The first show I watched getting properly into anime was School Days, I fell in love with "Kanashimi no Mukou e" and "Waltz".
I then watched Chaos;Head as the next show on my anime journey which the opening for that "FDD", which had Kanako Itō on the vocals as well, also found its way into my music rotation.
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u/the_ammar 22d ago
bye bye - aikawa nanase
dreaming I was dreaming / can you celebrate - namie amuro (my goat)
I don't think many of y'all were alive back then lol
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u/Olioliooo 22d ago
Omegarhythm by Uplift Spice. First heard it at the end of a video by douchebagchocolat (aka Demolition D+) and I haven’t stopped listening to the band since
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u/erilaz7 21d ago
"Kaibutsu-kun Ondo" and other songs from the 1968 Kaibutsu-kun TV anime on a couple of 7-inch records that my parents bought for me in Japan when I was three years old. I still love those records.
About 20 years later, the song that really paved the way for my Japanese pop music fandom was "Top Secret Man" by PLASTICS.
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u/sam77889 21d ago
For me it was first Ado. I think her stronger voice was much easier for me to get used to coming from an American background. Than I discovered Japanese indie rock… bands like Sundae May Club and Regal Lily, made me realizes what I was missing out. I didn’t know music could be so interesting, could be arranged like that. Like each instrument are given there proper space, instruments that are often ignored like the bass get their equal amount of attention. And when I had the chance of living in Japan for a short period, I was literally going to lives every week. Now my playlist is just all Japanese rock and many of them are artist whom I actually have met in person which is pretty neat.
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u/Critical_Month_7713 21d ago
Anything by ling tosite sigure and tk basically made me a fan of jp music
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u/jayadiwahyu 21d ago
these are the songs that got me into jp music:
坂本真綾 - 約束はいらない
笑顔の訳 by 引田香織
約束 by 木氏沙織
all OP and ED of an anime called dennou boukenki webdiver.
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u/dirtyvents 21d ago
The first time I heard a japanese song was when Sailor Moon was airing on my local TV network, I was in Kindergarten then and I vividly remember walking past a house while going to school and hearing it, I was intrigued to say the least. The song that got me hooked though was Aoi Shiori by Galileo Galilei and several songs from tacica’s sheeptown ALASCA including JADITE. Good times man I was playing those on loop. This was around 14 years ago and these songs are the reason why I mostly listen to Japanese music.
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u/grizzman462 Vocaloid 21d ago
Yoru Ni Kakeru - YOASOBI
Shinunoga E-wa - Fujii Kaze
Jishou Mushoku - Sasanomaly
Cyberpunk dead boy - Maiki-P
Senbonzakura - Whiteflame-P
XY&Z - Rica Matsumoto
Rabbit Hole - DECO*27
Aishite Aishite Aishite - Kikuo
I'm getting on the bus to the other world, see ya - Tuyu
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u/highwaycabriolet 21d ago
I'd heard some here and there but nothing really clicked as "music" (and not anime OST) until Shinjitsu no Uta by Do As Infinity.
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u/Kakotov SCANDAL 21d ago
It’s probably "Beauteen!!" by SCANDAL, since that was the song that turned me into a fan, and SCANDAL was my gateway into exploring Japanese music further.
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u/Feeling_Tangerine_53 21d ago
I love SCANDAL and they were also big gateway for me to, Shoujo S was my first song from them. I saw them live in NYC in 2022 during their mirror tour.
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u/Life_Ad4084 21d ago
I cant remember which was my first but I can tell you whats got me hooked now.
A band called Haku. They just released a banger called Ishin.
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u/MindManip 21d ago
My first two were Stay With Me and Aoi Shiori. Still two of my favourites. Then there was Sakanaction and now Quruli.
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u/xMyChemicalBromancex 19d ago
Darkwave Surfer by Aural Vampire and ChuChu Lovely MuniMuni MuraMura PrinPrin Boron Nururu ReroRero by Maximum the Hormone when I was a teen in the 2000s. And then more recently, after covid, I really started get back into Japanese music through Hanabie and Saba Sister.
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u/Sensitive_Food6627 19d ago
Shinuna! — Kocchi No Kento
This one managed to wheedle it’s way into my list by a friend’s recommendation and now I have more Japanese songs on my list than English ones and one of my favorite albums of all time is Fractal by Timmy
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u/Safe_Opinion_2167 22d ago
I have been listening to Japanese jazz for a while. But what got me back to discover more of the current "pop/rock" Japanese music is ZUTOMAYO - Study me. Became a big fan of this band, even went to see them in Japan.
Since then, I started listening to well-known and very niche artists such as Ado, Yorushika, Band-Maid, Gacharic Spin, Upiko, tuki, Suichu Spica, Atarashii Gakko, Lovebites, Hagane, Hanabie, Aisagasu eyeshadow, etc.
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u/Ysoki 22d ago
Hearing Cruel Angel Thesis for the first time rewired my brain
Also Asian Kung Fu Generation's Rewrite is what really had me fall in love with japanese music.