Joining me now to talk all about J-pop is my co-host, Indiana.
Hey there, Indiana.
How's it going?
Hey, Andrew.
I'm doing really well.
I'm so excited to talk about this topic today.
As you know and as listeners know, we're both big fans of Japanese music, so this should be a good one.
Yeah.
And the reason why we are recording this episode is because of a user on our Discord community.
I have to give a shout out and thanks to this user for the great suggestion.
So I think I'm pronouncing this correctly.
The username is Tristan7777.
So Tristan7777.
And wrote on Discord, I'd love to hear Andrew and Indiana talk about J-pop.
And so here we are.
That's what we're doing right now.
So thank you, Tristan, for that amazing suggestion.
And everyone.
If you would like to hear us talk about a specific topic or a specific idea, then we're always welcoming your topic suggestions and ideas.
Just go over to our Discord and make a post about that.
We even have a specific channel for episode suggestions.
If you leave a message there, then we'll see it and we'll do our best to try and make that become a reality.
Okay, so j-pop indiana, i think this is a pretty fun topic and you know, i think uh, it's.
It's really interesting that you are into japanese music, because i didn't know this about you.
It was just something that i kind of randomly discovered as we were talking and as we've been recording together and yeah, we do have that in common.
So i think Yeah, it'll be fun to get into it a little bit and to talk about our pathway into Japanese music, because it is a rather kind of niche style for North Americans, right?
Like North American English speakers like us.
So I'm really curious about how you got into it.
I'm assuming that, as you were growing up as a kid like maybe your parents didn't play it in the home.
Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I don't really think like our parents' generation were too much into Japanese music and playing it at home.
So what was your pathway?
How did you get into J-pop and Japanese music?
Yeah, no, my parents definitely didn't play any Japanese music in the home.
But I think a big part of it for me and a lot of people growing up in the aughts, the 2000s, was probably pop culture like anime, hearing the opening and closing credit theme songs to the anime that I liked or other kids liked.
I think that is a really common way to get into Japanese music.
And so I think that was true for me.
And I was also just really interested in learning the language, not really for any good reason, but I was drawn to it from early on.
So I think that coupled with, you know, loving music, like drew me towards Japanese music.
But I actually have a funny story about finding one of my favorite bands when I was in middle school.
I was desperate to find new music.
So I just opened up the iTunes search, like my iTunes library, and searched like random numbers or random letters on my keyboard, just to see what would come up.
And sort of like.
Miraculously, I searched a couple numbers and I found this incredible band Go Go Nana Ichi Hachi, Hachi.
So that's Go Go 7188.
So I must have typed in 7, 1, and 8 or something like that.
And they're this really cool J-rock band from Kagoshima, maybe, like southern Japan.
And like I instantly fell in love with them.
So I don't know that when that one was just fate, I think.
But yeah, that's that's how I got into it.
I guess like a few different channels like that, to draw me into it.
But I mean, what about you, Andrew?
I don't think you've ever had any, as far as I know.
Some strong interest in learning Japanese right.
So how did you get into Japanese music?
Yeah, the way that I got into Japanese music was actually through my Korean friends.
So I remember one day I was hanging out with some of my Korean friends and we were having a nice little picnic at the Han River Park here, which is this big park in Seoul.
And this would probably have been around like 2015 or 2016, around then.
And one of my friends played some music on her smartphone.
And it was Tatsuru Yamashita, which is like the king of city pop, right?
The king of Japanese city pop.
And I heard that and I was like, who is this?
This is not a Korean singer, right?
Like, who is this?
And she told me about him.
And I made a little note of his name and then went back home and started getting into his stuff, like finding it online and trying to listen to as much of it as I could.
And it just blew me out of the water.
Like I was so impressed with the quality of the songwriting, with how catchy it was, with how well produced it was, with the orchestration, just with the level of detail.
Like it's just pop music.
However, it was so well done and so well produced.
And I think I've said this on Q-Lips before.
But at that time, especially like that time 2015 2016, I think I was still into making music.
Like I was still playing guitar often and trying to write songs and trying to be, you know, maybe not like a professional musician, but still do it kind of as a side hobby.
I loved, especially when I was younger, making music and creating music and songwriting.
However, once I heard Tatsuro Yamashita, I was like, it's over.
It's done.
Like he just made me quit music essentially, because I'm like, I'll never be as good as this.
Like this is the peak of pop songwriting and yeah, super impressed.
So that was my pathway.
It was actually an introduction that I got from one of my friends.
And I guess she was a little bit ahead of the curve because a few years later, probably around like 2019 2020, city pop blew up in the western world and it became a really popular genre right across the world.
I think, and that's probably due to the youtube algorithm.
I think youtube, for whatever reason, started pushing J-pop and especially old J-pop.
City pop is one of the names of the genres from, I think, the 70s and the 80s, maybe late 70s and 80s.
Japanese pop music is often called city pop.
And it's got this really fun, positive energy.
If you look at a lot of the most popular city pop records, the album covers they have like sunshine and beaches and summer is like a really popular theme.
And so, yeah, this genre exploded maybe five or six years ago.
So.
I guess I was a little bit into it before the explosion.
And then, once it exploded, then on my YouTube algorithm as well, I started getting all of these different recommendations and suggestions.
And that's when I started going deeper, I think, into J-pop music and exploring a lot of different artists.
And then just really realizing it's like a treasure trove.
This is this huge collection of music that I had never been exposed to, like literally three or four decades of really, really amazing music across all genres that I just had never listened to at all.
And it was such an amazing discovery to me because, because I was like wow, I've been sleeping on this.
I didn't know Japan was so talented with creating music and then going through and discovering it.
And exploring it has been really rewarding and really exciting over the last few years.
So I guess that was my pathway in.
I have to tip my hat to my Korean friends who got me onto Tatsuro Yamashita.
Yeah.
And like you said, city pop has blown up so much and become so popular.
And I think, like you know, at the top of the episode you were talking about how it's not so common right for North Americans like us to get into Japanese music, maybe in our age group, right as kids or as younger, younger people.
But these days, I think, like it's so common to love well, this isn't Japanese music, but K-pop and J-pop, and to have that influence from yeah, YouTube algorithms or social media and like that, that music has really spread, I think, and become so much more accessible and popular now, which is great because yeah, there's a lot of incredible tunes from Japan.
Yeah, I'm wondering Indiana.
I know, with K-pop, A lot of people in North America who listen to K-pop.
They're listening to like the newest cutting edge K-pop, right.
Like it just comes out and then people listen to it, right?
Like the popular groups these days, like Blackpink or aespa or new jeans or something like that.
However, With Japanese music, I'm curious are you or are people around you, are you guys listening to new Japanese music or older Japanese music?
Like city pop is an older genre from the 70s and 80s and 90s, but it got really popular and people are listening to that older Japanese music.
Me too.
I mostly listen to older Japanese music and I'm not too up to date with like, what's going on right now, in the moment.
How about on your side of things?
I would largely say I'm in the same boat as you.
My true passion for Japanese music is city pop and yellow magic orchestra, like the pioneers of electronic music right.
Like that music from the 70s is like just my favorite.
I love it so much.
It'll always put me in a good mood.
I don't really keep up with so much contemporary or like modern pop music um from japan there are a few artists i really i think are unique and appreciate um there's fuji kaze um and i think he has like kind of this r&b style that he incorporates into his his music which is very uh refreshing his voice is incredible and um yonezu kenshi um i think is probably like one of the biggest japanese pop artists uh right now and you know you'll hear his stuff in all sorts of anime openings but um I don't like actively listen to like their albums from front to back or anything.
Those are a couple of the newer artists I'm into.
But yeah, largely I'm focused on the 70s stuff, the funk, the city pop.
And I think a lot of my friends too.
So I do have some, you know, my close friends are into anime or Japanese culture.
And I think they also are mostly into that older music.
So yeah, I'm not super connected to what's like super trendy right now.
And I don't use TikTok either.
So yeah yeah, it's interesting.
When i talk with koreans here in seoul who are like in their 20s, a lot of them are into japanese music as well.
They'll tell me that it's like their favorite genre, and so i get excited.
I'm like, oh too, i love japanese music.
Who do you listen to?
And they all listen to, like new and current artists.
Again, i think anime is like the big pathway.
It's because they they found some group or some bands who created the opening theme song for one of their favorite animes and they get into the music that way.
And i'm coming from it from a different perspective, right?
And so yeah, we end up liking very different styles of music.
I do think that current contemporary Japanese music is popular.
However, just not not with me.
And I don't watch too much anime.
So I can't say that that's like a big influencing factor for me.
How about you, Indiana?
I know you study Japanese.
So maybe you're more interested in watching anime.
Is that something that you spend time doing?
Not often.
And I'm so much more of a movie person than a series person in general.
I've seen my fair share of anime, but it's not something I put a lot of time in.
It's not a passion of mine.
So I know, maybe the most popular anime openings but, like I mentioned Yonezu Kenshi and I think he did the opening for Chainsaw Man or maybe it was the closing credits song.
But yeah, I'm really not a huge anime nerd.
Fair enough.
So why don't we talk about the appeal of Japanese music?
What is it that makes you want to listen to Japanese music?
Is it the lyrics?
Is it the production?
Is it the melody?
What is it?
What is the appeal for you?
I think well, with city pop right, which is like, like we've said, the one of the best genres um, it's just so funky and upbeat and um, the production value is often incredible and it just sounds silky smooth and I love that aspect of it.
Um, but I must say too that I really prefer city pop that is sung in Japanese, like there are plenty of songs that are sung in English Like, like you've mentioned, Tatsuro Yamashita, and he does like, lots of Beach Boys type songs and he'll do English songs.
And those are great, too.
But you know there's something about the Japanese language, the way that the syllables are split like the phonemes.
Like you know, each sound is sort of a perfect beat and it really works with melody and rhythm and like hearing Japanese the language in song lyrics.
It really works.
So much for like a beautiful rhythmic sound to go with the music.
It's hard to describe, but if you have heard the Japanese language or you've studied it a little bit or you speak it, you know exactly what I think I'm talking about.
With the, the sort of simplicity of the sounds and the rhythmic, you can separate words out so smoothly in a way that English is not quite as good at doing, because there's such complicated words and sort of like complex pronunciations that it's.
There's something special.
There's something different.
Yeah.
Yeah, Japanese has a simpler syllable structure than English.
So yeah, maybe you can have each syllable having like one beat in the lyrics, in the singing.
So yeah, that's very interesting.
And it is really fascinating to see the the influence of japanese music like.
If you listen to american pop music and disco music and funk music from the 70s, you'll be able to trace the lineage like.
I think the Japanese musicians at that time were very influenced by foreign music and they took a lot of these influences and then turned it into something that's unique and special and very Japanese.
But when you listen to older American music too, you're like, ah okay, this city pop song that I really like.
They were listening to this artist from the United States when they wrote this.
I'm positive of it because you can really hear the influence there.
However, there is some certain kind of je ne sais quoi about the Japanese version of it.
I don't know.
It just sounds... Maybe it's the foreignness.
I don't know.
Maybe it's because I can't understand the lyrics.
I don't know what it is exactly.
I can't put my finger on it for City Pop, but I do really enjoy it.
And I would say for me, Indiana, I like... several different genres of Japanese music.
But one genre that I'm listening to a lot these days is like 90s music 90s Japanese music, especially electronic music and ambient music from the 90s.
And for me, I grew up in the 90s and I didn't know it at the time.
I wasn't aware of it in the 90s.
However, I was really influenced I think almost subliminally or subconsciously by Japanese culture, because I was really into gaming and video games.
And I didn't even really clock it at first but, like a lot of the video games that I watched was playing, they were Japanese games, right.
Nintendo, I played a ton of.
Sony PlayStation, I played a ton of.
Sega Dreamcast.
These are all Japanese companies and all had Japanese games.
And the music, the soundtracks in a lot of these games were really well done, really cool.
But I didn't clock like, oh, this is a Japanese composer who made the soundtrack to this video game.
But now that I'm older...
I realized that.
And when I go to that era of the 90s and listen to electronic music it kind of like unlocks this nostalgic feeling for that time.
It's like oh, this is a little bit similar to the video game music I heard when I was playing games growing up.
And it also makes me kind of nostalgic for the technology of the time.
And I used to read video game magazines and I would see, like in Japan they have this weird game that's not available in North America, or they have this special accessory that's not available in North America.
It's only in Japan.
And so I'd read those magazines and see the photos of the cool technology that was in Japan at the time that we didn't have in Canada.
And I'd always be like, oh, that's so cool.
And so I think when I listen to this genre of music now, like Japanese electronic music from the 90s, It makes me nostalgic for that time in my childhood.
And I think that's another one of the reasons why we're seeing a kind of boom with this genre on YouTube, on Spotify and just among people of my demographic, like North American dudes in their 40s, is because this is kind of like flipping some switch in our brain and making us feel nostalgic for our teen years in the 90s.
Yeah.
I don't know.
But yeah, I think that's the appeal to me.
It feels, even though it's like foreign music.
It feels comfortable and feels it makes me feel like nostalgic for a time period that I never really got to experience, like 90s Japan.
But yeah, I think that's one of the reasons why I'm attracted to this style of music.
I can relate to that totally.
And when I was in Japan and I was homesick.
One day when I was studying abroad, I was at my host family's house.
I was homesick from school and just watching some TV programs, some podcasts. specials that were on.
I think there was a travel or a cooking show on.
And suddenly the background music in this TV program started playing this one song from Earthbound.
Mother 2 is the name in Japanese for this video game, which I think came out in the 90s.
And I love this game and has an incredible soundtrack.
And for some reason they used this music in this cooking program. as this quiet background music.
And my jaw dropped to the floor.
I was like, how is this song being played on TV?
This incredible niche video game song that is bringing tears to my eyes just to hear it.
So yeah, the nostalgia factor.
I can relate to that as well.
I think that is a big appeal for video game nerds growing up in the 90s or the 2000s.
I had a kind of similar experience where my jaw dropped to the floor, and that was this past summer.
I was in Osaka for just a very brief amount of time.
And I was walking through one of the popular subway stations in Osaka and it has like the subway station, but also there's a big shopping area connected to it, this big underground shopping area.
And I was walking through it and the background music that was playing in the underground shopping area was this
To me it was like I don't know Japanese listeners.
You guys will have to tune in and tell me.
Maybe he's really popular in Japan.
And it was just like niche to me, but maybe like super popular.
But to me a very niche, like weird song to play.
There's this jazz artist named Yoshio Suzuki and they were playing one of his songs in the background.
And I don't think he's a really popular artist, but I really love one of his albums specifically.
And that song was from that album.
And I was just like, Oh my God, this is so cool.
I'm in Japan and they're playing like one of my favorite light Japanese, like jazz songs in the background.
It just made my jaw drop.
And yeah, Yeah it's weird when you have that kind of, it feels like the music that is playing is like the perfect soundtrack for your life at the moment.
So yeah, I've experienced that before as well.
Alright, Indiana, we'll wrap things up here quickly.
But before we do, I had two things that I wanted to talk about.
First of all, I wanted to talk about the popularity among your friends with Japanese music.
Is this something that a lot of your friends or you're noticing that a lot of people are listening to?
Would it be common to talk about about Japanese music with your friends, like when you just hang out together?
Or is it still like a pretty niche genre that not too many people in your social circle know about?
Well, for me, birds of a feather flock together, which is an expression which means that if you have similar interests or you're similar to somebody, that you will end up being friends with them or surround yourself with those kinds of people.
Um so uh, my social group is very much people who are into movies like me, and um music, and not always the same kinds of music but yeah, many of my friends uh, I think I can talk to about different Japanese artists or uh, you know, city pop, not everybody, it's not so popular but um, you know, I have some friends who are really into um, like seventies and eighties music, and you know, just in general.
And so when I throw on like a really funky city pop song on one of our collaborative playlists, they're often like, oh my God, this is great.
And then they save the song.
So yeah, it's very easy and comfortable to share this kind of music with my friends.
Fortunately, that's a nice shared interest that I have.
Yeah.
But but you Andrew, like you've mentioned that a lot of your friends are more into the super recent popular Japanese music.
Like.
Do you have any anyone you can connect to with your love for, like city pop and this 90s electronic music?
I think my wife is really into Japanese music as well, especially city pop, so we can talk about city pop together, and she's got a much bigger city pop record collection than I do, so I can dip into her records and listen to them, which is awesome.
Nice.
Yeah that's really great.
I would say like It's a little bit different in Korea because I think Korean people are exposed to a lot more Japanese culture growing up, especially people my age or younger.
So it's a little bit of a different situation.
But to talk about my Canadian and American friends, unless they're music people in general, if they're just like kind of fair weather music fans and don't really care about it too much or not too passionate about it, then I would say Japanese music is not on their radar at all.
And they might even think that I'm a bit of a weeb for listening to Japanese music.
And weeb is maybe a word that we should explain.
Indiana, what is a weeb?
So this is a sort of a internet slang term that became popular since probably the 2000s, the aughts.
So it's short for weeaboo, which is another slang term.
And it just refers to somebody who's sort of like a Japan nerd and like a wannabe Japanese person because they love Japanese pop culture so much.
It's kind of like otaku, but for you know, like a North American person or really anybody who is not Japanese but is just super into Japanese culture, pop culture.
And it's, you know, almost a little annoying.
I think it's a pejorative.
It's a negative term to get called a weeb unfortunately because yeah, I think if you get called a weeb it's like oh, this is the only thing you're interested in.
You're obsessed with it and it's driving other people crazy.
So.
You don't want to be called a weeb.
Yeah, exactly.
Well put.
And as for the 90s electronic and ambient music that I like from Japan, I don't think I know anybody that is into it.
I'm kind of on my own.
So if you love this style of music as well, hit me up on Discord and maybe we can form a friendship over this style of music, because
Yeah, I don't know any of my friends who are into it.
It's kind of just me and YouTube videos and the other people who are commenting on YouTube videos.
It's like this weird YouTube community that has kind of formed, finding and talking about weird old Japanese music from the 90s.
Okay.
Okay.
Indiana, finally, let's move on to our recommendations.
We're going to share our top three favorite albums or songs.
Or maybe not favorites, just ones that popped into our mind while we were preparing for this episode.
And yeah, I know that we have a huge audience of listeners from around the world.
And I think many of our listeners probably don't know anything about Japanese music at all.
If you are in South America or Europe, maybe this is still a very foreign genre for you.
So guys, we're going to share some of the albums or the songs that we really like from Japan.
And we'll put links to them in the description for this episode.
Maybe some YouTube links so that you can just click and easily check them out and listen to them.
And so, yeah, Indiana, do you want to go first?
What's on your top three list that you'd like to share with our listeners?
Sure.
So I'm going to go with, uh, some albums that I think are really, really great.
Just if you listen.
If you want to give a one of these artists a solid try, give them, you know, 10 songs worth of a chance.
You can check out some of these albums.
Um, so the first one I would like to share is a Tatsuro Yamashita album.
Um, so Spacey.
S-P-A-C-Y from 1977.
I mean, he has so many incredible albums, but this is my go-to for when I need a pick-me-up and my mood is low and I'm like I need to be washed over with beautiful sound and very cheerful music.
It is incredibly produced and really has some of my favorite songs by him.
So Spacey by Tatsuro Yamashita.
Nice.
Yeah.
An amazing album.
I think that's my second favorite album of his.
I'm going to say For You is my favorite because that was the gateway drug for me into his work.
But an amazing choice.
I'm going to go in a different direction for my first recommendation.
I'm going to say an ambient record by a composer named Hiroshi Yoshimura.
And he is one of these guys that has exploded over the last five, six years due to the YouTube algorithm.
He makes.
Environmental music is the official genre name, which is like this ambient, minimalistic music.
And I think I've got all of his records that are available to buy.
I'm just a huge fan of his.
However, the one that I'm going to recommend, it's called Wetland, and it's impossible to find.
You can't buy it.
I think it was only released on CD for a little time in the nineties.
So yeah, it's out of print and the collectors are hoarding the copies.
Maybe if you did want to buy a copy, it would cost you hundreds of dollars.
So I don't actually own it, but I like to listen to it on YouTube.
It's up there on YouTube and it's just very calming, just so warm and comforting.
And it's great as background music, It's like the background to a lot of Q-Lips stuff.
Guys, if I'm like working on episode plans or answering emails or doing something related to Q-Lips, where I'm working on my computer and I need some ambient kind of calm music in the background, I probably got Wetland on.
Yeah, I'd love to recommend it to everyone if you're looking for some peaceful, calm music to help you focus.
I think it's great for that situation.
That sounds so good.
I can't wait to listen to that.
I don't recognize the name or the artist, so I might not have heard it.
I'm definitely going to throw that on later.
Thank you, Andrew.
Yeah, you're in for a treat.
It's awesome.
Okay, Indiana, what's your number two?
Okay.
Okay.
We're going to stay in the city pop.
So Tatsuro Yamashita went to school, I think not for music actually, but for like you know don't quote me on this, but I think he was studying like copyright law and like he was going to enter a different part of the music industry.
But he, I think out of college or during college, started a band with another really popular city pop artist called Taeko Onuki.
And they were also friends with like a bunch of other really popular city pop artists, like Minako Yoshida, and like they all know each other, which is just makes me happy to think about, like all these incredible artists are just good friends and collaborating.
But so Taeko Onuki and Tatsuro Yamashita's band.
There were a couple other members, I don't know them.
They were called Sugar Babe and they would play at clubs, and it was just not very popular at that time.
But their album, Songs, it's just called Songs, it's incredible.
I would do anything to quickly jump back in time and see them, this 22-year-old, Tatsu and Taeko, playing this really sweet.
Another joyful and really pleasant album, maybe a city pop progenitor, starting off the genre.
So Sugar Babe songs, really, really pleasant album.
Really recommend it.
Another solid choice.
Yeah, that's a great album.
And you're absolutely right that the scene, the city pop scene, the Japanese music scene in the 70s and 80s and 90s maybe even still now, I'm not sure was like super collaborative.
And you saw the most... famous musicians working together all the time and helping each other out.
And, you know, I have a pretty big vinyl collection.
And one of the things that I love about like when I look at a city pop record or a record from that era of the 70s and 80s is I see like who played percussion or who sang backup vocals.
And you can see the same musicians names pop up again and again, and again, because they were all helping each other.
So like maybe they didn't have a huge role to play, but they would jump in on a track and sing backup vocals or something.
So you see the same names pop up again and again.
It's really cool.
And one of the musicians names who you see super, super often is this guy named Hauruomi Hosono.
Indiana, did I come anywhere close to saying that correctly?
I think so.
Yes.
Haruomi, Haruomi, so, and then Hosono.
Yeah.
Okay.
So he is like a god of Japanese music, I think.
And one of his first groups was called Happy End.
And it's like this... kind of folk group, I would say, folk rock group.
And they were active in the late 60s to early 70s.
And this is my second recommendation.
I want to recommend their album, which is called Kazamachi Roman.
I got this little snippet of this record from Wikipedia.
It says that this record was recorded in 1971 and it's a concept album which attempted to paint a musical picture of Tokyo before the 1964 Summer Olympics, through which sweeping changes transformed the city forever.
So I had no idea that this was a concept record, because I'm not really picking up on the lyrics at all when I'm listening to it.
However, I did learn through listening to this record that the word kaze means wind.
So that is like one of the few Japanese words that I was actually able to learn from listening to the lyrics.
But it's an amazing record.
Super, super interesting.
Well written, amazing songwriting, great production, just a beautiful record.
So it's a little bit different than the City Pop and the electronic music and ambient music I was talking about before, but just a fantastic folk rock record that I highly recommend to everyone.
Yes, I always associate Haruomi Hosono with electronic music, but you're right.
He's in that band and it's like just the most pleasant folk music.
Oh, what a nice recommendation.
I'm glad I know at least your second recommendation.
Great album.
I sign off on that.
Nice.
Okay, Indiana, your final one.
Okay, this is sort of cheating, because I'm going to talk about a compilation album that is inspired by the original and suggest both of them, but it's all similar music.
So I'm also going to recommend.
Haruomi Hosono's Hosono House.
I mean, he has so many incredible records, but I think this one would be accessible.
It has a few like really magical songs on there.
And so, you know, as you mentioned, he was in many bands.
He was in Yellow Magic Orchestra.
He did tons of solo work and he collaborated with Tatsuro a bunch of times too.
But this one is a great representation of some of that electronic sound in his solo work.
And a compilation came out of covers just a couple years ago, which was a collaboration between Japanese artists and North American artists.
I know that you know Mac DeMarco.
We've discussed him before briefly.
Like a lot of people who were really inspired in many ways by Haruomi Hosono, collaborated on this compilation cover album.
And it's a bunch of the tracks from Hosono House.
And I think it's just called Hosono House Revisited.
And it's from a couple of years ago.
So I would highly recommend that too, because you get the impact of just how meaningful this music is on so many contemporary modern musicians like Mac DeMarco or who else was on there.
There's a lot of Japanese musicians on there.
I don't remember all the artists, but it's really well done.
So a double recommendation for our listeners here.
Yeah, absolutely.
Very good.
Great choice.
I sign off on that one as well.
For my final recommendation.
I am going to recommend more of a true J-pop song.
And this song just randomly came up the other day when I was out for a run.
Like it's on one of my playlists.
I have this huge mega mix of like tons of different pump up high energy songs, like hundreds and hundreds of songs.
And I just put it on random when I'm running to give me some energy on one of those boring long runs.
And this song came up and I hadn't heard it for a long time.
And I was just like, man, this song is so good.
Like this might have been the best song in the 2010s.
I think I think this song came out in 2011.
And maybe it's just because I hadn't heard it in such a long time.
But it's such a cool, high energy, fun song.
And the video is wild and incredible and colorful and really psychedelic as well.
Indiana.
I don't know if you know this song, but if you don't know it, you've got to check it out immediately.
It's called Pon Pon Pon by Kyari Pamyu Pamyu.
Do you know this song?
You know I'll interrupt your introduction to say that I think this was one of the early broad How to put this.
Like when I was in middle school, this song came out.
And everybody at my middle school knew about it.
Like it sort of was a phenomenon, a big news story, this song for some reason in the United States when I was growing up.
So I think this was one of those breakthrough moments of like J-pop entering North America.
Yeah, I totally know that song.
Yeah.
And for good reason, too.
Like, it's such a good song.
It's just hilarious and funny.
And it's got like high energy elements to it.
But it's also got some very soft, sweet, like melodic parts.
And I have no idea what the song is about.
The lyrics make no sense to me.
I don't know what pon pon pon means.
I apologize if that's like a bad word or something.
It's like, it's an amazing song.
It's so well put together and super, super fun.
So yeah, that just randomly came up on my playlist the other day.
And I honestly forgot about this song, but I'm glad that it randomly came up.
And yeah, I've been enjoying it for the last week or so here again.
And that's why it made my list.
So those are my top three, the Hiroshi Yoshimura, Happy Ends and Kyari Pamyu Pamyu song.
Very nice.
All right, Indiana, we need to wrap this episode up.
I think we could talk about this topic forever.
I feel like we've just barely scratched the surface.
Maybe we need to make a whole different podcast about talking about Japanese music.
But we'll leave the conversation here for today.
Thank you, guys for listening all the way to the end.
We hope you enjoyed our chat here and, of course, we want to turn things over to you and here what you have to say is japanese music popular in your part of the world?
Have you ever listened to it?
And, if you have, do you have any songs that you could recommend to me and to indiana?
We are huge music heads, we love listening to music and we always enjoy recommendations.
So yeah, let us know what you like, and the best way to do that is in our discord community.
It's free for everyone to join.
It's where our community gathers and we hang out and we communicate and share with each other and, most importantly, we also build our english skills together.
So Click the link in the description for this episode and you can join us on the Discord, and we're looking forward to your recommendations.
Okay everyone, we're going to wrap things up here for now, but please take care, and we'll talk to you in the next episode.
Until then, goodbye.
Bye, guys.
Definitely send us your recommendations.
