The first track is Superfly’s Skipped Beat, a classic little jazz piece. Then comes the Alt-Rock anthem from The Calendar of Happy Days with a track from their new album Feelback View. The third track is a Lo-Fi capture of a live song done by A Flood Of Circle. If you don’t know these bands, I promise you will be glad to get to know them; they have some amazing music to offer.
I will find out the name of this band in a format that Amazon or Apple understands, because I need to buy their music! While researching, it looks like N’ Shukugawa Boys has the highest probability of being correct. I stumbled across this while looking for something else entirely (the internet is wonderful that way) and got hooked 30 seconds into the first song. Somewhere between pop and rock, or maybe punk and visual kei, I do like their style.
The first video is a mashup of various songs by $ALOVERS in the middle of their new track Hot Hot Hot. I would have much preferred to have one of the song itself, because it sounds really good, but the decision on how to make things available is up to the band and the record label. The next track is the latest from Maximum The Hormone, a Heavy Metal/Power Pop/Ballad tune, almost schizophrenic in its style. Of course, it might also be a mash up of multiple songs from their latest release, but edited together much better, and then how would I be able to tell? The final track this time is HEY-SMITH’s Dancing Is Illegal, a great little alt rock anthem that seems to be lodged somewhere between power pop and punk rock.
If you were wondering, it really does appear that the poliece are raiding dance clubs all over Japan, hauling the patrons off to jail and making them pee in cups, including in Osaka and Tokyo. There is quite the controversy about it, and that is far from the only recording protesting the situation.
Thanks for the heads up on these tunes to J-Rock Explosion, if you like quality rock out of Japan that is a site worth checking on a regular basis.
A few more interesting J-Rock tracks, starting with LoVendor’s kick ass song, Nemurenai Yoru, followed by their new track, Sexy Boy. OK, maybe not new, but new to me. Next comes Superfly’s How Do I Survive, just uploaded last week. There is always tasty music coming out of Japan, you just have to look for it a bit…
Sounding a bit like everybody’s favorite virtual idol, Passepied just released a new CD this week, and the first track is a song called S.S from that release. They have been around since 2009, getting their major label deal with Warner Bros. Japan in 2012, doing some great music fusing a lot of different styles, but centered around pop and impressionistic. The fact they named themselves after the last movement in Debussy’s Bergamasque Suite pretty much says it all. Their music videos are also a treat, the lead singer having graduated art school influences them all, and I just had to grin about the Power Rangers in this one. The second track I included is an older song of theirs Yūyake wa inochi no umi, which makes their impressionist influences more obvious. And yes, that third video is from them as well, originally posted in December of 2012.
The song is from Simple Plan, the song Summer Paradise, featuring the vocal work of Taka from One OK Rock, one of the best Alt Rock bands from Japan. This is one of the more interesting songs since The Lazy Song sung by Bruno Mars and featuring Leonard Nimoy in the video. Come to think of it, it sounds a lot like Summer Paradise. And then, just because I can, a recent track from Rip Slyme, who’s music I can only describe as Punk/Rap/Lounge, however that actually works.