Jpop
“Dr.Jpop, or Dr.J as I affectionately call her, is a brilliant teacher/instructor who is full of knowledge. Her teaching style is engaging, fun and full of wisdom. I absolutely loved learning from her and I cannot wait to take another class with Dr.J.” - LaTonya Bronson (NC).
- Top Jpop Download. J-Pop Single Single Gen Hoshino – Same Thing. In SINGLE Single moumoon – Ai wa Tsuzuku yo Doko.
- INTERSECTION is a four member idol group under Avex's “The Whole Earth Connection” and is made up of multiracial Japanese born in the United States. The members are made of Mika Hashizume, William Aoyama, Kazuma Mitchell, and Caelan Moriarty and all of them are fluently bilingual in Japanese and English. The boys dropped their first song.
If you’ve been listening to K-Pop for a while you probably know that many of your favorite Korean idols have also released some hits in Japan. Which may be why many K-Pop fans have started listening to J-Pop too. There are also many native Koreans that have fallen in love with the unique sounds of J-Pop. Although the sounds and concepts may be different from what you might first expect, these groups have stolen the hearts of Koreans and K-Pop fans alike.
1. Sekai no Owari
If you’re a little bit scared to jump straight into the world of J-Pop, Sekai no Owari is a great place to start. Not only does this group have songs offerings in both Japanese and English but they’ve actually done collaborations with EPIK HIGH and Owl City!
Plus this group has an absolutely huge fanbase outside of Japan and with good reason!
2. BananaLemon
BananaLemon is the group that has been making its way into the hearts of K-Pop fans. In fact, many fans of this group suggest that if you are a fan of K-Pop to start with this group.
They’ve been likened to groups like BLACKPINK and 2NE1, so think some major badass vibes!
3. AKB48 Group
If you watched Produce48 then you’ve definitely heard of AKB48 and all of its sister groups, known collectively as AKB48 Group. But even before the show, they were already sparking interest with a Korean audience. The entire AKB group includes over 130 members and as you can imagine choosing a favorite member or even a specific “48” group to listen to can be extremely hard.
But if you enjoyed the contestants on Produce48 then you’ll at least have a starting point for the many groups that fall under the AKB48 line!
4. Perfume
Perfume was formed in 2000 as a technopop group that some fans liken to f(x). But the group didn’t really experience any major international success until around 2011 when their hit song “Polyrhythm” was featured in Pixar‘s “Cars 2”.
Following that, the group represented Japan at the 2011 Asian Song Festival in Daegu. Since then the group’s popularity has exploded.
5. ONE OK ROCK
If you’re more into rock and are looking for new groups that remind you of FTISLAND, CNBLUE, or DAY6, you might want to check out ONE OK ROCK. This group has a similar feeling to some of your favorite Korean rock groups and offers up tracks in English and Japanese.
If the many, many international fans of the group don’t convince you to give them a listen then what about when Lee Hongki stated he was close with the group during We Got Married?
6. BABYMETAL
Speaking of rock, many K-Pop fans who lean more towards the rock groups have also expressed their love for kawaii metal band BABYMETAL.
This group will impress you with their style of music and yet leave you wondering how they still manage to pull off such a cute concept.
7. FAKY
Although FAKY might seem like a weird name at first it actually comes from the combination of the words “Fantastic” and “Tokyo” and can also stand for “Five Ass Kicking Youngsters!” If that isn’t already cool enough, this group has also released hits in Japanese and English. Plus if you’re a fan of the anime Black Clover you may have heard one of their songs since it was used as the theme track.
This group has many dedicated fans from all over the world that would happily welcome you into the fandom!
8. You’ll Melt More
The super cute concept of You’ll Melt More has captured many Korean hearts. Scroll through the comments under any of this group’s songs and you’re bound to find words of support in Korean.
Jpop Music Download
While this group isn’t quite like any K-Pop group that you’ve ever heard before, there is something undeniably hypnotizing about them just like your favorite K-Pop groups!
9. Jasmine
If you prefer a more urban dance feel, you might find yourself falling in love with Jasmine. Since her debut in 2009 until now, she’s released a ton of hit songs that have topped charts in Japan. But these hits have also made a huge impact on native Koreans who have also fallen in love with her songs.
Additionally, fans of K-Pop who also love J-Pop highly recommend listening to her if you’re new to the genre.
By Jer Renn Lam
One of the most defining features of Japanese popular culture is its music. Japanese pop music, or normally abbreviated as J-pop, is not only part and parcel of Japanese culture, but of the lives of many people around the world as well.
How do we define what J-pop is? Is it music by Japanese artists catering to a mostly Japanese audience? Or is it a Western-influenced popular music? Or is it really nothing more than Western songs sang in Japanese?
AsiaFinest defines J-pop as ‘Western influenced Japanese popular music’. The question that arises here is why do we call it ‘Western-influenced’?
To begin with, we’ll have to look at how J-pop today came about. This website, ‘The History of Japanese Music’, provided the information that the Japanese had always taken music from a foreign culture before incorporating Japanese aspects into it. The foreigners had played their musical instruments at the Japanese court, and it slowly became assimilated into Japanese culture so much that in the end, it developed into Japanese music.
The Japanese also absorbed music from many other cultures around the world, including France and Hawaii. By the 1920s, jazz was introduced to the Japanese society, followed by the tango, blues, country and folk music.
However, by ‘incorporating Japanese aspects’, can it really be said that they added a local touch to the foreign music, or is it just an addition of another form of music previously absorbed into Japanese culture already? If that is so, can any form of Japanese music be considered ‘Japanese’ at all?
An important development in the evolution of Japanese music is the kayakyoku. It started in the 1920s when Western music became more popular, but what is interesting to note is that it continued to maintain its popularity even after the Second World War, and can be considered as the modern ‘ancestor’ of today’s J-pop, or Japanese pop music.
J-Pop group AAA
These days, another trend emerging in the J-pop world is the usage of English in many Japanese songs. Paul Wheeler, in an article about Japanese rock music, wrote that ‘Sometimes Japanese musicians themselves prefer to write their songs in English, feeling that rock music should be sung in the language it was born into, and they believe that it sounds best in English’.
This is slightly worrying because the Japanese had always prided itself in its Asian roots. Can it continue to be called a model of Asian superiority when now popular culture from the West is beginning to increasingly seep into the Japanese local popular culture?
An example of J-Pop in action
Besides that, in ancient times the Japanese laid claim to their music even though they had merely modified another culture’s music, but at the same time, they did have the necessary musical instruments to be able to stake a claim on their music. Nowadays, however, the Japanese songs of today not only incorporate English words, but also the instruments as well. In that sense, the Japanese songs today can be seen as nothing than Western songs that are being sung in Japanese
Jpop Groups
These are deep and profound questions that many of us will struggle with answering. It is indeed, interesting to see how the Japanese music scene will develop over the years, as this is a crucial time in which local producers will have to decide on which path would they want to take- creating more authentic, local music, or sticking with the Western-style music that does not fail in bringing in the profits?
Jpop
While there could still be arguments against this point, I am of the opinion that Japanese songs are nothing more than an interpretation of current Western pop music that is so prevalent today.