Once again, Aqua invites you to journey with him into the vast, diverse landscape of Japanese music that exists outside the realm of anime and other geekery and take a look at his ten favourite songs of the year.
Believe it or not, Japan can make other music aside from peppy pop! It has a vibrant underground music scene, which over the years has developed into an influential force to be reckoned with. In Jukebox, we take a look at the versatility of the Japanese music industry — beyond the realm of anime and other geekery. This time, we explore how Japanese pop ‘idols’ have transformed over the years, maybe even for the better. Can idols be saved, or have scandals doomed them to live on as a creatively bankrupt, patriarchic relic?
With their self-titled debut album skyrocketing up the charts faster than you can sacrifice a three-legged goat to the prince of darkness, Babymetal are definitely not “indie” enough to feature on Jukebox. Yet their first album is a record that demands being written about, not because it’s particularly good, but because it is prime evidence of something so utterly ridiculous it defies any sort of conventional criticism.
The Glorio Blog 