Music

Read more about the article Music Spotlight: All You Wanted to Know About AKB48

Music Spotlight: All You Wanted to Know About AKB48

The past decade has been dominated by many K-Pop acts–PSY, to BIGBANG, to BLACKPINK, to BTS. Elsewhere, in Japan, the idol industry has been dominated by Japan’s largest girl group, AKB48. They have had more than a dozen songs sitting on top of Japan’s Oricon charts in the several years since their debut. However, their popularity has dipped in the past few years. In this post, a non-AKB48 fan talks about another non-AKB48 fan covering a video that chronicles their rise to fame.

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Read more about the article The New Boy Group Members From “LOUD” K-Pop Survival Reality TV Show

The New Boy Group Members From “LOUD” K-Pop Survival Reality TV Show

There is another K-Pop survival TV show in the wild that I did not know about until it was announced that two new boy groups would be joining the endless sea of K-Pop groups, called "LOUD". Of the two groups set for their future debut, they will be joining the ranks of JYP Entertainment and Psy’s PNATION label.

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Read more about the article Music Spotlight: Mai Kuraki – Stepping Out

Music Spotlight: Mai Kuraki – Stepping Out

This is a throwback post from December 2012 featuring Mai Kuraki (倉木麻衣). This a refresher for me after discovering her album again from a vendor several years ago at MTAC Omega, and getting lost in the Hallyu Wave. Returning to my J-Pop roots, I talked about what makes her different from a similar artist in her genre.

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Music Spotlight: Top 7 SEGA Sound Team Tracks You’ve Never Heard

I’m a sucker for music from the Sonic the Hedgehog series. But I also adore the music from Sega in general. I don’t know what it is about it that makes their music magical. It’s not a 90s thing, but the jonesing for even modern SEGA Sound Team sounds is strong.

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Music Spotlight: Cross Gene’s “La-Di Da-Di”

The next song in Music Spotlight is from Cross Gene, where how I found out about them is interesting through word of mouth. Not many people will understand it, but this is something that makes sense within my circle of friends. Even if it doesn’t make sense, it’s definitely a very catchy song to listen to on regular rotation.

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Read more about the article DJ TECHNORCH – My Gabber is your Gabba [Music Spotlight]

DJ TECHNORCH – My Gabber is your Gabba [Music Spotlight]

It was about two years ago I had a sudden urge to immerse myself with techno music in the style of J-Hardcore–or for a point of reference: in the style of a few tracks from the soundtrack of Ridge Racer on the Playstation back in 1994. Enter DJ TECHNORCH.

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Flamingosis – Gucci Gang (Future Funk Remix) [Music Spotlight]

I’ve been wanting to write something about Future Funk for a while, although I’ve managed to write about it here and there in a few posts on the blog. However, I figured this song would be a good quick introduction into the music genre that only netizens only understand. Enter the “fan” remix of “Gucci Gang” by Lil’ Pump from Flamingosis.

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Read more about the article Ivy – Sonata of Temptation [Music Spotlight]

Ivy – Sonata of Temptation [Music Spotlight]

K-Pop solo artist Ivy released a music video for her song “Sonata of Temptation” a little over a decade ago (which I originally talked about back in 2009 on the blog before the relaunch), and it was quite the topic–not just around K-Pop communities, but around Final Fantasy fan circles as well…

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