Does all Japanese music sound similar to anyone else?

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I wouldn't say K-Pop sounds exactly like American music. No matter how you look at it, that's not true. There is a distinctive Korean feel in many of the songs, as well as evident influences from J-Pop in many cases.

But J-Pop's definitely unqiue, especially in comparison. J-Rock, too. I've said it before - I have no hope in Japanese music, even mainstream Japanese music, getting any real attention the rest. Not because it's bad, I love Japanese music, above all else (note that my avatar is actually the lead singer of a popular Japanese boyband), but because it's too different to mainstream Western music. It doesn't fit in. While you see people over here giving K-Pop a quick listen and saying it's not that bad, I've only ever heard J-Pop being passed off as 'chingchong music' and, in one case, when someone asked to listen to my MP3 Player when I had been listening to Berryz Koubou's Berryz Fields, 'rave for aliens'.

My favourite thing, though, is when J-Pop is accused of ripping K-Pop off. Sure, the Hallyu Wave means that certain new musical trends have shown themselves in Japanese music, but, people mainly make this claim when songs feature autotune. I'm sorry, I forgot that Perfume have been using that since before most of the current big K-Pop groups even debuted. Or that autotune was first used, mainly, by Michael Jackson, who is neither Korean nor Japanese (though it goes without saying). On top of that, the autotune trend in K-Pop only started around 2009, mainly after BIGBANG started implementing it, I believe. I swear the first major use of it from BIGBANG was in their track, Gara Gara GO! - which was released in Japan for a Japanese audience. However, one of GACKT's most autotuned tracks. GHOST, was released in early 2009, before BIGBANG even debuted in Japan, for the most part. Yamashita Tomohisa released MOLA in 2008 or 2009, either one. Before the K-Pop trend anyway. Koda Kumi uses auotune a lot, too. And there's far more examples, I'm sure, but I'm sick of people making such a stupidly baseless chain. K-Pop didn't make electric pop. Especially seeing as Japan have been working in that genre for longer than Korea.
[[unrelated rant, maybe?]]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOwCIeYAdf4[/youtube]

Love Perfume.

I don't know why but, even though the members are plenty cute and funny, Perfume have never quite appealed to me, musically at least.

It's pretty much the MLP of J-Pop. They've been compared to probably my favorite group, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and I can see the comparison. Yet instead of being dystopian futuristic like YMO, they're possibly happy futuristic?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsdza2iyvE[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms6Td6zWNqg[/youtube]

My big thing is like, 80s and 90s Japanese music. I don't hate newer j-pop, but I don't like it as much for the most part. I don't like how it seems more Western influenced nowadays.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BH0APdZ8iY[/youtube]
Like that song there when I first heard it, I didn't like it at all, now it's grown on me some, but it's VERY Western sounding to me.

Speaking of American acceptance of Japanese music, you know what's REALLY interesting? Project Gotham Racing, the very first one that came out in 2001, had let's see... 7 Japanese songs in it? I think all the artists were either underground or used pen names. I find it interesting they threw Japanese pop into a game obviously meant for a mass audience. The songs aren't bad at all either, though they are sorta "Western" sounding songs for the most part, but they're nice songs.

I think the oldest song I actively like...is Kinki Kids' Garasu no Shounen. Though, I'm only talking about the pop side of things here. I do know a few older songs but I'm more drawn to the recent stuff. I know a lot of old Johnny's Entertainment stuff from all the Countdowns and, also, a couple of shows I've seen about the place that went through all the different stages of JE. I've even taken a look at one of their girl-groups at some point (the baseball-themed one). Most people don't even know they had girl-groups. I thought they only had one when they actually had three, but my knowledge of there having been any at all was still more than what most people had. But, really, in the end, I prefer modern J-Pop, I suppose. I do like some stuff from the mid-to-late 90's, and old Ghibli films themes are always nice.

I got that song. Lol the oldest I listen to is enka. Yep... As far as girl groups, my favorite girl group is MAX. Not too well known in the West. I know MAX, Dream, Every Little Thing, D&D, that's what I can think of off the top of my head. I know most of those girl groups from Super Eurobeat, a lot of their stuff is classified as "J-euro."

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ita4zcq2D_w[/youtube]

For old j-rock, I love Boowy and TM Network a lot.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owF1ldcRH3c[/youtube]

Check out the Pillows old stuff, too, it's pretty neat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjFkICbZWz8
They were in a big like, experimental phase through the early 90s, until they finally more or less settled on their sound today. In a lot of ways, the old Pillows were better. Maybe my love of older jpop is a bit due to age, me being 21, I first got exposed to anime around 2001 or so, and I remember the days of geocities and whatnot.