Music?

[sfowler]

Anyone know any good japanese Rock bands? I figure listining will help my skills.

[Adam Young]

Unfortunately, there are none, other than "Nunchaku".

Kind of weird, but there you have it.;)

[renfield_kuroda]

Can you be more specific as to 'rock'?
Depending on what you consider good there's plenty of crap bands and some good music over here. Name some US bands you like and let's see if we can come up with the Japanese equivalents.

Regards,
renfield kuroda

P.S. Best thing for using music to learn Japanese is karaoke, and the best tunes for karaoke are The Blue Hearts and Matsutoya Yumi, in my opinion.

[John Lindsey]

Show Ya was good until their lead singer left the band many years ago. All girl band playing rock...

[sfowler]

Hmmm... American bands....

Nirvana
God Smack
Linkin Park
Pearl Jam
Aerosmith
Blink 182
Disturbed
Popa Roach
Nickel Back
Kittie
and the german band Rammstein

And techno is cool.

[David T Anderson]

KODO (http://www.kodo.or.jp/frame.html) rocks....!

[sfowler]

I'll listen to practicaly anything, but I prefer Rock/Grunge music.
Yes I know Grunge is a forum of rock.

[michaelCODY]

Who were the girls singing in the bar scene in Blade I?

[renfield_kuroda]

Not much good Japanese grunge/rock. Some good rap/rock (Linkin Park) type bands, best of which is definitely Dragon Ash.
Hi Standard will fill your Blink182 needs.
Ska Paradise Orchestra (SkaPara) for your skaPunk fix.

For techno, Ken Ishii is The Man, though he's more famous outside of Japan than in.

Regards,
renfield kuroda


Originally posted by sfowler
Hmmm... American bands....

Nirvana
God Smack
Linkin Park
Pearl Jam
Aerosmith
Blink 182
Disturbed
Popa Roach
Nickel Back
Kittie
and the german band Rammstein

And techno is cool.

[Earl Hartman]

If you want to listen to music to learn Japanese, don't bother listening to any Japanese pop/rock music. The lyrics are nothing more than a degraded, low-class patois, a kind of pop-culture mishmash wich relies havily on slang and mangled English thrown in without regard to meaning or pronunciation, but only because of the perceived cachet of using a foreign language.

If you want to learn Japanese from music, you should listen to enka (ballads)and minyo (traditionl folk music). It's old fashioned, but at least the lyrics are understandable and are actually real Japanese instead of the self-conscious Janglish you hear the rock poseurs using.

Besides, Japanese pop music reeks, no matter what language they're singing in.

[Scott Irey]

So Earl..let me get this strait...you don't really approve of Japanese pop music? Or did I read that wrong?

[renfield_kuroda]

Can't speak for Earl, but I can say that I most definitely think J-Pop sucks. Badly.
Here's my beef: in the west (US and Europe) there are plenty of pop acts I don't like, boy bands like nSync, pop princesses like Aguilera, but at the very least they all have some minimal musical talent. Some of them are actually quite good. I just don't like the kind of music they do.
In Japan (and most of Asia, as J-Pop is the THE dominant force in Asia-Pop) the singers in general lack even the most basic musical talent. They just can't sing. I mean, I go to karaoke occasionally, and I can't sing. And neither can any of the members of SMAP, or Morning Musume, or any of the other idols, singers, boyBands, dance troups, or J-Poppers out their. Yes, their music, being run-of-the-mll, factory-form-produced pop, does suck. And, they can't sing. It's quite painful actually.

Every now and then, someone who CAN sing -- Utatda Hikaru, Shiina Ringo, Ua, etc. -- re-records some cheesy pop song, and it's INFINTELY better just because they can sing.

Regards,

renfield kuroda

P.S. Did I mention that J-Pop sucks?

[John Lindsey]

What ever happened to Globe? I thought their lead singer had a good voice.

[Earl Hartman]

When I was living in Japan, Pink Lady was the big thing, mainly because they wore really short skirts.

It was the silliest, cheesiest, most ridiculous act you can imagine, but one of the singers (I can't remember her name offhand) was not only really pretty, but she had legs that went all the way up to her ass, the shapeliest, smoothest, most beautiful pair of legs I had ever seen (her partner was kind of a schnauzer, though). In a country that is, uh, not too famous for women with pretty legs, it was something to see.

Anyway, I watched them every chance I got, just cause she was so gorgeous. I was totally in love with her. The music was stupid, though, even though they had decent voices.

Hey, Renfield, do you ever watch the <i>Kouhaku Uta Gassen</i> on New year's eve? It's a scream. They have some really good traditional singers and then all of those incredibly bad modern no-talent skanks you were talking about.

[P Goldsbury]

Originally posted by Earl Hartman
Hey, Renfield, do you ever watch the <i>Kouhaku Uta Gassen</i> on New year's eve? It's a scream. They have some really good traditional singers and then all of those incredibly bad modern no-talent skanks you were talking about.

I am not Renfield K., but I usually watch it (unintentionally: the TV usually happens to be on, which tends to be the usual practice) with some Japanese friends before we go off to do our hatsumode orizons.

Some of the traditional singers are quite good: it's the costumes and the headgear that get me. NHK tends to panic just after the New Year, when the viewing figures come out and it is confirmed that the show is steadily declining in popularity. But, like the Taiga drama and the Yasukuni Shrine, I suppose it is a sacrosanct postwar institution.

Best regards,

PAG

[gmellis]

I second The Blue Hearts, one of the few REAL bands to ever come out of Japan. That kick J-Pop ass to the moon and back. I thought Komekome Club was pretty good, and the lead singer is one of the most multi-talented people in the country (his musical scores for movies rank up there with Joe Hisaishi). As for modern, anybody who says the Gospelers can't sing is full of ¤¤¤¤. This is one of those bands who started in the streets, got a cult following, did some on-stage acts and made a name for themselves. They can all REALLY sing, and beautifully. As for pseudo-rap, despite their popularity, Dragon Ash is not too bad, and fame didn't come to easy for them either, unlike the cookie cutter band of the month club bands. There are other unknown or underground talents around too, just not many. But Earl is sooooo right on. Despite its yakuza/jidai geki-esque overmasculine overfeminine cheese, enka is the cleanest most proper Japanese you're are going to get if you want to study. AND you can learn some pretty romantic things to say to women in bars.....not that I've tried them being married before I arrived mind you. Oh, and if you can believe it, television is EVEN WORSE. You would be wise in restricting your viwing to NHK, where you can actually learn something and not develop into a putz. I can summarize an entire week of programming on most channels for you pretty quick:

1. food shows-highlighting one or several restaurants where the "talents" (guffaw) poorly pretend like the food is good and the men so "umee" repeatedly while the women shake their hands in front of their mouths and squeel like a piglet "oishiiiiii!"

2. travel/food shows-usually actors/actresses/singers who currently can't find work in something else go with actor/actress/singer colleagues to some touristy spot and, yep, eat eat eat, with some sightseeing thrown in before they....eat again! Since the "talents" as well as the diurectors of the shows are generally quite ignorant and too lazy or apathetic to use highly knowledgable experts on that region, they have very little knowledge to share with us viewers about an in-depth history or the unique culture of different areas (which would bore the slobbering masses anyway). If you are lucky, you may get to see some of the hotties put on towels and go into spas.

3. "talk" (mindless drivel) shows-even more ignorant talents than #2 above set at a semi-circle table and just spout out the mind-numbing brain rot that fills their heads. sometimes their is some kind of documentary or quiz that focuses the conversations (which can be quite informative when the bungholes aren't flapping away), in which case they all share their enlightening thoughts regarding the subject, which is often "sugooooooi" (wow). Deep huh?

4. Did I mention food show? Oh yea, right.

5. Dramas-If you thought American soaps were bad and poorly acted, you have yet to meet the ugly sister of soaps that is kept down in the basement under lock and key. Pol pot used Japanese drama's as a form of torture.....or should have.

6. News Talk Shows-These CAN be interesting, but usually aren't because it's the same oyaji (stodgy old farts who remind you of an ignorant, stubborn, perverted grandfather or uncle) flapping away at the mouth and pretending they know more about the world than they really do. If Japan had any semblance of equality of the sexes, maybe they'd be a little more interesting. But then many things would.

7. Documentaries-If they are NHK, they are probably really good, and very educational. If they are not, it's hit-or-miss. But generally, you can't go wrong with documentaries compared with the other programs.

8. Straight News-Good enough I suppose. More a problem of events in Japan being more humdrum than the news shows themselves being boring, because when they cover internatinal events, things pick up a bit (one can hear about another politician being arrested for embezzling or Koizumi giving a wordy interview which seems to say nothing of his plans only so many times)

9. Perverted/Sex-Tease Shows-plenty of them after hours.

10. Food Shows-can never have enough of these

11.Jidai Geki-again, unnaturally macho men and sickenly effeminate women in need of a chivalrous savior. Bad acting, horrendously unrealistic swordplay, and enough sexism to make Gloria Steinem give up California sushi. Jidai geki, enka and yakuza, a beautiful combination, oh, and horse racing.

Damn, 11:30 already. I'll let Earl or someone else take over.

[Adam Young]

1. food shows-highlighting one or several restaurants where the "talents" (guffaw) poorly pretend like the food is good and the men so "umee" repeatedly while the women shake their hands in front of their mouths and squeel like a piglet "oishiiiiii!" Ha ha ha! I remember these shows. When I first went to Japan, I kept thinking, "Geez, I gotta remember where that place is so I can go there. It sounds good!" Of course, every single, frickin' morsel of food these no-talents place in their mouth is bloody manna from heaven. A decade of watching these shows off and on, and I have yet to see anyone do anything other than praise the food. The worst compliment I have seen was an "omoshiroi aji" given with a big smile.

You could probably pinch a loaf in a chawan, sprinkle some bonito flakes on it and the presenters would go into conniptions over how ungodly tasty the food is.

Thanks, Greg, for reminding me of ANOTHER pet peeve of mine....

[Earl Hartman]

Greg:

ROTFLMFAO!!!

Man, I had forgotten, but you are <i>S-O-O-O-O</i> right about Japanese TV. Interesting stuff about the one or two decent bands in Japan.

One of the local channels here has Japanese programming, and so we watch it (my wife watches <i>Kouhaku Uta Gassen</i> religiously), and we watch the Taiga Drama and the sappy family dramas too, but man, are they <i>bad</i>. I had some hopes for <i>Musashi</i>, and I watch it, but it blows. Oh well.

However, there is one very good program that I recommend highly for its entertainment value as well as for it's cultural education value. It is a quiz show called <i>Nihonjin no Shitsumon</i> and it is a really good show. Each show has a theme that is about something in Japan that has some odd or little-known fact attached to it; the idea is to publicize unknown things about stuff that Japanese take for granted, or just odd, out-of-the-way things that are interesting. There are four teams of two people each, composed of celebrities, often with a token gaijin thrown in. There are four celebrity <i>mono shiri hakase</i>, or experts (one of them is Takashi Hideki, a B-list chanbara actor who I like, and another is a <i>really</i> funny <i>rakugo-ka</i>). Anyway, the MC introduces the subject; let us say, something like <i>Setsubun</i>, and proceeds to ask questions about it, like "How did the custom of throwing beans orignate?"; "Who originally threw the beans, the nobles or their servants?"; "How are the beans roasted?", or whatever. The experts then give what appear to be plausible answers, usually accopmanied by a lot of jokes, puns, and humorous commentary and banter. However, only one of the answers is correct, and so the teams must choose the correct answer after asking the experts whatever questions they want. After the correct answer is revealed (only the MC knows the correct answer; none of the experts are told which answer is correct so they won't give it away), they have a real expert explain the background of the answer.

It is really enjoyable and educational.

Right on on the enka thing. When I was living there, it got to the point that I could figure out the lyrics before they were sung. If a woman was singing it was always about drowning her sorrows over the guy that dumped her by drinking sake alone at night in a small bar at a country railroad station in the snow while she waited for the train he was riding on that would never come.

Professor Goldsbury: my favorite part of the <i>Kouhaku Uta Gassen</i> is the competition between two singers on each side who compete to see who can deliver the most outrageous, flamboyant, and complicated performance. I remember that one year the guy (who either was a flaming queen or affected that style) dressed up like a buttlerfly with huge wings made of rhinestones, cubic zirconia and blinking Christmas tree lights and, against a darkened backdrop, was actually suspended from the ceiling and appeared to be flying back and forth as he sang. I think this act even involved a costume change in mid-air. It was really impressive and so over-the-top that I couldn't help but enjoy it.

[Joseph Svinth]

Earl --

Sounds like Grand Ol' Opry to me.

[CEB]

Is Loudness still around?