[Maxvla]

I knew I'd heard that Nightmare - Alumina song before. End credits of Death Note anime. This is a great song.

 

[Wingstrike]

 
Quote:

I don't care to ever see akibahara in my lifetime.

Ah, but Akihabara is home to the best headphone shops in Japan

 

[Maxvla]

 

Aya sounds more like a woman. I'm not really a fan of Avril's voice nor stuff like Paramore.
 
 
Imma share more of the beautiful Olivia Ong. A beautiful cover of "Driving" in Hi def

 

 

Just making my way through all the songs/videos posted, but came to this one and I just melted into my chair. This is spectacular.

 

[Sylverant]

     Quote:

Japan is a crazy place. Their culture is so introverted, yet their creative media is so oversexed. They should just put that energy into pairing up and doing the deed for real. God knows they need to reinvigorate their workforce as old as it's getting. Their birthrate is 2nd to last on this list of 221 countries. And last place is part of a city (Monaco), not even a full country.

 
That's pretty crazy considering there population 

 Where's the love?

     Quote:

Ah, but Akihabara is home to the best headphone shops in Japan

well...um...I didn't think about that. Headphone shops are uncommon where I live and the few i've been to have a "buy it now and we'll let you try out the demo in store" kind of attitude. That may be reason alone to turn my head away from the moe and other stuff in order to see those headphone shops 

 
Kinda forgot how much I like Gundam too...

 

[Maxvla]

I'd love to hear Olivia Ong's version of Tupelo Honey, but she doesn't appear to have sung it yet.

 

[pigmode]

Quote:

 


Ah, but Akihabara is home to the best headphone shops in Japan

And my favorite miso char siu ramen... 

 

[Wingstrike]

Quote:

well...um...I didn't think about that. Headphone shops are uncommon where I live and the few i've been to have a "buy it now and we'll let you try out the demo in store" kind of attitude. That may be reason alone to turn my head away from the moe and other stuff in order to see those headphone shops 

 
Kinda forgot how much I like Gundam too...

Haha, yeah sometimes the sale on Gundams are CRAZY cheap. And the headphone shops in Japan have demos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Oy-SuFq3FQ
 

 

[Maxvla]

Ok, so time to drop my bomb. My intro to Kpop and beyond started with this exact video about 8-9 years ago:



So cute with the facial expressions and everything. I had to know who she was. Turns out she is Kan Mi Youn (or Yeon, two spellings are commonly used) and she was a lead singer in the group BabyVox until it disbanded around 2006. I enjoyed the music as it was something I'd never heard before since American pop did not have girl groups with choreography, etc, and I of course fell in love with her voice and looks. Even now she holds a special place in my heart.

BabyVox started going into strange territory after their 5th album and I don't particularly care to listen to those albums. Since the group disbanded Mi Youn's first solo album was fantastic, mostly slower songs, ballads and the like, which she is perfect for. She's recently been doing more upbeat standard kpop type stuff which is ok, but not her strong suit, imo. I don't really care for her collaborations with rap artists, but at least she is creative enough to sample in a lot of different areas. Here are a few examples of her at her best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ_24pogtTk&feature=related - embedding disabled for some reason

Together with a great male singer, Tei:



And so as to not take up too much space, finally a clip of her singing on a radio show. This is a BabyVox song, but she sings all parts and you have to be pretty critical to say it doesn't sound very close to how an album would sound and she's singing it live, and doing more lyrics than she would usually sing on this song.



Love her. Hope you enjoyed.

 

[wind016]

Going to take some time to go through the songs, but I shall comment first.
 
Quote:

My how this thread has expanded! I took a look at this thread today and there are over 100 new posts just from the last 2 days.
 
I agree, it's hard to find good Cantonese music nowadays because of how much easier it is to create decent sounding songs in Mandarin. I haven't listened to Canto-pop in a while. I think the last artist I listened to was Janice Lan since my ex-girlfriend loved her music.
 
 
 
I think I'm in the minority of C-pop fans around here nowadays. Hardly any of my friends listen to it. >_<   I guess it's an acquired taste.
 
 
Apart from C-pop, I do listen to some of Epik High's music. I like one of their newer songs, "Run."
 

Yea, Cpop just isn't as popular as Japanese or Korean stuff right now. Too many ballads. I honestly can't think of anything besides ballads when I think of HK music. The only group I know that isn't obsessed with hardcore ballads is LMF, Lazy M***** screw*s, but they're special people. Angry, cursing people.
 
I was really into Janice Wei Lan for awhile and you chose a great song. Her music is usually sooooooooo freaking girly like a Chinese Taylor Swift. I lose a bit of manhood when I listen to some of her music but it's worth it.
 

 
Quote:

Just making my way through all the songs/videos posted, but came to this one and I just melted into my chair. This is spectacular.

The great thing is she played the guitar part and sang it. She made a much more emotional revision of the old Everything But The Girl's "Driving"
 


Quote:

Ok, so time to drop my bomb. My intro to Kpop and beyond started with this exact video about 8-9 years ago:


So cute with the facial expressions and everything. I had to know who she was. Turns out she is Kan Mi Youn (or Yeon, two spellings are commonly used) and she was a lead singer in the group BabyVox until it disbanded around 2006. I enjoyed the music as it was something I'd never heard before since American pop did not have girl groups with choreography, etc, and I of course fell in love with her voice and looks. Even now she holds a special place in my heart.
 

 
I just saw the first video and I'm SOOOO confused of what's going on. THAT introduced you to Kpop?

Cool story bro

It's not likely to start listening to music from a CF. How did you coincidentally watch that CF? I got into Japanese music (and Japanese cars) because of Initial D. It's now my dream to own an impractical and high maintenance Mazda RX-7 to master the skills of an impatient tofu boy.
 
Here's a sweet song sung by Younha and written by Tablo from Epik High.
 

 

[wind016]

Soidus: I will have to look into f(x) now.
 
Quote:

Here's some newer Visual Kei:
 
 
 
 
 
I can't help but notice that Visual kei has been slowly dropping its darker character and sound in order to appeal to a wider number of people.
 
Whats interesting is that in relation to Kpop I find I enjoy 2PM quite a bit, because of the effort they put off and there image as a "package" or "whole" which comes off as its own unique art form to me. I find that "I'll be back" and "Without U" which were posted here have impacted me quite a bit over the course of these last few days. From the style of music with rap dispersed in and the impressive dancing, It is perfect. Its catchy-ness might have to do with it as well
 
Now here's that Oshari Kei that I imagine is lost on so many people, myself included:
Its trying to be too many things and doesn't sound that good.
 
 
 
 

Speaking of Visual Kei, I just recognized the guy singing in the first vid. I was really into Nightmare's song " 縷々 ～lulu～" for a long time. It's got really beautiful instrumentals and ambience. -random fan made vid-

 
 
I thought this Visual Kei group was hot, but they're all girls. I was obsessed with the rhythm guitarist with the ESP Eclipse/Les Paul for like a week. The headbanging she did at 2:26 was freakin HOT. How can I get my girlfriend to do that and play some hardcore metal riffs?

 

 

[wind016]

 
Quote:

Love her. Hope you enjoyed.

WOW... Kan Mi Yeon can really sing! I'm looking into her music now. Thanks!
 
Sweet

 

[wind016]

I think for people trying to get a taste of what's new in the mainstream, these charts would be pretty good.
 
 
http://www.generasia.com/wiki/Oricon_Weekly_for_2011_week_28   Lady Gaga seems really popular in Japan =P
 
http://www.soompi.com/content/type/6/0/4473/0
 
http://www.youtube.com/user/KPNET4
 
 
Anybody know which Chinese music charts to look for? I'm going to ask my friends also but I dunno why I didn't think of charts. Off to more music searching...

 

[Maxvla]

 I just saw the first video and I'm SOOOO confused of what's going on. THAT introduced you to Kpop?

Yeah it was some outtakes from a commercial she did. I saw that video first and wondered who she was. Finding out I tried some of BabyVox's music and the rest is history. Sorry I wasn't quite clear on that progression.

 

[dcpoor]

Quote:

http://www.generasia.com/wiki/Oricon_Weekly_for_2011_week_28   Lady Gaga seems really popular in Japan =P
 

she was recently in japan and showed up on a bunch of television shows. could account for the recent sales/popularity.
 

 

[garysohn]

Today in the US there was a news item about an Asian street vendor who apparently has such a good singing voice he moved many in the Asian crowd to tears. It was a quick spot on the news, I don't have a tv, I saw this on the tv in a restaurant that had the sound very low, and I am wondering who it was and how I could hear him.  I gather that it was on an "Idol" type of show and he had the same "wow" factor as  Susan Boyle or "Paul the Mobile Salesman" had on Britian Has Talent.  Anybody have info on this show?  Yes, I Googled it, but Googling anything with "street vendor" in it yields ponderous results.