PONPONPON

If you asked me what my music taste was I would probably tell you it's eclectic or alternative. I listen to everything from house, techno and electronica to indie, rock and metal, to orchestral, traditional and even videogame music. I even listen to the odd funk, soul, or rnb song. And on rare occasions hip-hop. I have very varied taste in music which has settled on me after years of listening to just about everything. If I like a song I play it. I am no longer a musical snob flying a flag for one particular genre and declaring all others to be trash (which I did during my metal and trance phases, teenagers eh?)

Pop music however is not something I would generally allow on my ipod unless it's particularly good. I listened to a little J-pop (Japanese pop for those of you confused by the added J) before I got here but now that I'm here, and surrounded by it, I can't stop listening to it. It's so freakin' catchy and some of the videos are just so wonderfully bizarre. Below are some of my picks of Japanese pop music:

This is Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. Obviously a made-up name. She's 19 year old blogger and model from the Harajuku district in Tokyo where the Harajuku fashion style originated. I don't know why but I can't stop watching this video. It's ridiculous.

Perfume are a Hiroshima based threesome who sing what they have branded as techno-pop. Which in all honesty is just pop. But it's so bloody catchy. I am determined to learn the words to this song and sing it in karaoke before I leave here.

This song is from NICO Touchs the Walls, an interesting name for a band. It features as the theme tune to one of my most favouritest anime/manga series ever; The Fullmetal Alchemist. It's more rock than pop but it's one of the songs you can choose on the drumming game in the arcade so I pick it an awful lot. (For those of you unfortunate enough not to be familiar with the drumming game I will be doing an entire post dedicated to it soon enough. It's just that good.)

So these are my current top 3. All decent and pretty catchy tunes getting plenty of play time on my iPod and causing blisters on my thumbs from the drumming game.

On a final note if these aren't for you perhaps you would prefer a pop song so generic I could have written it myself on a tiny toy keyboard, sung by a band consisting of 64 young and beautiful ever-changing members, with music videos that are semi-pornographic? Say hello to the Japanese social phenomenon known as AKB48:

My students love these girls. When they ask me if I like them I haven't the heart to say I don't because it would genuinely upset them if I said no.