What's Hot in Japan? (or what WAS hot...)
One of my favourite things to do when I travel is just walk through a city, see how different everything looks, smell how different everything smells, and hear how different everything sounds. It's like people watching without giving a crap about the people, I guess. New-thing-experiencing? I dunno. Anyway when you're in a large city, a big proportion of the hearing section is retail stores (and billboards etc) playing the current top 10-20-40-whatever pop songs.
So I thought I'd make a quick playlist of - maybe not the top 10 most popular songs because you can google that on billboard, but the songs I heard the most on my trip. I mean I heard these songs at LEAST 3-4 times a day just walking around Tokyo.
I find it interesting that there are subtle production ideas & mix techniques that are consistant throughout them all. I have no idea if that's a current thing or a long standing thing (eg. Everything being UBER clean, for some reason even the distorted guitars sound clean, nothing is particularly overdriven to the point of fuzzy/grittyness).
Anyway, here we go:
- Ado - Show
Holy crap. Like, every single day, at least 7-8 times I'd hear this. No matter if it was at Shibuya scramble or deep in the Japanese alps, I swear this would always pop up somewhere. It's such an eclectic song that bounces from style to style, genre to genre. I really love that about a lot of J-pop (& K-pop, although I don't know if they like being grouped together). The vocal performance by Ado is really kinda crazy (in a great way). I assume there's supposed to be some sort of mystique about her persona? Every performance I've seen has been a silhouette - also kinda cool!
One thing though. I am 150% sure she says "ra-ta-ta horny!" instead of "ra-ta-ta warning!". I've heard it. I can't unhear it. I'm sorry! haha
2. Yaosobi - Idol
Possibly popularised overseas by AvantGardey's performance dancing to this track on America's Got Talent, but this track was HOT in Japan. I don't even speak Japanese but I memorised phrases from this song purely from hearing it in probably every single store in Harajuku and Shibuya. I'm not mad, it's a fun song. Yaosobi is a total Queen and had at least 4-5 songs in the Top 10 (one coming later), but this was easily the most popular.
3. King Gnu - SpecialZ
This was used on Jujutsu Kaisen, which is currently a wildly popular anime (a lot of these songs are popping up in anime), and King Gnu were about to head off on a big arena tour while I was travelling through Japan. I think I saw billboards playing this on repeat at at least 80% of the larger train terminals through Japan.
4. Queen Bee - Mephisto
Jesus christ what a vocal performance! The studio version was of this song was heard more commonly but I'd like to highlight this recording - in the original MV there's a lot of distorted sections and cinematic sections etc, and in this version you can really appreciate the amazing breath control and extreme vocal range of Queen Bee more easily. Plus I love live strings, and they compliment Queen Bee nicely.
5. Atarashii Gakko - Tokyo Calling!
I mean, I heard this a LOT on the streets and in malls, but I heard it a lot more jumping around in my hotel room late at night, still hyped up after a bunch of beers, highballs, chu-hai's & yakitori chicken livers (seriously, I love that shit). The horns on this beat are Akira Ifukube "Gojira tai Mosura"-esque, "Simon Says"-esque "get the fuck up" kind of beat & I fricken love it. I saw someone refer to Atarashii Gakko as the female Beastie Boys and while that's more musically evident in this track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Su2XQX3yI, a Beastie Boys cover they did years ago, & their live shows, this is the most recent track, their (currently) hottest track, and the one I had to post.
Really big fan of the new leaders. A lot of the songs on this list have been big on tiktok lately, including this one, but this one comes with it's own dance steps!
6. Yaosobi - The Brave
Another jam by Yaosobi that just seemed to be everywhere.. it follows a lot of the same patterns as "Idol" so I was reluctant to include it, but that breakdown was EVERYWHERE & it was too big to ignore. Another one used in a popular anime, this time it was a part of the Gundam franchise in the "Witch from Mercury" series - which you can see in the MV below.
7. Todome No Ichigeki feat. Cory Wong - SpyxFamily Season 2 ending theme song
Really, the secret to pop success in Japan seems to be to land a spot in an anime.. This one popped up all over the place as did the anime it's included in. (FYI SpyxFamily is adorable/hilarious and well worth a watch).
Ok, that's all for now. There were probably a few others that could have been included in this list, but I like to keep it short and sweet. I already can't wait to get back to Japan, bust out Shazam on my phone again and see what's overtaken these tracks.
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