-
O!susume – Polkadot Stingray
Broadcast 13: I’m excited to recommend POLKADOT STINGRAY today on this edition of O!susume RadioBeat. I’m always on the lookout for a good J-rock/J-pop band with great female vocals, and this band immediately stood out for me when they first came onto the scene for their interesting instrumentals. Some of my favorite songs from the…
-
O!susume – Akeboshi
Broadcast 12: One goal of writing O!susume articles is to show people the massive variety that exists just within the genres of J-pop and J-rock. Erin and I try to cover bands from the 90’s and 00’s, modern day up-and-comers, artists that have broken out internationally, and ones that haven’t made it mainstream even within…
-
O!susume – toe
Broadcast 11: What I love about toe is similar to what I love about Japanese music in general; often Japanese music is through-composed with a focus on rhythmic progression throughout a given song, and math-rock is the perfect genre to expand on that. toe’s music is melodic and gentle, yet complex and interesting to listen…
-
O!susume – BLUE ENCOUNT
Broadcast 10: My pick for this month is BLUE ENCOUNT, a four-man band hailing all the way from Kumamoto. Their path to mainstream success isn’t anything out of the ordinary, but that’s no bad thing. In fact, BLUE ENCOUNT’s story is a pretty good model for how many bands have found their way out of…
-
O!susume – ZUTOMAYO
Broadcast 9: This week’s band is called ずっと真夜中でいいのに (Zutto Mayonaka de Iinoni), meaning “I wish it was midnight all the time”, stylized in English as ZUTOMAYO or sometimes shortened to ZTMY. They are an indie J-pop/J-rock band with an anonymous female vocalist known as ACAね (ACAne). The rest of the band is also anonymous, with…
-
Let’s Rate all of the Tales of series Opening Songs!
BANDAI NAMCO’s Tales of series, shrewdly identified as “the Final Fantasy of action RPGs”, isn’t quite as well known as the august franchise it’s oft compared to. However, Erin and I, along with our collaborator Eve, all have plenty of good memories playing through many of the series’ entries throughout the years. While the casts…
