As much as I love Japanese music, I admit that nothing’s perfect. There are many artists that I’ve had to abandon, but mostly because I listen to too much music, and I just couldn’t squeeze them in. But sometimes, I straight up don’t enjoy the music itself. This list will showcase the Japanese music artists that I couldn’t enjoy no matter how hard I tried. Now you’ll get to see how much of a contrarian I am, for most of these artists are among the most popular Japanese singers in the world.
5) sakanaction
I really wanted this to be BABYMETAL, which would’ve made all five entries contain mainstream artists. But my feelings for them ended up being extremely complicated, so I resorted to sakanaction instead for fifth.
Normally, I love weird bands, and sakanaction is one such band. They’re more or less the Japanese Pink Floyd, and I don’t exactly like Pink Floyd. The band’s music tends to be very surreal and mellow, which isn’t my favorite combination.
But to be honest, it’s the vocalist who made me drop sakanaction. The actual song compositions do create some very unique vibes, but the moment that he starts singing, it all feels dissonant and messy. For some reason, I just cannot stand his voice! Maybe the dissonance is on purpose, or I just don’t appreciate some hidden nuance in the band. I’ve started getting into King Gnu and Queen Bee lately, who come off as better versions of sakanaction, and have more emphasis on rock.
4) MIYAVI
I started with someone more obscure. But noooow, you’ll start seeing some actually popular people.
“How dare you hate MIYAVI, you curr!” you exclaim (assuming you’re a fan of his), “This man’s helped refugees from all over the world!” Sorry, but, the music’s got nothing to do with that. In all seriousness, I did want to love MIYAVI’s music really badly. He seems like a really good person, based on what he posts on his Twitter. But no matter how great of a person he is, I can’t enjoy his music.
MIYAVI’s music comes down to very basic groovy beats with a side of synthesizers, and an admittedly sick-sounding electric guitar. The production and mixing of the music makes it sound really bee-bopping and loud, but it’s neither of those things upon closer inspection. His music’s not the worst ever, though… not by a LONG shot.
3) Hikaru Utada
You might not know who this Utada person is as you read this post… until just now, when I told you that she’s done songs for Kingdom Hearts. “Oh, she’s that person who did that song! But… I love that song!”
Thing is, Utada’s apparently got more to her name than Kingdom Hearts. She’s got over three million Twitter followers for a reason! But I don’t know what those three million people see in her music that I don’t. Most of it is very slow and… slow? Boring, too. Nothing of what I heard from her ever stood out to me.
But if there’s one thing Utada does right, it’s the process of singing. She’s got a seriously lovely voice; deep and soothing. I was also told by an associate that she does all song composition, production, and mixing herself. If that’s true, then Utada does earn at least some respect from me.
2) Perfume
I’m kind of cheating on this one, for Perfume was one of the first non-anime J-pop groups I ever tried to get into… like, eight years ago. I’m a different person than I was at that time, so I can’t authoritatively state how I’d feel about Perfume if I tried to listen to them now, especially since I only watched the official music videos then and didn’t have Apple Music. But based on what I remember, I can be DAMN sure that I would wholeheartedly dislike Perfume to this day.
Perfume is a chill techno group and that’s that. Their music is full of catchy beats and sci-fi atmospheres that I find to be very bleh for whatever reason. It’s not “ceaseless dribble”, but it’s not something that I’d particularly enjoy. There’s not really anything else I can say about them other than that.
1) Kyary Pamyu Pamyu
It’s one thing to not like an artist. But I cannot STAND when the marketing behind someone is a straight up lie! Kyary seems to be one of the most popular Japanese singers in the world, and I can only scratch my head in confusion.
One look at any of her album covers or music videos will likely elicit a reaction to the effect of, “Holy crap! This chick’s so wiggety-whackin’-weird! I love it!” There is a lot of… er… otherworlldly imagery associated with Kyary. It helps promote her content while also establishing an identity to make her stand out from the rabble.
But imagery is imagery, nothing more, nothing less. What I mean is… her music is the exact opposite of her image! To be fair, I only listened to half of Kyary’s best of album… but I felt like it was enough. Despite how “weird” she is, the music itself is mainstream. So disgustingly, by-the-book mainstream. The songs are basic, with simple, catchy beats and no variance. All of this is dressed up by her unusual choice of lyrics, as well as the production of the music videos.
Call me a hipster, but I also dislike Kyary because I’m jealous that she’s more popular than one of my favorite pop groups, Dempagumi.inc. Dempagumi is what Kyrary says she is; wild, eccentric pop music. As I mentioned in this post, Dempagumi addles with the brain’s pattern recognition by always switching up the tempo to constantly keep you on your toes. Kyary doesn’t do any of that crap! The only good version to come from her is nano’s cover of Ponponpon eight years ago (that video is still up by the way, highly recommend checking it out)!
I don’t want to be a troll. I went into listening to all of these artists with full intention of enjoying them. But I simply didn’t. What do you think about the people I introduced here? Do you enjoy them, and if so, why? You probably have found some way to appreciate them that I failed to notice. Who are your least favorite J-pop artists? Feedback is welcome!
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