There’s a reason why Electric Light Orchestra was so popular, and it wasn’t because they made standard music like all the other groups were making in the 70’s, Jeff Lynne and the group knew how to rock, and rock hard! The fact they could go from classical music to classic… Continue reading
Surfing through some Japanese videos on Youtube, I found some videos by a J-pop singer from back in the 80’s who’s still performing (and still looks very nice, even if she doesn’t look like a high-school girl anymore) named Hitomi Ishikawa (石å·ã²ã¨ã¿). She started out (looks like) when she was… Continue reading
(waves hands around, brushes dust off) Man, you go away for a week and the website gets all manner of cobwebs on it! Back from vacation, but didn’t have a lot of Internet ‘splorin’ time, but I did come across this nice little music video by a prominent YouTuber named… Continue reading
Two years ago, Lady Gaga helped out the people of Japan after the Great East Japan Earthquake, and in recognition a pair of musicians, part of a Japanese group “Team Kozan,” created this music video, a cover of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” using the traditional musical instruments of shakuhachi (flute) and… Continue reading
Be grateful you can’t hear me singing this! And I only did one verse so you can be even more thankful! Enoshima Girls (sung to the tune of “California Girls” by the Beach Boys) Well Tokyo girls are hip, I really dig those styles they wear, And Osaka girls with… Continue reading
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has been using his time on the International Space Station to show that space is not just for scientists, but also for artists and creators. He’s been posting some beautiful photos of the Earth from space, and now he’s made a music video of his cover… Continue reading
Courtesy of the Japanese girl duo “Puffy” (in the US, “Puffy Amiyumi” to avoid confusion with the rapper). here is a video of their song “Boogie Woogie #5”, a really upbeat swing song from one of their older albums. Puffy made it big in the early 2000’s by doing the… Continue reading
So, the last post I talked about enka music, but didn’t bother to link to any examples. Well, this time I’m going to show you what I mean by “Japanese blues”. This one is one of my all-time favorites, “Sake yo” by Ikuzo Yoshi. I even learned enough to sing… Continue reading