Favorite Songs

[Jakusotsu 5,981]

Not really surprising that the only songs I know are from the 1960s to 1990s.

[Yamanashi 3,857]

4 hours ago, Jakusotsu said:

Not really surprising that the only songs I know are from the 1960s to 1990s.

Good news: those kids are getting off your lawn.

[I sympathize with your condition]

[Yarimotsu 580]

Tracking down any sort of source for Japanese charts prior to 1988 is proving all sorts of impossible. Oricon's number one hits for each year go back to 1966 or so, but that's a single song per year. They may or may not have more data for pre-1988 but what they do have historically is locked behind a paywall. Pretty despicable if you ask me, hiding what is effectively a spreadsheet containing basic cultural history for corporate profit. 

I did find one website that at least gives me 20-50 hit songs per year to browse through, all the way back to the late 1940s. https://entamedata.web.fc2.com/music/hit_top_single.html. I'm pretty sure the music I will enjoy the most is from the 70s and 80s so it would be nice to somehow pad out the list a bit more instead of being spoilt for choice in the two most recent decades only (which I'm fairly sure I will enjoy the least of the decades). It seems that there are a couple of top 10 weekly TV shows that ran in the 80s which I could probably extract songs from.

[Yamanashi 3,857]

1 hour ago, Yarimotsu said:

Tracking down any sort of source for Japanese charts prior to 1988 is proving all sorts of impossible. Oricon's number one hits for each year go back to 1966 or so, but that's a single song per year. They may or may not have more data for pre-1988 but what they do have historically is locked behind a paywall. Pretty despicable if you ask me, hiding what is effectively a spreadsheet containing basic cultural history for corporate profit. 

I did find one website that at least gives me 20-50 hit songs per year to browse through, all the way back to the late 1940s. https://entamedata.web.fc2.com/music/hit_top_single.html. I'm pretty sure the music I will enjoy the most is from the 70s and 80s so it would be nice to somehow pad out the list a bit more instead of being spoilt for choice in the two most recent decades only (which I'm fairly sure I will enjoy the least of the decades). It seems that there are a couple of top 10 weekly TV shows that ran in the 80s which I could probably extract songs from.

Wikipedia has "List of Oricon number-one singles" for 1967-2022.  Example: 1972

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Oricon_number-one_singles_of_1972

At the bottom is a click-through of the other years.

Hope this gets you started..

[sumojoann 1,265]

Youtube has "Top 250 Best Japanese Rock Songs of All Time", a 33-minute video that might interest you if you like Japanese rock.  The only problem is that the year of each song is not listed and it just has a snippet of each song. 

You might have already watched a couple of other YT videos -- "Top 10 Best Selling Singles in Japan 1968-2006 -- Oricon Weekly" and "Top 10 Best Selling Albums in Japan 1970-2007 -- Oricon Weekly").  There's also "Best Selling Albums of All Time in Japan."

 

[sumojoann 1,265]

Are you familiar with City Pop, a Japanese style of pop music originating in the 1980s?  There's a Subreddit group dedicated to it with 43.5k members.  There's a link to SuperKayo, a community-maintained City Pop and Japanese oldies archive.  There are also links to Japanese albums from each year starting with 1975.  Related Subreddit groups that you can join are also listed.  Maybe you can get the information you need by communicating with members of one or more of these groups.  https://www.reddit.com/r/citypop/

[sumojoann 1,265]

Continuing along with my possibly useless information, here is an article, "Japanese Pop Music in the 80s", that lists, "The Biggest J-Pop Hits."  It lists 5 hits from the 1980s with descriptions of each song and the year they came out.  https://inthe1980s.com/80s-japanese-pop/

If you're only interested in charts, this probably won't help you, but if you're interested in discovering songs you may not have heard before, maybe you'll find this article useful.

[sumojoann 1,265]

Last post.  If it's Japanese music from the 80s you're interested in, as opposed to chart position only, here is an 80s Japanese mixtape, 46 min of 80s era Japanese music that the YT uploader likes.  The artist, name of the song and link to its location in the video are listed in the description.

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by sumojoann

[Yarimotsu 580]

15 hours ago, sumojoann said:

Are you familiar with City Pop, a Japanese style of pop music originating in the 1980s?  There's a Subreddit group dedicated to it with 43.5k members.  There's a link to SuperKayo, a community-maintained City Pop and Japanese oldies archive.  There are also links to Japanese albums from each year starting with 1975.  Related Subreddit groups that you can join are also listed.  Maybe you can get the information you need by communicating with members of one or more of these groups.  https://www.reddit.com/r/citypop/

Thanks for your help Joann, I've now bookmarked superkayo. I already have quite a few citypop songs on my playlist, and am looking for more - but I am also looking to examine Japanese musical history independent of genre. The term Kayo has been quite confusing - a literal translation is "popular song" but I'm pretty sure that especially the term 昭和歌謡曲 (showa kayoukyoku) has connotations beyond pure popularity or age of the song. A list in Japanese titled "Best Kayokyoku and Pop songs" is but one example of this. It seems it is a genre term for Japanese-style songs according to the wiki... I can't be sure at this stage. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/歌謡曲

I did manage to find the complete Oricon charts for 1968 to March 1974, and have decided to use the Tokyo Hot 100 for October 1988 to today. I have top yearly sales approximations for 1945 onwards (and I'm not particularly interested in topping up this early era of music). So the remaining years I do not have complete weekly charts and would like to find are 1974-1988. I found a popular radio countdown program has existed in some form since April 1974 which I might be able to find somehow? The JP wiki article suggests that there was some bias in their early rankings to idol kayokyoku. There was also a few weekly TV countdown shows late 70s/early 80s... far from ideal but if I can at least find song lists from one of those it's better than nothing. Anyway, if nothing comes up I at least have the top 100 songs per year in this gap.

[Akinomaki 40,599]

2 hours ago, Yarimotsu said:

It seems it is a genre term for Japanese-style songs according to the wiki... I can't be sure at this stage.

Kayou is basically enka, check the NHK Kayou concerts and you see the range it covers youtube?search=歌謡コンサート

[sumojoann 1,265]

@YarimotsuHere is an interesting article from Tokyo Weekender, an English-language magazine published in Japan.  This article was written in 2020 and updated in April 2021.  "A Complete Guide to 50 Years of Music in Tokyo (1970-2020)."  It's a detailed article but the writer limits the number of artists featured to 3 per decade.  Various Youtube videos are included, some of which are no longer available.  https://www.tokyoweekender.com/2020/12/a-complete-guide-to-50-years-of-music-in-tokyo-1970-2020/

You may have already seen this article, also from Tokyo Weekender -- "A Complete Guide to City Pop."  https://www.tokyoweekender.com/2020/07/a-complete-guide-to-city-pop/

An article from Feb 2022 about the revival of City Pop from the 1980s.  It's been "rediscovered" by the younger generation.  https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/city-pop-boom-music-from-1980s-japan-goes-viral-around-the-globe-2783933

Edited September 7, 2022 by sumojoann

[sumojoann 1,265]

9 hours ago, Yarimotsu said:

I did manage to find the complete Oricon charts for 1968 to March 1974, and have decided to use the Tokyo Hot 100 for October 1988 to today. I have top yearly sales approximations for 1945 onwards (and I'm not particularly interested in topping up this early era of music). So the remaining years I do not have complete weekly charts and would like to find are 1974-1988. I found a popular radio countdown program has existed in some form since April 1974 which I might be able to find somehow? The JP wiki article suggests that there was some bias in their early rankings to idol kayokyoku. There was also a few weekly TV countdown shows late 70s/early 80s... far from ideal but if I can at least find song lists from one of those it's better than nothing. Anyway, if nothing comes up I at least have the top 100 songs per year in this gap.

Here is what I think you are looking for --- the weekly Oricon charts from 1967 - 2022.  It has the weekly singles charts from every year including the years you're looking for (1974-1988).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_number-one_songs_in_Japan

The charts show the top-selling song for each week.  Hopefully you're not looking for the top-ten-selling songs for each week.

Edited September 7, 2022 by sumojoann

[Yarimotsu 580]

4 hours ago, sumojoann said:

Here is what I think you are looking for --- the weekly Oricon charts from 1967 - 2022.  It has the weekly singles charts from every year including the years you're looking for (1974-1988).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_number-one_songs_in_Japan

The charts show the top-selling song for each week.  Hopefully you're not looking for the top-ten-selling songs for each week.

Thanks for having a look - I've already found these lists and wanted to find the underlying charts they were pulled from. It seems Oricon keeps them behind a paywall and doesn't offer them to overseas customers anyway. Anyway as I said I have the top 100 songs for each year, which is already more than is available on the weekly number-1s and is a decent amount of music to consume. Going to start listening now and see how I go.

[Yamanashi 3,857]

I ran across this video the other day.  The coolest singer in blues/rock, live, at his prime, with a backup band made up of the future Toto and Les Dudek.

 

 

[Suwihuto 125]

Possibly one of these:

 

[Fujisan 533]

On 06/09/2022 at 01:40, sumojoann said:

Youtube has "Top 250 Best Japanese Rock Songs of All Time", a 33-minute video that might interest you if you like Japanese rock.  The only problem is that the year of each song is not listed and it just has a snippet of each song. 

You might have already watched a couple of other YT videos -- "Top 10 Best Selling Singles in Japan 1968-2006 -- Oricon Weekly" and "Top 10 Best Selling Albums in Japan 1970-2007 -- Oricon Weekly").  There's also "Best Selling Albums of All Time in Japan."

 

Sounds like some great songs.

Only things I was disappointed not to see,where Babymetal "Catch me if you can" which is for me,by far their best song and I didn't see 1 left handed guitarist...

Hey c'mon Japan the left-handed are just as good as the the right-handed anytime.

Lefties have rights aswell

Edited September 24, 2022 by Fujisan

[Yamanashi 3,857]

On 27/01/2021 at 19:54, Getayukata said:

How about some Stan Rogers: 

I have two reasons for reacting to your post again:

1) (I just want to bump the topic up top again)

2) I ran across a video from a reactor I keep track of.  Guess who?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv-cfaStXvw

 

[Getayukata 119]

Stan Rogers is one of my favourites; Here's another of his songs which is very popular still here in Halifax Nova Scotia!

 

[Athenayama 1,042]

I'm really not expecting anyone here to like this but here it is nevertheless!

Weather Report live at Tokyo 1984 - Where The Moon Goes

And here is another version with a funny part during the solos.

Weather Report Live 1983 - Where The Moon Goes

Edited December 23, 2022 by Athenayama

[Athenayama 1,042]

Even if you don't like that kind of music please listen to this !

Oscar Peterson - Boogie Blues Etude

And then look at this musician analyzing it:

Rick Beato

 

[lilfox 18]

Only now I have found this thread, thanks to you all. So inspiring! 

You may try out this little piece of lively orchestra music by Arthur Honegger (1892 - 1955), a widely underrated composer IMHO. 

While listening, I often imagine a corresponding animation video showing a rugby match in a nostalgic style (like in "Fantasia"). As far as I am informed, there is nothing like that yet.

 

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by lilfox

[Yamanashi 3,857]

18 hours ago, Athenayama said:

Even if you don't like that kind of music please listen to this !

Oscar Peterson - Boogie Blues Etude

And then look at this musician analyzing it:

Rick Beato

 

I remember seeing Rick's video on this.

[Yamanashi 3,857]

3 hours ago, lilfox said:

You may try out this little piece of lively orchestra music by Arthur Honegger (1892 - 1955), a widely underrated composer IMHO. 

Thanks for this piece. I knew of Honneger, but I didn't know about him.  His works seemed very pre-War French (Debussy, Ravel) considering his name.  Then I read his bio and understood why. 

[Yamanashi 3,857]

On 24/12/2022 at 07:03, lilfox said:

You may try out this little piece of lively orchestra music by Arthur Honegger (1892 - 1955), a widely underrated composer IMHO. 

Years ago I ran across a quote from Honegger that I had forgotten until now.  Bemoaning the lack of interest in 20th Century composers by 20th Century listeners, he said:

"The public doesn't want new music; the main thing it demands of a composer is that he be dead."

[Athenayama 1,042]

Now that the basho's over, here is a catchy chorus !

Coheed and Cambria - Ten Speed (Of God's Blood & Burial)