Getting a Japanese account for Spotify is very easy and it does offer considerably more tracks than US Spotify. Use a VPN that offers Japanese servers (I personally use ProtonVPN since it has free Japanese servers and is a lot more secure than most free VPN services out there). Use a new account if needed since changing the region to Japan would make a lot of western artists unavailable.
I'm not sure about Apple Music, though. I think might be harder than Spotify. I've heard that it's really hard to get a LINE Music account, however.
Aniuta has a really clunky interface, would not recommend.
Oftentimes YouTube can be complementary to Spotify, however the mediocre encodes might feel like an issue.
Edit: Of all the artists you've mentioned, Back Number is the only one which has its full catalogue on Spotify JP.
I quite like this list, personally (though it is skewed somewhat towards more experimental music, which wouldn't necessarily be the best fit for everyone).
This playlist has a lot of videos of Ringo's performances. It changes pretty often as videos are uploaded and removed.
Manipulate the Time and Clandestine are tracks 3 and 4 on disc 2 of 椎名林檎と彼奴等が行く 百鬼夜行2015.
sure, if you want more heres the filtered RYM lists I looked through
I don't have a lot to say about this song except that I like it and that when I played it to a friend who's not into Japanese music and told him the title, he remarked that it's nothing like the Beatles' version. :P
Karaoke on niconico if you want to try out: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm23017777
A few rappers do this! Most notably S.L.A.C.K., here's Bring Da Fire and it's right there in the second line, but with ーる instead of ーら >まぁまだまだhilu回きゃ行かねぇ
then he says >ひのmaluに火
I can't remember if this song has him saying "kala", but its interesting that he switches back to the japanese pronunciation for -る (燃える魂)for other words in the song, and even in the same sentence.
We've got KOHH as well but he uses it far more sparingly than S.L.A.C.K, >電話がkulu at around 1:20
I know there are more, and a few J-R&B singers that do it as well but I can't remember the names at the moment.
Funny enough I just had a short convo on this a few weeks ago :) side note all this mixed romaji and Japanese is making my head hurt, why can't there be an easy HTML implementation for ruby text :p
My wife liked her back when she was doing Dance/Pop songs in the late 90's/ early 00's. She didn't recognize her at first when I showed her this video.
I love these kinds of throwback songs, especially when they put the amount of detail in the presentation like this one. But I can see they're kind of a hard sell to a broad audience. There was this guy Ricky Fante that came out with an album about a decade ago that was pure early Stax Records soul (Sam Cooke, Al Green, Otis Redding, etc.). Album came out pretty strong at first then his popularity faded away just as quick it seemed. Too bad since I would have loved to see a revival of that type of music.
I'm seconding YesAsia, being one of the few beings who like buying CDs. Granted, they have a small markup, but the shipping MORE than makes up for it; if buying 39+ USD of stuff, you save more money overall.
Then there's cooljapanstore for harder to find CDs.
Also, you probably know this, but the yen actually decreased in value a few days ago (the Japanese government has been trying to lower it to encourage exports), so it's 100 Y = 1 USD right now.
Do you use mixcloud? Its a plataform for mixes, anyone can upload and there's a TON of content, from mixtapes to radio shows. The drawback is that not every mix has a tracklist, so sometimes you'll have to resort to googling lyrics/shazam.
Soundcloud also tends to be somewhat precise, once you find something you like the related songs are usually in a similar style, then you can just let the website rolling in the background and check back when you listen to something you really like.
Actually, I happened to listen to a good track under 1 minute today:
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https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=LkcYK2Rt0vE&list=OLAK5uy_lSukoaVqKszB_8c5lU02b60Eb0Kgj3HR4
And Amazon Japan! Makes things a bit easier for me.
For any new Polka fans out there, you can get two of their EPs on US Amazon digitally:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CZGU6K0/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp
I hope The new one shows up there soon too. I love this video.
The singers name is Sasaguchi So-on Harmonica. He's in the band Uminote, which is more rock, and has some solo stuff. I don't know what going on with Uminote and his solo stuff though.
This band is called Sasaguchi and the New Olympics. This song is from there album released at the end of 2016 called 2020. I don't know about digital downloads but you can buy the physical cd from either their homepage of Amazon Japan.
Homepage shop (I don't know if it ships internationally)
Amazon Japan (does ship internationally)
Yes, if you want to listen to Galileo Galilei music on Spotify you will have to use a VPN to connect to Japan. Another thing I would recommend is that you use another Spotify account that is registered in Japan. That way Spotify won't region lock their music.
If you want a free VPN software, I would suggest ProtonVPN, because it has a free Japanese server.
If you need any other questions in terms of Galileo Galilei, just ask me here.
The free options are restricted to US, Japan and The Netherlands servers. Japan has 3 free servers atm and US and NL have 2 free servers each. Note that the only reason why I mentioned ProtonVPN is because it offers both 'Free' and 'Secure' options for connecting to Japan. You'd find a lot of other free VPNs that can be used to get around geo-restrictions but they'll make you the product instead by selling your data. For that reason, I can't vouch for any other free option apart from ProtonVPN. However, if you want to pay for a VPN, I'd suggest you to do some research before considering Proton. ExpressVPN/PIA/Mullvad/NordVPN might have something better to offer if you're going for a paid service.
I use NordVPN, and am content with their service. They are a little expensive if you pay by month, but they always have deals on longer periods. I haven't used it in Japan, but I doubt that it wouldn't work there. I've heard of PIA(Private Internet Access), but haven't used it myself.
If you look at tech bargains or other deal sites you can regularly find deals on torguard or other VPN services. I have Torguard, I connect to a Tokyo VPN and nothing is blocked, I get Japanese Netflix and Hulu content and all is great! Best $29 a year I ever spent :)
I put a link to a copy I made of the song from my iPod. It's the full song. Now it sounds like he's singing "shiguya" but again, I'm not fluent or very good with Japanese.
Does anyone know where I can buy the DVD or stream the full show? There's a couple of the songs on YouTube, like this one, and I see the DVD on Japanese Amazon, but that DVD won't play in my region (U.S.). The Ego-Wrappin' site has a link to a stream but it doesn't play for me.
Any help?
Either you keep them inside jewel case. Or buy resealable wraps on Amazon. Great for keeping the disk clean while still presenting the full obi
It's this huh? It looks like there are some secondhand copies being sold.
Not sure it can interest you, It's a kind of J-pop, Jazz, R&B mixed together but she is an amazing singer, her style unique. Her most famous album is Mindtravel by Bird: https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/bird/dp/B00005HQ8I
It's gonna be on the Huawei Fusion Stage. Also I made this event time announcement thing, in case anyone else is as confused as me by time zone differences.
I was able to use it just fine a couple of months ago myself, also using a foreign card. Granted I've always gone about using a pretty roundabout way of purchasing tracks from it ever since I started using it. I actually use my phone using the TunnelBear VPN app to make the transaction via my phone's mobile browser, and after the purchase goes through I open my account on my laptop and download the songs there. Hope this helps!
Since people were asking about having a Spotify Playlist I'll do a shameless plug! If some lovely soul would buy me a coffee I'll put one together today with the name of the first person to get me a cup in the Title! either way you all are super rad with the kind words!
FYI, tickets are now on sale on Fandango! Enter the city or zip code in the search box, and your location will show up to purchase a ticket!
http://www.fandango.com/larcenciellive2014atnationalstadium_171733/movieoverview
Hello fellow Mixlr streamer! Followed and will give you a listen next time you are up! I also have my Mixlr Japanese music stream here! It is originally on an Internet radio station but I am doing it on Mixlr for the summer.
Haha thats also initially what I thought of. Or like the whispery soft vocal kind of stuff like Daoko. But I found this spotify playlist and that doesn't seem to be the case. Tbh the playlist doesn't really help clear anything up at all. The most I can make of it is that it might just be Japanese pop rock? Also found this word map, also doesn't help much lol.
Other genres in my wrapped were J-pop, Hyperpop, Pop rap and Japanese jazz. Artists included in my wrapped Sheena Ringo, Seiko Oomori, Wednesday Campanella, Dadaray and more.
Oh, literally as I was typing this I figured, " well, maybe I should just search for " 'pixie genre'", and I managed to find something. It appears to be a mix of pop and alt rock, but also a genre label that isn't really used much. Guess Spotify just slapped a J on it to signify it's japanese, resulting in an even more obscure genre label?
Anyway, thanks for commenting on this goofy inquiry.
Fair enough, I'm going to start getting into this. Gotta love it when Grooveshark has stuff up. Is there anyone else along this vein you'd recommend?
Oh, and why does it translate that way? 朝霧の中, isn't that literally "Center of the morning mist" (I had to look up 霧
http://mora.jp/package/43000001/4582290392950/ You need a Japanese IP when purchasing, so you need a VPN. Cc doesn't need to be Japanese.
http://www.vpngate.net/en/ is a good temporary vpn to use.
I found it on Amazon Music: https://www.amazon.com/Colors/dp/B097131BT9/
How visible it is in online searches depends on their distribution model and any exclusivity deals they may have. Combine that with the bureaucratic vagaries of international licensing and it can be difficult to find stuff sometimes; especially shortly after release when they are still beholden to exclusivity deals.
Actually... found that same site (the cdjournal one) and there's a link to the artist who made the song and a listing on Amazon. I think it's the first song in the sampler: https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%83%A1%E3%83%AD%E3%83%87%E3%82%A3%E3%83%BC%E3%82%BA-%E8%93%AE%E6%B2%BC%E5%9F%B7%E5%A4%AA/dp/B018RA8UOC/ref=ntt_mus_ep_dpi_1
Their album is on Apple Music. Not sure about Spotify. They have a few random other releases, but the album is pretty much all you need. It's literally titled "「」", making both the band name and the CD title a pain in the ass to Google.
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You can also buy it via Japanese Amazon.
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I currently have ExpressVPN, and while I will definitely look into these streaming services (any Japanese ones you recommend? Or did you mean Spotify?), I am more concerned with owning the music. My only exception to that would be Apple Music, but I am not interested in making a separate Japanese iTunes account and paying for music that I couldn’t listen to on my phone.
Here's a guide I wrote about buying Japanese music stuff from overseas.
If you want the CD, I recommend buying it from Amazon Japan (they have cheap worldwide express shipping). I just went through checkout with this CD and the final cost was 4253 yen (3000 item price + 1253 shipping), so about $40 USD.
The band is named "Hiromi to chaban" ヒロミと茶番. The album is named "Vintage" ビンテージ.
Wow, thanks man! I added an edit that touched on some of that. Anyway, I read a bit about ProtonVPN and I was just curious if you know how it works. That free version - is the 3 countries thing giving me a CHOICE in those 3 countries or do they have 3 countries picked out for free users? Because if I'm able to connect to Japan with the free version I'd be interested in trying it out to see if I'd want to pay for it in the future. Also, I have a Spotify Premium account. Would I essentially be able to login through mine with the VPN, but be listening to the Japanese catalog since I'd be connected to Japan? Thanks again for the tip, and CDJapan is a pretty good site, I've used it for manga as I found it to be cheaper than Amazon Japan for things I was looking for.
I don't know the technical nitty-gritties but a VPN basically establishes a virtual P2P connection through dedicated servers (w/ encryption). It masks your IP, meaning websites would see that you're connected from a country that you chose. I would heavily discourage using free VPNs like Hola since they sell the data of their consumers and are very unsecure. ProtonVPN uses a freemium model but is pretty secure and doesn't log your traffic. The freemium model offers exactly what I need - US, Japan and Netherlands servers. If your cafe allows you to use your own devices, then you should be able to use a VPN using a client installed on your device (They're available for Win/Mac/iOS/Android). I couldn't get ProtonVPN to work for free on Linux, though. And I'm not sure about cafes that don't allow you to use your own devices. You'll probably need to ask them before installing anything.
The best VPNs are paid, however. NordVPN and ExpressVPN would come to my mind if I paid for the service.
I think it might be because Universal holds licensing rights in the US (at least judging from the fact that SaiSai is available on Amazon... even if this song in particular isn't available for purchase now). Not sure what difference there is b/w N. America and Europe, maybe Universal's European arm is less strict or doesn't plan to release there at all?
Yeah, it's sad. They compiled a final "best of" album which will come out next month, in case you didn't know.
And yes, that is their official store for overseas customers. This is their official store for Japanese customers, and it links to the English one.