On May 10, ayaka will release her new single, “Kotonoha.” This is her first single since April 2014’s “Nijiiro.” “Kotonoha” serves as the theme song for the NHK drama “Tsubaki Bunguten ~Kamakura Daishoya Monogatari~.” The song is described as a midtempo number with the theme of a letter, reflecting hearts that are connected through words.
ayaka recently released the music video for “Kotohona.” In it, ayaka appears in a world of paper cutouts, playing a puppetmaster of sorts. Check it out below, along with more information on her new single!
On May 24, SALU will release his new album, “INDIGO.” Ahead of the album’s release, SALU has released the music video for the album’s opener, “WALK THIS WAY.” This music video takes place in New York City. In the clip, SALU hangs around the city in various locations, such as Times Square, Chinatown, the Brooklyn Bridge, Dumbo, and the subway. Check it out below, along with the tracklist for his new album!
Singer/songwriter Gotch, better known as ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATIONS’s frontman Goto Masafumi, recently revealed that he would be releasing a new analog single titled “Taxi Driver” on June 21st. The A-side will feature a number of other talented musicians, such as Yosuke Inoue (Turntable Films, Subtle Control), Ryosuke Shimomura (the chef cooks me), Hinata Hidekazu (Straightener, Nothing’s Carved In Stone), and achiko (Ropes).
In order to celebrate the single’s earlier digital release, Gotch has made the MV for “Taxi Driver” available on his label’s Youtube channel. The video matches the track’s easy-going nature, focusing on a single shot of the titular taxi as Gotch grooves to the beat.
Read on below to find the full PV, cover, and track list for “Taxi Driver”.
This week’s guests were BLUE ENCOUNT, Scott & Rivers, and HERO.
BLUE ENCOUNT – Sayonara
Scott & Rivers – Kawaranu Omoi
HERO – Time Capsule ~10nen Go no Kimi e~
This year’s edition of Nikkei Entertainment’s “Talent Power Ranking” is out. We’ve had several posts about this topic, and we now have the very large scatter plots that these lists were made from. There is one for male celebrities and another for female celebrities. Check them out after the jump to see where your faves placed in the spectrum of celebrity!
Sony Music Entertainment Japan has announced a brand new network of Zepp concert halls that will open up all across Asia. Sony hopes to use these venues towards the establishment of more high-quality venues across Asia.
Partial funding for the construction is being provided by the government operated Cool Japan fund. This is one step in aiming to help develop Japan’s music presence overseas. There’s hope that all these new venues will serve as bases for Japanese artists to keep connecting with people from that country, and allow Japanese artists to more freely extend their concert tours beyond Japan.
There’s currently six “Zepp” venues all across Japan, a brand new hall will be opening in Fukuoka in 2018 and another in Yokohama in 2020. The first Asian Zepp concert hall will open on June 4th, 2017 in Singapore. Opening as “ZeppBIGBOX” it will be located at the Big Box complex in Jurong East. It will have a max capacity of 2,333, but that number raises to 4,032 when combined with an adjacent event hall. RADWIMPS will be the first Japanese artist to play a show there.
The other venues will be located in Malaysia and Taiwan, both are expected to open in 2020.
(via wowjapan)
We have more results from this year’s “Talent Power Ranking”! The list of musical acts who have had the biggest increase in their score over last year has been released. GReeeeN tops the list with an increase of 8.3 points, followed by Sashihara Rino, whose points rose by 7.2. Rounding out the top three is back number, who saw an increase of 6.8 points. Find out the rest of the top 20 after the jump!
Nikkei Entertainment has released its “Talent Power Ranking” list for 2017. We now have the list for the top girl groups. Perfume tops the list for the fifth year in a row. They are followed by Momoiro Clover Z, also for the fifth year in a row. AKB48 is #3, for the fourth year in a row. Find out the rest of the top 15 after the jump!
