J-pop going flat???

[SunshineSlayer]

I agree. The last couple of years Jpop has been going flat I think. Even some of my favorite artists I feel like have been releasing very safe material.

Originally Posted by Kazeyomi

Just my two cent:

I remember when I listened to japanese music for the first time, and I was amazed by its diversity. Late 90s-early 00s were such good days for the japanese music industry imo. Solo female singers, golden age of girlbands and boybands, many j-rock and visual kei groups. You've got a lot of music to choose those days, seriously.

Yep, this exactly. mid-90s to early 00s Jpop was really incredible in its diversity and all of it was main stream. Now, you really really have to go searching if you want to find new and diverse material. J-pop has ALWAYS been dominated by idol groups, but the difference before is that there always seemed to be quite a bit of diversity to balance it out. One only needs to look at last years Oricon top 100 to see that diversity has completely left the building. I believe it was only Namie, B'z, and Bump of Chicken surrounded by a million idol groups.