How Did You Discover J-Pop? + Your Favorite Artists Now?

[AyUta]

Ayu - My friend had M playing on her myspace page and I fell in love with the song but had no idea who sang it. Once I found out who, I looked her up and fell in love.

Hikki - KH lol.

[Celaphorce]

Ayu-My stepbrother played Whatever from LOVEppears, and I fell in love, then I heard YOU and that is my absolute favorite song from her.

Hikki-My stepbrother...again burned her First Love cd for me and I was astounded at how beautiful her voice was, and she really captured my heart!!!

Namie-2005...although it took forever to find her I really think it was meant to be because I'm in love with her. I used to post at Tokyo Nights Forum and saw that people HIGHLY RECOMMENDED QOHP so I downloaded it, LOVED IT! Bought it and from then on I bought her albums, but I need to extend my collection of her asap!!!

[aurinko.]

Ayu - my best friend introduced me to her back in 2002. My first songs were from I am.. - still alone, Naturally and NEVER EVER ^o^ I've listined to then non-stop but didn't really got into ayu till I've heard RAINBOW. I'm an anime maniac and to one of magazines there was cd with newst jpop and jrock realeases. And I've loved ayu ever since ^^

Utada was my second favourite ^^ I was buying ayu's cds in local online shop and there was colors for 5 bucks ^^ the reat is history...unfortunately, sice I don't like her that much any more

Well, the rest of my favs I've just dowloaded from p2p or whatever xD no story there.

[elite]

Utada, Ayu, and Namie were all shown to me by the same friend. All three of them are probably the best that pop music has to offer in Japan for me but I don't like everything they have done.

Utada's albums are all great after First Love (except for Exodus). I only really started to like Ayu with My Story. Everything before that is really just hit and miss with me. Her first two albums are nearly impossible to listen to. I only like Namie starting with the release of Style. All of her music before that is just really not that good to me.

Other than those three all the other artists I've discovered have been through my own searches.

[taskinillusion]

Well, basically, the original Kingdom Hearts game! I loved "Simple and Clean" and was dying to know who did the song so I could get it and that, of course, led me to discover Hikki and from there I discovered Ayu because my friend gave me a bunch of her songs and then I discovered Koda Kumi and Ai Otsuka and KOTOKO and soooo many more. I still love all of them, but more recently added Perfume to the list. There are others, of course, as well.

[sugarbasil]

Technically I found out about Dream before any other Jpop artist, and that was in...*thinks hard* 2000...? I'm pretty sure. I loved them, but couldn't find anything else by them. That was back when I was into para para. Then I found out about Ayu through some guy in my Japanese class back in...2002? 2003? Around then.

Right now my favorite Jpop artists are:

1. Ayu
2. Ai Otsuka
3. Koda Kumi
4. Namie Amuro
5. Utada Hikaru
6. Arashi

Those are about the only Jpop artists that I listen to on an everyday basis. I do spice it up a bit here and there, but I have yet to find a new artist that I truly like. I really like Alan, but her music is too soothing to listen to all the time when you're feeling any mood.

[Bellmer's Doll]

A friend of mine at a forum was using this picture of a gorgeous woman in his signature. I asked him who it was and he said Ayumi Hamasaki. Looked her up on Wiki and found out she was a singer. Then I found one of her PVs (it was ourselves) and watched. Fell in love with her that day and eventually started looking into other Japanese artists.

My current favorites are Utada Hikaru, Mika Nakashima, Lisa Komine, Namie Amuro, Anna Tsuchiya, OLIVIA, and Salyu. There are a lot more that I like but I'd probably hit the max character length if I listed them all

[kendelle]

Back in about 1999 I was in my Pokemon/Rocketshipping phase and I got my dad to buy a Japanese Team Rocket CD drama off the internet.

I listened to it, it had some cool songs (that I still enjoy today) on it and the drama was pretty fun from what I could understand at the time.

As I got more into anime (1999-2000) I started downloading japanese DBZ and Sailor Moon songs and listened to them. That was my first "experience" with japanese music and I downloaded songs by artists that had performed DBZ OP and ED songs (like ZARD, Hironobu kageyama and Field of View).

Then I started visiting J-music blogs and downloading more zany tracks like Gackt's Vanilla and deeper tracks like Ophelia by L'arc. Some Chinese friends gave me burned C-pop CDs but I've lost them

Then one day in 2003/4 a friend of a friend of a kind-of-a friend lent me his Ayumi CDs - RAINBOW and Ayu Trance 2. He didn't speak a word of japanese but loved her voice and trance music. I borrowed them, took them home and listened.

Being a fan of trance music I listened to AT2 first and then RAINBOW. Then I burned copies of them and started looking for more info on her. At this point I couldn't afford CDs and importing so I downloaded tracks here and there and got more music from sites with anime soundtracks and tried other artists. I really liked Utada's simple and clean when I downloaded it in about 05? (can't remember when it came out lol).

In about 2005 I discovered AHS and joined ^_^ From here I've had access to tonnes of bands and artists I've never heard of as well as those whose tracks I downloaded in the "early days".

Anime OPs and EDs were what bought me to J-pop but I'm certain that it's Ayu who really captured my interests.

[Me, Myself & Music]

Namie - I heard Come on InuYasha, downloaded it on Limewire, and checked out some more of her stuff, loved her since then

Utada - I don't even remember LOL, it was probably Kingdom Hearts

Ayumi - Same as Namie, except I didn't really like that many of her songs at first, I grew to like them

Koda - I was searching for J-Pop, and decided to download Kingdom, loved her from then

BoA - InuYasha as well (that show is a god send )

[Ayumi_Hamasaki902]

Ayu - 2001 whenever I was searching for Megumi Hayashibara/TWO-MIX on Napster/Limewire *one of the two* I found Fly High and ever since then, I've been into Ayu

Koda - Final Fantasy X-2 1000 no Kotoba

Namie - First song of hers that I heard was "WANT ME, WANT ME" around 2004-05?

Ami Suzuki - I somehow got into her around the time she released AROUND THE WORLD.

Ai Otsuka - Momo no Hanabira, Just decided to try and give her a shot with her music since people said she was good and that was around 2004-05 also

Gackt's first song I heard was Miserable.

Utada I first heard her from Kingdom Hearts but I heard Hikari first before Simple and Clean.

12012 I got into from hearing the ending theme of RomeoxJuliet.

Perfume I remember getting into them from the AHS forums and seeing a topic about artists going to be at an event, plus I've heard around the message boards about them so I decided to give them a shot.

globe - My ex got me into them from the ending of Cyborg 009

Zwei - I got into them on AHS from the remixes made on here ^^;

Others:
TWO-MIX
See-Saw
Megumi Hayashibara
T.M. Revolution

There's more that I'm into but can't really remember ^^;

[~akotaku~]

I discovered J-Pop through Anime. I have 3 favorite artists Ayu, Perfume, & Tommy Heav./Feb.6 (or Tomoko Kawase).

[YuriChan]

Wow...umm... JPOP and me go a looong ways back. To 1999 to that fact.

Ayumi Hamasaki- I first heard of this song on my brother's computer. The song was called "Depend on you" and I looved it (still love this song to this day). It was the song that actually started my JPOP obsession! (lol)

Koda Kumi- I downloaded the song "Real Emotion" and didn't like her voice at first... But it grew on me. (Not much to say about her, eh? XDD) She's one of favorites now.

Ai Otsuka- My older sister actually introduced me to her. The song was "Superman"... I thought it was a cute song (considering then, I didn't know who it was then). Then the song that got me to know her better was "Kingyo Hanabi". It was playing on Chieko Kawabe's myspace profile and I loved it! <33

AAA- I wasn't interested in this band... Their cover to "Bomb a Head" changed my mind rather quickly! XDD

B'z- OMG! Where do I start? Oh yeah! Late 2000 or 2001 (somewhere around there), my brother had this mix CD that my cousin Shane had given him. It had Utada Hikaru, Southern All-Stars, and some other JPOP acts on it. The first track of this CD was "HOME"... Back during this time, I loved the song and I wanted to see who sung it. It took me YEEARS to figure out that the band called "B'z" sung this song and I was hooked on them since then.

YUI- I had heard soo much about her that I had to hear her songs. I was searching on myspace for songs by her. When I came across a myspace page that had her songs on it, the first song that popped up was "How crazy". I fell in love with that song and the rest is history! XDD

Utada Hikaru- This goes back to my freshman or sophomore year in high school. My sister-in-law had a mix CD with most of her songs in it. The song that got me hooked on her from that day onto the present was "Wait & See ~リスク~". I had already of heard of her for more than a year when "Simple and Clean" came out. ^^

alan- OMG! I remember this? XDD Ok ok... It was 2008 (I believe) when I was reading reviews about how great alan was and that sort... I think I looked up "Ashita e no Sanka" on youtube and I fell in LOOOOVE with the song! I became her fan since then! ^^

Leah Dizon- All I can say about her is that I hated her at first! The reason was because I thought she was a "s l u t" until I watched the live performance of "Koi Shiyou". Loved the song, but didn't like the performance. >P "Koi Shiyou" converted me to a Leah fan! XDD

Aya Kamiki- The only story I have about her is that I watched the PV for "Pierrot" and loved her voice.