It seemed, to me, Japanese natives listen to a lot of older music like Queen as if it's new. Like it seems like it takes a while for English music to get popular there. Seriously wondering the most popular English styles or even specific songs that are really in season right now, like at home or at clubs.
by Sodathepop
4 comments
The most obvious one has to be Queen. They were famous there before they even got a hit single in the UK. They even have a “Greatest Hits In Japan” album. Hell, Queen wrote a song called Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together) as a tribute to the Japanese fans.
Queen became popular again after the bohemian rhapsody movie dropped. Typically Japan listeners respond to media trends, so if something goes viral or an anime or movie drops with western music in it that music becomes popular again. It’s not that people just discovered these acts, there’s just a resurgence.
My Japanese students are listening to a lot of typical stuff these days. K pop is huge and is probably most popular. Another popular genre is vocaloid. Taylor Swift, Ed Sheehran, Bruno Mars, are also huge right now. Hip hop is also pretty big with Kendrick, Doechii, etc. Japan is not far behind the times at all from my experience.
Edit: I realized after you may have meant bands fro the UK and not necessarily English speaking bands. Apologies if I went off topic. lol
Japanese natives don’t listen to old music as if it’s new, as though it “takes a while” to catch up (40-50 years in your example). Even before the internet “old” bands were listened to contemporarily. You’ll find plenty of Japanese tours by overseas artists from the 60s to present day. Including Queen. Much like everywhere else in the world though, sometimes an advertisement, TV show, anime, or a movie rekindles interest in an older song and then band. Also happens to Queen songs, like when Subaru used “I was born to love you” in 2019 and it became extremely popular again. In fact, it’s still going strong as backing music on entertainment shows. Around 2002 ish “Twilight” and ELO became extremely popular after it was used as the theme for Densha Otoko (EDIT – just Googled, it was 2005). There used to be a time when everyone thought J-Pop was shit and anyone into music would primarily listen to overseas music. These days though, J-Pop and K-Pop is king. Same is happening with cinema. Whereas maybe 20 years ago you could ask a young person who their favourite musician was and they’d probably answer some overseas singer – these days it will invariably be Japanese or Korean.
Not sure if you mean music from England, or English language, but very little breaks into the mainstream nowadays. The mainstream meaning the stuff shown on TV and radio. The large Japanese labels have a monopoly on what gets shown there, which is why an idol group with one single will appear over much larger Japanese artists from other genres.
Although, foreign artists are still very popular to the point of being mainstream. Beyonce, Coldplay, Taylor Swift, etc. will comfortably sell out multiple stadium shows. Older bands like Iron Maiden, Guns n Roses, RHCP, Motley Crue still do too.
Personally, I’m a fan of punk and pop punk and there’s a huge scene here that you don’t really see unless you attend shows. Bands like Nofx, Bad Religion, Green Day sell out every show when they tour and the crowds are always incredible.
American and British rap music is also very popular at the moment, especially with teenagers.