Intro to J-Rock #1: moumoon

After I posted that Radwimps music video over a week ago, people were requesting that I post some recommendations. As someone who used to listen to a lot of J-Rock before getting into K-Pop, I figured it wouldn't hurt to give some suggestions. 2015 was a great year in J-Rock and revitalized my interest in the genre after barely listening to it for the past decade, mainly due to many of my favorite bands disbanding combined with discovering K-Pop as it started getting really good (2008).



Song #1: Hello, Shooting Star (posted above)

I found this song by accident last year and fell in love this band. I used to visit this site for Japanese PVs before it became inactive last summer. I was looking for new Japanese music to listen to, and knew that I would hate 99% of the J-Pop posted and 95% of the J-Hiphop posted, so I figured I would try some rock songs.

"Hello, Shooting Star" combines a lot of things I love in music: light, airy vocals from a female vocalist, a light rock instrumental, and (well-done) ballads. Yuka's voice reminds me of some of my favorite Korean female soloists, such as Taru and Yozoh. Naturally, I was drawn to the song right away.

"Hello, Shooting Star" was my favorite song of 2015 and would have topped my list if I had made an all-inclusive Top Asian Songs of 2015 list.

Song #2: I'm Scarlet

This was the second song I listened to from moumoon, and it was a good contrast in style. This song features Yuka using the lower range of her vocals throughout the song. This is good (as you'll see in the next song posted) as it doesn't constrain moumoon to stick to one type of light rock sound.

I personally like how the slow verses build up to the faster-paced chorus until the last minute in which the whole song's tempo goes up a notch. That bridge near the end is the highlight of the song for me. Normally a song like this would have a bridge that is even slower than the typical verses, but not this song.

Song #3: Friend/Lover

The only music video I could find was listed on Jpopsuki, so unless you wanted to wait half an hour for the site to load, this AMV is all I could find that had the song. Like I had mentioned earlier, Yuka's voice reminds me of Taru and Yozoh, and it shows it songs like this one. This is one of those light pop/rock songs showcasing Yuka's airy vocals...and I had to start stanning moumoon after listening to this song. Song #4: The Most Distant Place in Heaven

This is one of my favorite slower songs from moumoon. I really dig the instrumental to this song, so I don't mind the slower pace of it.

This was just meant to be an introduction to moumoon. If you liked the songs you heard here, you can find many of their songs on YouTube and most of their albums are available on iTunes (except for their latest one). moumoon was my best discovery of 2015, and I am still digging deeper into the discography bit by bit.