Japanese Music

[Acr1m]

There is a vast amount of music that seems to only be available in Japan. The only way for Americans to obtain any of this music is through YouTube (which is a pretty lame way to stream music and very limited selection at that) to order the albums over sea (needless to say this gets ridiculous expensive) or to download it illegally.

My notion to the Spotify staff members is to break down the boundaries of America's and Japan's music industries and to allow us to listen to even recorded music from other countries across the world! 

Does anyone else feel the same way as I do?

[overfloater]

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@Acr1m wrote:

Does anyone else feel the same way as I do?

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I'm sure Spotify does too!

Unfortunately their hands are ultimately bound by licensing terms offered (or not) by the labels. The best Spotify can do is plead/beg/crawl/offer their bodies, but it's not always going to be enough. The music industry was slow to accept digital distribution in any form and they're going to be even slower to become comfortable with streaming licenses, especially across international borders.

I can see Japan being a tough nut to crack, in particular, since they've always had a well-developed (and somewhat insular) music market of their own. Western artists and labels have already had to work hard and jump through hoops to break into that market -- that's why the majority of Japanese releases by western artists have a bunch of bonus and previously unreleased tracks, because they feel they need to offer a bunch of value-added content in order to be noticed and capture interest amongst the huge amount of domestic competition. I can imagine that clear division of markets making license negotiations much more problematic for Spotify than, say, bringing in labels from around Europe.

[Acr1m]

Fist off, I just wanted to let you and everyone at Spotify know that I love yalls work and am very thankfull for the product that your team provides.I honestly respect and appreciate the difficulties of licensing and market competition issues between the countries as well..

I've been wishing for a reasonable method of obtaining Japanese music and even just international music in general, like music from India and Korea as well, for a long time. Because of the licensing and marketing issues, I understand that this dream of mine isn't going to just come about, like how I wish.

I'm willing to put some effort in demonstrating that there is a demand for attainable international music within the states here. Is there some way that we could make a difference in this issue to help you and the members of Spotify to make some headway in this matter?

[mpr18]

I sure wish Spotify would open in Japan, would be great especially if all japanese major labels would be open to streaming 🙂

[user-removed]

I made a spotify list of japanese rock, pop, electronic, psychedelia.. In case anyone is interested..

[13thark]

id be interested in hearing a response from spotify, or maybe there is one, about attempts or progress on getting more japanese record lables to jump on board, alot of bands are on itunes, but not spotify, so id be interested in seeing what the lables are saying about spotify and digital streaming in general. im sure they would like a slice of the pie insted of having the rest of the world pirate their music insted. 

japanese music is one of my favevorites and it has so many diverse geners that i could just get lost endlessly finding new music, which makes spotify so much fun.

[SAEQ]

Maybe United Nations should force all music producers to sell their music to all distributors no matter what, without any agreement/contracts and let UN have the power to set a resonable price/compensation.

Or do someone have a better suggestion? It clearly dossent work well in several ways, as it is now. The end user want it distrubuted in an effective way at the lowest possible price with adjustable quality. The producers want to produce and get paid. The distributors want to get access to as much material as possible to distribute.

Whats the problem? Bad organisation and no higher power that can force, instead its the market economy that decide and the market economy isnt intelligent enough to organise this in a good way.

[Kestrelxox]

I have a playlist of tracks I've found here too: 

🙂

[GameraVsGodzuki]

HEYYY!!!!

Your playlist is really jam packed with some great stuff I didn't realize was on spotify!

Great Job!!!!

-DB

[Kestrelxox]

Do you mean mine? Thanks! ^_^ I'm still finding new stuff so adding whenever I do 🙂 It's actually a lot better than I thought although there are still artists who seem to be missing like Gackt (apart from the one single) and Alice Nine... but it seems that this is to do with the artists distributed by Ganshin Records. I'd also love to see more of Hikaru Utada, the mic musicbox stuff is just annoying 😛

[gbxn]

same feeling here. after years still limited musical repertoire here. anime got me into this and its sad even common non-native japanese musicians like Majik Monkey are not on it

[gareth8]

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@Kestrelxox wrote:

I have a playlist of tracks I've found here too: 

🙂

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There's so much great stuff that's coming out of Japan; probably my favourite band in the world right now are The Mirraz: 

Something to add to your list.

[THEjortex]

snif... no luna sea songs....

[Shoobie_Doowah]

MELT BANANA!!!!!!

[ugapupZ]

 I have made this playlist for Chatmonchy fans if your interested

[Acr1m]

Original poster here 😄

It's great to see all this feedback beginning to generate. I love how this is beginning to morph into a dropping ground for all the Japanese Music that we've found so far.

Here's some really great "hipster-ish" Japanese music by Shugo Takamura. Really amazing stuff.

And there's also another artist I ran into before while browsing, who goes by the name, "Kodomo" (trans: "The Kid" or "Children").

Listen to "Decoder" from "Frozen in Motion" album.

[Jack_H]

I've been getting into this band, they seem cool. For fans of 'math rock' out there. 

Also,  is absolutely amazing!!!! (It's got a cool music video too)

If anyone's got any more Japanese math rock recommendations, let me know! 

[user-removed]

Thank you everyone for your contributions and discoveries..I´m amazed by the richness and diversity of japanese music. A pity that outside the country doesn´t have so much repercussion.  

Here I share my own with two new playlists.

Keep the good work!

[user-removed]

1) In 90's Usa label Skin Graft printed Jap-Alternatve bands - i got some 7" (Space Streakings, Zeni Geva,).
2) check for other Japan-core as
The Gaia - Capitol City Hardocore - female hc from Tokyo - they rule!
CrocodileSkink - punk/hc or crust
S.O.B. split with Napalm Death
Gerogerigegege - rumorism 
Age - inside darkness
War System / Noise reduction 
Cornelius
I got 7" of them - some labels are D.I.Y (tokyo) or DeWA (Yamagata) - 7" of Gerogeri is from a German Label - also i saw a gig from Ruins - 2 elements line-up in 90's !? - it was with Guapo (Eng) 
OLD SKOOL NEVER DIE!

P.S.: i read an interview where one from Skin Graft told he discovered Japan-core because his minor brother usually listened it when he played at PlayStation - then he checked for Japan-core bands for SkinGraft label.   

[Tytoalba]

Here are some Ambient musicians from Japan I enjoy:

And one of my favorite japanese new classical composers: