A Guide to Finding the Most Iconic J-Idol Music
Or, How to figure out which songs are best and/or most important in a giant, decades-spanning catalog of music
Or, How to figure out which songs are best and/or most important in a giant, decades-spanning catalog of music
Today, I'm going to talk a little bit about how to parse through the music of your soon to be favorite idols, because with the system of adds and grads, groups can keep releasing music for decades. One of the struggles I know many newcomers have is that older fans will often reference certain songs or albums in conversation, and it can be overwhelming to jump into a fandom where so many old songs you don't know are a point of discussion, especially when some of them aren't even A-sides! Or, maybe you don't care about that so much, but you're struggling to find a diving-off point for the group's music and don't know where to start. I'll go through some of the methods you can use to find some of the best and most beloved idol music, as well as finding what suits your own taste. With any luck, you'll be able to find some new (old) music that you really like.
YouTube
The old standby, YouTube, has only gotten better at hosting idol content over the years, and you can do a lot of digging on official channels to find MVs new and old as well as some live performances. If you're not sure where to start or are looking for the those songs held in the highest regard by fans, this can be a good way to go.
Let's look at AKB48's YouTube channel. All I've done here is gone to their Uploads page and sorted by the most popular videos. AKB48 puts out a lot of content, but MVs are almost always the most popular thing on an artist's channel so there won't be much to filter out near the top. Right away, the top songs are all ones considered classics by the fandom and are widely regarded as some of their best. This is as good a place to start as any.
However, once we start scrolling, things get a bit more complicated. Personally, I would not consider Namida Surprise (top row, second from the left) or Kimi wa Melody (bottom right) to be essential listening out of all their singles, although some might disagree, but for various reasons, their videos have risen to the top. Additionally, this is where we see our first B-side make its appearance, and it's... Yasai Sisters (bottom row, second from the right). Again, not really essential listening, nor is it representative of their music quality as a whole. AKB48 has released 59 singles (each with multiple B-sides), 8 studio albums, and a whopping 32 stage albums, and that's not even counting all the sub-units! You can bet you won't find most of that through general YouTube browsing.
You can see by the wide range of posting dates that there's a whole lot of content to digest; you could watch their channel for days and still not see and hear everything.
So herein lie the issues with YouTube: not all of the most popular MVs are their best works or their most famous works, and you miss out on a lot of music that fans do consider essential, but they're not songs with an MV. Most AKB48 fans would absolutely tell you to listen to certain songs that were written specifically for their theater performances, but the majority of those won't be found on YouTube. This applies to most idol groups, as B-sides and album tracks are just as capable of producing beloved hits for the fans and are oftentimes where a lot more musical experimentation is done, but they don't receive any videos or promotional treatment. Additionally, because a lot of these channels were made well after the groups started making music, it can be tricky to isolate songs to a certain era or lineup without looking it up elsewhere. Most all of the videos not on the official channels are also not authorized uploads, so they could be removed at any time. YouTube can be a great start if you want to go for the hits, but there's a lot of music you'll be missing.
Shounichi is definitely one of AKB's classics, but because it's a theater song, you're unlikely to find it on YouTube without a specific search.
Concerts and live performances
Another way to discover songs, new and old, A-sides and B-sides, is through concerts. One handy thing about J-idols is that it's an industry standard to record and release their concerts for sale, so even if you can't make it to a big show, as many of us international fans cannot, you can still live out the experience through these releases. That also means you can jump straight into their music through what they performed at live events.
What's nice about watching a concert is that you have an entire playlist being performed right in front of you, and that playlist is designed to please. Singles, especially recent ones, will be at the forefront, but a few deep cuts always make it in the set, and there will often be some songs that have been released in different eras for the group. You'll get a good mix of songs, and you can gauge the audience reaction to see how popular some of the songs are. For most idols, you can also get multiple concert releases per year, so you can use the concerts as a starting place for following the group. Morning Musume, for example, has been going since 1997, 23 years. Their lineup has changed throughout the years, but they still perform many older singles and some old B-sides in their shows, because it helps keep the shows fresh and fans love to see them be performed. You'll get a nice selection of their music by starting off with a concert for them.
Plenty of concert Blu-rays available for purchase, but check the price. Most concert releases come with bonuses like photobooks, behind the scenes content, or live CDs in order to justify that sort of premium.
This seems like a great option, and for the most part, it is. However, if you're brand new to a group, you'll need to do some work to watch the concert for the songs. For one, buying the concerts is not cheap, as you'll need to import them from Japan (bear in mind that a lot of DVDs from Japan are region-encoded, most Blu-rays are not) or rely on the kindness of others, using your own discretion, and use a sharing website to download them. Sometimes you'll find a full concert uploaded to a video site, but they're usually taken down pretty quickly and not often re-uploaded. Additionally, while you can easily find setlists either on the packaging for the release or fan-written ones online, it might be a bit of a chore to reference back to the setlist for every new song, especially if you can't read the Japanese names (song titles in J-pop are usually not translated to English, and most fans will always refer to them by their romanized Japanese names). You also run the risk in some cases of falling in love with a song as performed by a certain lineup, only to find that the original version isn't quite the same for you, because idol groups rarely re-record their older songs. All in all, it's nice to have a curated playlist with the bonus of seeing the idols perform the songs live, but using concerts as a starting point will require some work on your end to find the shows and figure out what songs are what.
This medley is an excellent example of what concerts have to offer: a wide variety of songs from different eras, both A-sides and B-sides, and the energy you get from a concert to really bring those songs to life.
Break it up into eras
Another way to approach a giant back catalog of music is simply to break it up into chunks and see what speaks to you first. When groups last as long as they do, there are a number of ways to separate out the music of each era. Morning Musume, for example, is often divided into eras based on the style of music they were doing and the member lineup, so you could start with Colorful Era music and bounce around Golden and Platinum eras. AKB48's music can be broken up by who the primary center was at the time or who the Kami 7 were. Momoiro Clover Z, unlike those two units, hasn't had any member additions since their debut, but they've treated their album releases as different eras for the group.
Babies with their first album
This is a great way to start if you just want to dive right into some music and get a feel for the group and their history. Whether you start from the beginning and follow their growth as time goes by or you just pick the album with the coolest artwork, dividing the catalog up and picking one starting point means that you get to the music faster and get a lot more of their music by sitting down and listening to a whole era at once! It also gives you more room to start forming your own opinions about which songs are best and what songs should be performed more, without having to rely on the guidance of other people. It can also help you understand the history of the group better and see how the idols have developed over time by hearing their music at different stages.
Bigger babies with their most recent album
That said, it is very time-consuming to commit to listening to multiple albums, or maybe you struggle to find an era that has music or members that really resonate with you. You could also miss out on some really good music if you decide you don't have an interest in an era solely based on looks, or just miss a lot of big songs because you're only listening to a little bit at a time. Also, like the concert releases, access to the music can sometimes be more difficult than it is for other kinds of music. Some artists like Momoiro Clover Z have put their music up on Spotify, but this is not the case for every idol group, with a lot of groups not doing any sort of streaming or region-locking the streams so that it can't be accessed outside of Japan. The same methods apply here as they do for the concert releases: you can either import a physical copy of the music, which, while expensive, also makes for a great keepsake and can often include bonuses, or you can ask other fans about sharing, again, using your own discretion. Nevertheless, if you have an idea of where you want to start, there's no other reason why you shouldn't just dive right in to a specific album or era.
Momoiro Clover Z have a lot of truly beloved deep cuts, and they're extremely self-referential. Listening to different eras will help you recognize those references when you come around to them.
Just ask
It might seem obvious, but sometimes when you're new to something with an intense fanbase, it can be intimidating to ask people for help when everyone seems to know so much more than you. Lots of people are willing to provide you with resources or information or even just opinions if you're looking to start being a part of the fandom, however, and it doesn't hurt to be more a part of the community.
The only people who can explain to you what's happening here are fans, plain and simple.
The J-idol international fan community is fairly small and the J-idol industry is pretty insular, so we've learned to rely on each other more for information and news than some other fandoms might. We can tell you the best places to buy music from Japan, who to go to for proxy purchasing, and how to attend idol events in person. Naturally, we can also tell you what the big songs are for different groups and what our favorites are, or where we think you should start. You can never really know everything about groups with such long histories if you weren't there from the beginning, so it's good to learn to rely on other fans for help when they reference something you don't understand. This also clues you in to some information and context about the group that you might not otherwise get from the other methods. Did you know that Dempagumi.inc has actually retired several songs from concerts as their lineup has changed? You probably wouldn't if I didn't tell you.
Start with this album. The one prior is also a classic, but it has several retired songs on it.
Of course, the obvious drawbacks here are that some fans are jerks and some fans have wildly different opinions. There's always going to be someone that makes a comment about oh, I can't believe you don't know Pinky's real name, oh, I can't believe you didn't know they don't perform W.W.D anymore, but those people are jerks. They didn't always know these things, either. Don't worry about them. The other issue is that not every fan agrees on the current state of the group, especially when it comes to these groups with long histories. In Dempagumi.inc's case, should you listen to W.W.D knowing that they retired it? Should you listen to their indies releases that they rarely bring out? There are sure to be disagreements. In some cases, you might also get flooded with information. With such long and rich histories as these groups have, fans naturally will want to try to include a little of all of it, which can be maybe too much to start with. At some point, you'll have to make your own decisions with what direction you'll go in, but ultimately, this is maybe the best way to get a jump on finding the most famous and most beloved idol music, especially since you'll be able to tell other fans what you like and don't like, and they can help you find what you'll love. Plus, you might have made some friends along the way, and that's always nice.
You'd have no idea that the last song of this video was written to express gratitude to everyone when Furukawa Mirin announced that she was getting married, unless someone told you.
So what have we learned? Mostly that there is a lot of J-idol music out there even among a small number of groups, but it's not always easy to find the best of it. Hopefully, this guide will give you a little more knowledge on how to approach these massive back catalogs of music and figure out what groups and songs you really like. Feel free to ask any questions, or share your own tips on how you went through J-idol music.
As always, feel free to stop by Fish Market for more J-idol!
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