✶ a bit of context: a few days ago a friend of mine found a bunch of old cassettes in her attic but couldn't find a walkman anywhere. i bought a cd + cassette player since i had been wanting one for a looong time and last week we picked the ones we found interesting and listened to them. i actually ended up finding a couple of artists and songs i didnt know about and liked a lot. so heres some of my favorites :-)

Kome Kome Club - KOMEGUNY
these guys are clearly not underground or anything but i hadnt ever dabbled into japan 1980s pop so i hadnt heard of them. we found this entire album recorded on one of the tapes and i think its the only one we listened to all the way through. really fun i liked their sound a lot! my personal favorite is Make Up.


Julia - TOKIO
this song was weirdly hard to find online maybe i was searching it up wrong idk but it took a couple tries to find it on youtube. apparently the main theme of a japanese TV drama? yet again not much to say it has a fun pop sound very much alike the rest of the songs we found


Naomi no Yume - Be-2
okay THIS one was hard to find. its a cover of “I Dream of Naomi”, a song by Hedva and David (who i also didnt know about) but apparently the song was pretty popular in japan and it sparked a bunch of different covers from a bunch of different artists at the time. as if that didnt make my job hard enough, the group “Be-2” also shares a name with ANOTHER japanese band from the same time period and is also very similar to a russian band called “Bi-2”. but the search was worth it because i genuinely think this cover sounds better than the original lol i cant say that very often


Give Me Up - Yoko Nagayama
okay i dont know HOW i didnt realize this was a cover of “Give Me Up” by Michaël Fortunati they sound the exact same except i. well. i kind of like Yoko Nagayama's version a bit better
i later checked out the album Shazam recognized the song being a part of (“Yoko Nagayama 40th Anniversary Pops Best”) and apparently she did a bunch of pop covers. i listened to some like “Papa Don't Preach” and “Hangyaku no Hero” and they were pretty good honestly. i remember i later read some discussion (using that word really liberally im pretty sure i read her last.fm page lmfao) and most people were saying that her later Enka stuff was better but i have to admit i didnt listen to any of it


heres some other songs i liked but i dont have much to say about:

• Kitakaze No Carol - Yoko Oginome
• Psychopath - BOOWY
• Restless Heart - Nobody

other stuff we found (special mentions):

• the entirety of the “Dumb and Dumber” soundtrack
• a bunch of completely BIZARRE 90s techno music that made us laugh a lot (specifically “El Paraiso Perdido” by DJ Dero which might as well be the funniest song i've ever heard in my life it has the longest and scariest intro ever and “Orgásmico” by Ramirez which I suppose you can tell why we found it funny)

i think thats it. not sure how often ill use this section tbh i dont know how to explain my opinions on anything ever. especially music. but maybe ill come up with something soon