Kumi Koda Unleashes Her Stunning 2011 Calender Photos
Gotta hand it to miss Kumi Koda definitely nailed it with this year’s calander its hot, fierce, and yet its got fun and flirty qualities that make her who she is!
Check out the pictures after the cut
You Have Been Cordially Invited To The 61st NHK Kouhaku Uta Gassen
Oh yes you know you have been waiting for this
This week NHK unveiled its full list for the 61st NHK Kouhaku Uta Gassen!!!
Did your favorite artist make the cut? Find out + mini review
KARA, 2PM, BEAST On Oricon, Oh My!
Its idol madness on Oricon!
This week KARA released their 1st original album Girl’s Talk while BEAST released their first album BEAST – Japan Premium Edition and 2PM released their 1st Japanese DVD Hottest ~2PM 1st MUSIC VIDEO COLLECTION & The History~
But sadly, neither one has made no.1
KARA unfortunately picked a nasty week to go against Utada Hikaru one of the Japan’s biggest and most popular singers who released her farewell album Utada Hikaru SINGLE COLLECTION VOL. 2 as she goes on hiatus, throwing KARA in the no.3 spot which is still impressive and a first for female K-pop groups but clearly everyone from SNSD to Big Bang is itching for that no.1 spot that no other Korean group besides TVXQ has held.
Despite their relative unknown status BEAST faired not too bad debuting at no.6 for a group only in their 2nd year.
And finally 2PM shined bright on the charts as the only reason they didn’t win no.1 was because of the King of Pop, Micheal Jackson’s Visions DVD so that certainly is still impressive!
How Many AKB48 Members Do You Actually Know?
In a recent Goo Ranking some genius came up with the brillant idea of asking people how many of the 48+ AKB48 members they actually know?
The results
1. 1~5 Members – (18,336 votes)
2. 6~10 Members – (8,271 votes)
3. None – (5,925 votes)
4. 11~20 Members – (3,490 votes)
5. Over 21 Members – (2,598 votes)
6. All Members – (993 votes)
7. All Members Including Graduated Ones – (752 votes)
And by 1-5 they mean the most popular hbics of the group
Utada Doesn’t Like To See Her Fans Get Robbed
Since Utada Hikaru now has all the time in the world to do……nothing she’s become very active on her twitter account and recently she spoke out against the wannabe’s who were selling fake autographs
For one of her fake autographs that sold for $112 Hikaru tweeted “I found my autograph on Yahoo! Auction, but this isn’t mine~! Since it was already sold, I was going to stay quiet, but it says ‘it will be indemnified if it’s proved as fake’, so I’m telling right now. You guys should be careful too. The credibility is quite ambiguous when it comes to celebrities’ autographs, but at least, it should try to make it similar to mine…”
And since we have an exculsive autograph from Utada Hikaru when she was in NYC here’s how it SHOULD look
JYJ To Get Replaced By…Big Bang?
Although Avex has held on to a contract with TVXQ and JYJ for around 4-5 years now it seems that’s all about to change cause as they say “out with the old in the with new”
With JYJ’s contract officially over with avex the company has their eyes on Japan’s 2nd most popular K-pop male group, Big Bang
See although BIG BANG is currently part of Universal Music Japan (where rival groups from SME like SNSD are) rumors have it the group is planning to join avex and replace JYJ.
Avex already has a contract with 2NE1 so it wouldn’t come as a surprise if this were to occur in order to keep the YG “family” united.
In either case if this does occur it sadly seems the TVXQ/JYJ Dynasty will officially end as Japan makes way for BIG BANG Era.
THOUGH NOTE: people aren’t just gonna forget about TVXQ overnight, Big Bang has been in Japan for over a year and the group has yet to crack at no.1 single or album, and it took TVXQ 5 years to achieve a no.1 with their last album and it took them 3 years to get a no.1 song SO ITS NOT THAT EASY (more…)
Perfume Will Invading The 2010 Mnet Asian Music Awards
You know that after Korea sends a hallyu wave of artists like Girls’ Generation and KARA to Japan, the J-pop industry can’t help but get “even”.
And to do so this year’s Japanese participate J-pop artists in the 2010 Mnet Asian Music Awards is Perfume!
After AKB48 did an excellent job its only natural Japan’s other no.1 idol group would be taking the spotlight this year.
Lets just hope all the anti J-pop K-netizens can keep their traps shut!
KARA Kick Starts Their “Jumping” Promotions On Mezamashi TV
With only one week left until the release of their 2nd J-pop single “Jumping” today KARA kicked off their promotions performing on Mezamashi TV
Since their debut in Japan KARA has been able to maintain themselves high on the charts with their first Best Of album KARA BEST 2007 – 2010 ranking no.7 on the Oricon Monthly Charts and their debut single Mister charting no.5 on the chart, a first for any K-pop female group. KARA was also recently revealed to begin MCing for the Japanese music info program, Sakigake! Ongaku Banzuke ~EIGHT~, starting November 3.
In 2 weeks the girls be releasing their first album Girl’s Talk which experts expect will sell around 200,000 copies!
Check out their performance of “Jumping” after the cut (more…)
AKB48 Breaks Record For The Bestselling 21st Century Single By A J-pop Female Artist
Just when people thought AKB48 couldn’t get any better than they were, THEY DID
In a time of recession and just the fact that very few artists sell are able to sell past 500,000 AKB48′s latest latest single “Beginner sold approximately 827,000 copies on their first week becoming their fifth consecutive number-one.
That total sets a new record for first-week single sales by a female group, surpassing SPEED’s “ALL MY TRUE LOVE,” which sold 601,000 copies in 1998. Among all female artists (group and solo), “Beginner” ranks #3 in first-week single sales, behind Hikaru Utada’s “Addicted To You” (1.068 million) in 1999 and Namie Amuro’s “CAN YOU CELEBRATE?” (828,000) in 1997. However, that makes them #1 so far in the 21st century, outselling Utada’s “Can You Keep A Secret?” (784,000) in 2001.
“Beginner” is also AKB48′s third consecutive single to sell more than half a million copies in the first week. This also sets a record for female artists, as Utada and Ayumi Hamasaki held the previous record with streaks of two consecutive singles.
CN BLUE Will Debut As Major Artists Next Year
After nearly 2 years as indie artists in the Japanese market, CN BLUE will be making their official label debut next summer which has caused a bidding war between all the major Japanese labels
It was revealed that officials from Japan’s biggest record labels like AVEX, Warner Music, Universal Records, Sony Music and EMI attended CNBLUE’s first fan meeting, held in the Tokyo International Forum last October 28th, to watch their live performance.
The companies have many reasons fro wanting to recruit CNBLUE the most important being the fact that CNBLUE has the biggest fan base for band music in the Japanese pop market.
CNBLUE was also able to prove they were profitable artists as their last single‘I don’t know why’ single ranked #1 on the Oricon Single Chart as well as the fact that more than 10 of their Japanese tours were sold out.
The Music Director of their Korean FNC commented , “Nowadays we still continue to meet with officials from Japanese record labels. Each of the them have been presenting specific long term activity plans such as staff involved in CNBLUE’s music production, detailed activities, opportunities and CF appearances and have requested contract deals. (more…)
4Minute Gets Humiliated On A Japanese TV Show
4minute recently appeared as guests on the Japanese show NTV PON this week where they went to promote their new J-pop single First/Dreams Come True, instead though the girls were humiliated and ignored by the hosts
The girls only received about 10 minutes of airtime during the whole show and rather than engaging with the hosts they were pushed to the back of the room where the hosts paid no attention to them. In the end the girl’s ended up really not doing anything except watching as the hosts cooked.
Netizens released their anger and frustration towards the show writing
“Just come back here in Korea and we’ll give you more love here.”
“Is this the proper treatment that idols with more than 2000 fans should receive?”
“They cut off the music in the middle of the dance to cook.”
“Do they even have any common sense on what they have done?” (more…)
Utada Is NOT A Fan Of Her Own “Best Of” Album
Despite it being well her own “best of” album Utada Hikaru has expressed her negativity about the release of her new American album UTADA The Best.
On her twitter she wrote
The release of “Utada the best” is entirely against my will. I wish that my fans won’t have to buy it. There’s no new material in it.
BUT
In talking about her new J-pop album Single Collection Vol. 2, the star was more positive writing
“Single Collection Vol. 2″ is a release that’s filled with my sincerity. I plan to make a more detailed comment about “Utada the best” in the days to come. But pre-orders have already started… I wrote what I did because I couldn’t hold it in anymore.
You know your a bad a girl when you rebel against your company and tells to not buy an album XD
Mika Nakashima Reveals She Will Be Going On Hiatus
I guess this explains why she’s been so MIA this year.
J-pop vocalist Mika Nakashima announced that she will be going on hitaus in order to heal her patulous eustachian tube (or auditory tube). She was set to perform a special concert in November but that will be cancelled any TV and radio appearances, except those already recorded, will be cancelled as well.
Her latest album STAR comes out October 27th.
Seems like everyone is dropping from the J-pop music scene :/ Nakashima will be missed (more…)
The Possible Finally Removes That Hideous “Blemish” SS501 Has Had For Years
It seems SS501 can count their lucky stars thanks to the J-pop group The Possible for finally making the impossible possible and removing them as no.1 “Worst Drop In Oricon Weekly History”
See when SS501 released their J-pop single ”lucky days” the boys were indeed LUCKY and made it to no.4 on Oricon Weekly Charts the thing is though things got horribly bad for them the following week as they dropped down to 151!!! (burn)
Now even though you would think that’s bad The Possible’s last single Watashi no Miryoku / LOVE LOVE made it to no.9 and shot down all the way to no. 197 officially making them no.1 on the list XD
In the end though things still suck for both them as check out the Top 5 list
1) *9位→197位 ： 188↓ ： THE Possible 「私の魅力/LOVE2パラダイス」
2) *4位→151位 ： 147↓ ： SS501 「LUCKY DAYS」
3) 10位→145位 ： 145↓ ： THE Possible 「いじわる Crazy love」
4) 10位→109位 ： *99↓ ： SS501 「kokoro(初回限定版)」
5) 10位→101位 ： *91↓ ： the pillows & Ben Kweller「Lightning Runaway ～NO MUSIC, NO LIFE.～」 (タワーレコード限定発売)
Yeah OUCH
F.CUZ Don’t Need No Japanese In Their J-pop Debut
It seems the boys of F.CUZ are trying to be edgy with their J-pop/comeback as rather than go through the process of transelting everthing to Japanese as other’s have done the album will be released in complete Korean!
So far all that’s known its that the album will come with six brand new songs and a DVD and will be released on the 11th of next month. (more…)
2PM Says Their “Still 2:00PM”
Korean boy band 2PM has announced to be coming back to the Korean music scene. Today, the boys revealed the cover album as well as the tracklist for there newest mini album called “Still 2PM”.
The tracklist and the album cover are now available in Melon. But the tracks are not yet available for download.
1. Still
2. I’ll Be Back
3. 니가 나를 떠나도 (niga narul tteonado/ Even if you leave me)
4. I Can’t
5. I Know
6. Dance2Night
7. I’ll Be Back (Club Mix)
Take a listen to 2PM’s new songs after the cut (more…)
a-nation 2010 Performances + Review
Well its finally here, a-nation 10! For the K-pop fans a-nation can be compared to SM TOWN, its a company concert presented by avex one of the biggest independent music companies in the world. This is avex’s 8th year doing the show, and although the line up is always fresh and new for its rookie artists when it comes to the tv performances its usually consistent with the same artists. The concert is always done during the summer but the concert isn’t shown on tv until late September.
Check out this year’s artists + some reviews from AAA, to ICONIQ, and even JYJ (more…)
Someone At HMV Has A Bad Sense Of Humor Over 2NE1 J-pop “To Anyone” Version
It seems someone at HMV Online must have either a bad sense of humor or simply they don’t speaky english to know what their saying because NOT only was it revealed that Avex scored 2NE1 as a new artist for them when they debut in Japan, but the girl’s are planning to release a J-pop version of “To Anyone” that will contain a bonus track on a totally inappropriate titled disc FUCK YOU (more…)
