Gorgeous girls! Sad there won’t be a comeback of theirs in 2013 ;__;
Did you guys have a nice New Years? My annual report has been completed thanks to WordPress. I think it’s pretty cute so I wanted to share it with you all! After taking a look at Nia’s Hope and Dreams for 2013, I thought I would do my own plus share with you all my New Year Resolutions since we are all in the new year now.
It’s not a self post but recently I was looking for PV History videos after watching Utada’s one on YouTube years ago.
You may have seen me on tumblr making edits of K.U.N.A and may remember my old post calling them United 4, you may not have. To explain what K.U.N.A is, it is the combination of Koda Kumi, Utada Hikaru, Namie Amuro and Ayumi Hamasaki’s names together – K.U.N.A. It’s what I hope is a collab between these four artists in the future so I combine their names together for a unit name.
Got to say in terms of 2010, it’s been a pretty tiresome year. J-Pop has made me realise some things that I never knew before – in a negative way. K-Pop has just upset me so much despite comebacks of my favourites and news that depressed me. It’s not all been so bad but…I had kind of hoped from all the artists that came back (e.g. Queens of J-Pop were present this year, BoA and Se7en who have been seen for years) that they would have a bigger success than usual.
WARNING: Even though these topics have bullet points on them, if you are lazy and do not want to read much, I suggest you skip to the Overall part and also answer the questions at the bottom. Thank you! ^_^
Looks like we have reached the end of an eventful year in J-Pop and especially, K-Pop. I would like to say, despite my lack of knowledge of the J-Pop World for 3 years, I can say the world of J-Pop and K-Pop seemed more calmer at the start of the year compared to the drama that later unfolding in the following months. Let’s recap what happened in the year of 2009 of J-Pop and K-Pop, from my standards and choices, of course.
Utada Hikaru having a one show in London, O2 Academy in Islington on February 12th 2010 – SOLD OUT ALREADY within five hours on November 13th??
…so I get no invitation or no-one to tell me about it?
…in the USA, that is. Now I don’t live in America (instead I’m from London), but back in March, there was a quite buzz at the amount of several Asian Pop artists (three solo artists and one group) that I thought had a good 30% chance of breaking into America as an Asian artist, Sadly, it’s now October and it’s dropped to 5%. Why? I’ll tell you why…
I have to say that, for some reason people never seem to take well to asi ans in music. From what I’ve learnt over the years before and after listening to Asian music, Nationality is the issue. I hate to say it but it’s true. I don’t think Americans are very responsive to any sort of Asian artist/group. I mean, can you name any local Asian-American act that’s actually made it big? So the chances are probably slimmer than my predicted percentage.
I don’t live in America but I can tell you that if I ever saw BoA’s song, I wouldn’t give her a second glance, I would most possibly call her mixed-race which is…stupid. Yeah, and anyways living in London, some British people wouldn’t respond well too, especially how we don’t have enough asians over here too, the other day I showed my sister SHINee and she called them gay (You can imagine how pissed I was), she didn’t even let me explain that there are music differences in other cultures.
Here are some of the artists who, if they had planned their steps correctly, would have made a breakthrough into America.
Yeah, I collaborated a great picture here, although I feel like Ayumi ruined it slightly. I haven’t posted a J-Pop post in a while so I felt like posting this.
You’re also probably thinking, Why has NyNy called them United 4? Well, in my opinion, I seem them as the 21st century queens of J-Pop, most no, all are going above 10 years in their careers and are doing well, (Koda Kumi’s 10th anniversary next year, YES!).
Top left: Namie Amuro
Middle Bottom: Koda Kumi
Top Right: Ayumi Hamasaki
Bottom Right: Utada Hikaru
For anyone who is not familar with them, they are (in my opinion), the four most popular female J-Pop singer-songwriters. In my opinion, they circulate different genres of J-Pop and if people ever thought of making the four do a song together, I would love to see it. Something like, “FUSION”. ¬_¬ Or something like that.
Debuts:
Namie Amuro: October 25, 1995
Ayumi Hamasaki: April 8, 1998
Utada Hikaru: December 9, 1998
Koda Kumi: December 6th, 2000
So, for anyone who doesn’t know, let me tell you a little about the four and hopefully you will like their style and start listening to their music.
