I listen to copious amounts of the blue hearts and Tatsuro Yamashita. I’m deadly curious whether these artists are instantly recognizable to a majority of Japanese people or not. I saw a street interview some time ago in which someone said 人に優しく was their favorite song and I had no idea whether this was sort of incredible happenstance or whether it meant they were popular. I think maybe bands like macaroni empitsu are more popular known by most young people but I got no yardstick to compare it by other than YouTube views.
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Oh yeah, ブルーハーツ and 山下達郎 are classics — super famous! Definitely older, like younger generations would be listening to copious amounts of HigeDan and Yonezu Kenshi now but I’m in my late 20’s with a sister in her early 20’s and I think a lot of young people still recognize those classics because our parents had them playing in the car growing up.
* Nishino Kana
* Shiina Ringo
* Yuki (formerly of Judy and Mary)
* Yamasaki Hako
I mean you can’t list artists everyone knows without number one: Utada Hikaru
Im talking to someone on hellotalk and I told him I listen to Tokyo Jihen (Incidents) and ASIAN KUNG FU GENERATION and he only knew of Tokyo Jihen. Quite surprised me as I assumed Asian kung fu generation were quite big. This guy was 19 so maybe that played part of it