Best of 2010: Other J-pop

Since there are still two concerts that have not hit the internet yet (C-ute's and S/mileage's), I do not want to work on my top five best live performances of 2010 so I'm making a list of my favorite non-Hello! Project Japanese songs of this year.

5. Say I Love You (Takenaka Rina)



If the name Takenaka Rina is familiar to you, it's probably because you remember her from being in the Eurobeat J-pop group HINOI team from 2005 - 2007. Say I Love You is Rina's soloist debut, which released in March. This song caught me by surprise because I wasn't keeping up with any of the HINOI team members, then suddenly I found out about this song by accident. What's even more surprising is the style. HINOI team had a disco-y, synthesized sound to their music. This song is straight up J-R&B. I don't believe Rina has released anything since then, so I'm pulling for her music label to let her continue to release music.

4. L.I.P.S. (JASMINE)



Jasmine is someone that I had one song of previously, but never really payed attention to her until I found out about her first album, GOLD. If I had to rank it, it would be above some of my top five H!P albums of the year and I don't say that about a non-H!P artist very often. Jasmine is pretty good with English and uses it often throughout most of her songs. L.I.P.S. is no exception. After hearing most of her singles and her album, Jasmine is by far my favorite J-R&B artist right now.




3. Ikuze! Kaito Shoujo (Momoiro Clover)



Momoiro Clover is one of the many new-ish idol groups to debut this year. I had one of their indies singles on my iPod from 2009 that I liked, so I checked out their debut single, Kaito Shoujo, and found it to be pretty good. I haven't been keeping up with them at all, but one of their newer PVs is interesting to say the least. I first heard Kaito Shoujo at Music Japan's idol special earlier this year where Morning Musume and S/mileage were performing and found Momoiro Clover to be one of the best acts of the show. Months later, Kaito Shoujo is one of my favorite J-pop songs of 2010.

2. 575 (Perfume)


Perfume - 575
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I loved this song so much (and the A-side is pretty awesome too) that it is the only non-H!P J-pop single I bought all year. Perfume has a distinct style that I don't crave all of the time, so this is the first single I've liked of theirs in a year. But when the songs are this good, I don't care if I like only one song a year (in this case two, counting the A-side).

1.  Bad Girl (JASMINE)



Yep, Jasmine again. Honestly, just about any of the songs on her first album could have made it here. I picked Bad Girl because I played it the most. Its the catchiest song out of the bunch because of the dynamics. I like how she mixes the English with Japanese in this song. It's not just randomly thrown in their to be cool. It flows with the song well and adds to the song lyrically.