How did you get into J-Music?

[Momal]

So how did you all get into all flavours of J-Music?

For myself, I was randomly downloading music from torrent websites and saw Ayumi Hamasaki and was like thats sounds cool and downloaded it. First song I heard was Evolution. Now im addicted to it and everything relating to Japanese music and japanese tv shows .


What about the rest of you?

[donkeykong83]

I heard some ELT songs in my uncle's car and I thought it was pretty darn good. He later asked me to record this Japanese Top 10 on TV. I later found more good songs there. That was like six years ago. The first song I heard was probably Hikki's First Love since it was always on the radio. But I wasn't until I saw Morning Musume's Happy Summer Wedding did I went "OMFG cute gals and catchy songs! More!!". I still feel ashamed to say MM got me into Jpop.

[huggumwuggums]

I still feel ashamed to say MM got me into Jpop.

Well I'm not! Yes, you heard it fellas! MM was the reason I got into J-Pop!

[~Dan~]

Sometime in 2001 I heard "The worlds spinning at 45rpm" by Pizzicato 5 played on a radio show in the UK, I liked it, and downloaded as much of their songs as I could find off Audiogalaxy as well as some Nomiya Maki solo songs.  A friend recommended Hamasaki Ayumi & Kuraki Mai so I downloaded some of their songs, then started checking out some sites and downloading random stuff.  Then I graduated from a 56k modem :evil: to a faster connection.

My new isp had a newsgroup server that actually worked (unlike the previous isp where 95% of the messages got lost) so I checked out the jpop newsgroup.  When I first looked, someone was flooding it with videos and albums by Puffy, and I thought it was the rapper and then when I checked back a week later someone was flooding it with Hello! Project stuff and I got curious and downloaded "Aibon dating Gackt (subtitled)" and 3 or 4 of Ayaka's English Lessons and 2 Gomaki Penguin clips (that I later found out were from H!M).  I was intrigued.  It was weird.  Just WTF is this all about?

Then I downloaded a whole bunch of Mini Moni pv's, then some Morning Musume pv's, then a Maki graduation special (it was a huge video but I had nothing else to download so I decided to download it), and then one day for the first time ever on the newsgroup someone uploaded a Hello! Morning, the 2002.10.06 episode, and I was intrigued, what was this show?, and I decided to download it, and once I watched it I was hooked.

[meowchi]

I think my 1st encounter with Jmusic was Ayumi Hamasaki back in ... 98? or 99, from a game called Thousand Hearts.. After that I got into KPOP music, but my mom got mad at me (Since I hardly spoke Japanese and I was in the process of learning Korean), so I switched to Japanese music.
 
The 1st Morning Musume PV I've ever seen was Renai Revolution, and I thought; that is a LOT of Japanese girls! The 1st member I liked was Hitomi Yoshizawa.. Can't believe I remember all this.

[Yuuyami]

For me, it was anime music that got me into japanese music, haha. First japanese song I heard was Fukai Mori by Do As Infinity courtesy of Inuyasha, and then Dearest by Ayumi Hamasaki. So I got obsessed with downloading Ayumi Hamasaki stuff for awhile (Got almost all of her PVs), and then got into J-rock and Visual Kei (Gackt <3 Dir en Grey <3, Miyavi <3 ) and finally, settled down in H!P :L_____

[zaius]

my first j-music experience i remember was back in the late 80's while i was living there and got hooked on BOOWY's IMAGE DOWN. it didn't really escalate until the mid to late 90's though when i started listening to music more and more during my highschool years. i had a friend i stayed in touch with still in japan and she'd send me stuff. in the mid 90's it was The Yellow Monkey, East End(x Yuri), and The Pillows but grew into groups like BuriGuri and Kick the Can Crew by 1998-99 which is when Morning Musume also worked it's way into my regular playlists.

[Aioros]

Anime got me hooked to J-Music. When I searched for the songs in Kazaa, the name of artist(s) who performed them end up as the results. Names like L'arc en Ciel, Zone, Ayumi Hamasaki, etc. pop up so I also tried to DL songs from the said artists.

Also when I heard and saw Hikaru Utada's video for Automatic, I knew I was hooked to J-music.

[maliciel]

First J-pop listen ever was SPEED. I quite liked it, but didn't like like it. After that I was in and out, sometimes english, sometimes japanese. Then a friend made me watch a video of MM (I knew who they were, heard the peace before, etc) and I was hooked.

As for J-rock, I only started getting into it recently. Think it was when I downloaded some Acid Mothers Temple from JPM.

[MyDearYossi]

It happend when Final Fantasy X came out. I liked that song, Suteki da ne (or somehing...) Then I found a forum of Inuyasha. People were talking about it's music and I thought that it would be interesting to hear those songs. I found place where I downloaded those songs. I think the first was something by BoA (don't remember the name just now...:evil: ). Then came Every Little Thing's Ai no Uta, V6's I Want to Change the World and of course Ayu's No More Words. In some point I started to listen to Mai Kuraki, but I think her older songs are better than her latest... Hikki has been one of my favorites after I heard her Simple&Clean. And MoMusu is one one of the favorites too. I started to like them right after I saw Mr. Moonlight PV. My newest favorite Jpop artist is Ayaka whose first album I'm waiting for:)
I guess this is how everything happened:D

[Rakko]

Easy. Because I was studying Japanese and needed all forms of exposure.

[Momal]

Interesting... Did you like j-music at first ? and grew to like it or just love at first sight ^^?

[Cookie]

One day I was looking for something to watch on t.v, and I stumbled upon this dorama where I found the main guy to be totally HOT! Heyx3 used to air in that channel but not anymore. There was this performance by BoA, and I thought, "wow, her song is catchy." After her performance the H!P 2003 shuffles performed and I was like "WTF! HAHAHAHA" But after that I found myself searching for them on the internet and downloading some music samples from them..and now that's why I'm here today. LOL!

[Kally]

My friend and I were a tiny bit into anime, we didn't know much about the scene at all, but we went to an anime convention. And were completely lost. Eventually we found our way down into the karaoke room, and we heard some girls perform a Malice Mizer song.

When I got home, I looked up that song, and it went from there. People started suggesting Ayumi Hamasaki and others to me, and I got completely into the Jpop world.

[Minniechii]

I don't exacily know when, cuz you can say that i grew up with japanese music and anime music all around me >_< my sister who is 10 years older than me was then one who started it all..

It happens even now that i hear a song from a old anime and i'm like: "I've heard this before O.O" and my sister says that of course you do i loved that song 4 years ago(or something like that)...
The first song i heard of Mo-musu was Koi no Dance Site.(THAT i remember)

[Loopy]

Played lots of RPGs which frequented Jpop songs.  That I was exposed to anime at a young age helped too.

[StreakInTheSky]

I liked some music from anime but never really got into J-music. Momusu got me into jpop(I was also got into like Punk/Hardcore shit like a year before). Though following momusu and jpop on a dail-up modem and practically no income was becoming quite difficult(and most of my money was going into buying western rock albums). The only japanese artists I actually followed were the works of Tsunku, Zone, and Do As Infinity. Luckily I got broadband since 2 out of 3 of those groups are now disbanded. Now I'm pretty much getting into new groups and artists all the time.

[inifinity]

Im relatively new to Japanese music the most I have listened to is MOVE's new CD and some BoA. Well the rest is obviously anime theme songs. Are there any good recommendations out there that you can introduce to a newbie like me?

[TydusArandor]

Started out with anime. It was like, hmm, this artist sounds good in this (anime) song, let's go download some more. I don't think I ever really got into anything other than anime and j-pop anyway :\.

[thelastangel]

Like a lot of people here it started with Anime. When you have seen 26+ episodes of a series and head the Opening and Closing themes multiple times you start to develop a taste for the music.
 
For me is was the Opening to NGE (Cruel Angel's Thesis), Chobits, Witch Hunter Robin, Scrapped Princess, and many others that got me to like Japanese music styles.
 
Then I saw some Japanese TV ads featuring Noriko Sakai and I was blown away by her hotness. So I found some of her music on the net and slowly started listening to J-POP.
 
Now I am hooked and not ashamed to say that I am a big fan of MoMusu as well as most of the stuff that has been produced from H!P. There is a lot of great talent and history in H!P and I really believe that that hard work and effort of these girls deserves recognition and much respect. 8-)