3 of the best JRock songs from January
We did it, everyone. We got through the longest month ever. January is always a busy month in the world of JRock, with bands dropping albums in the new year all over the place. It has been a full-time job just to keep up sometimes, but that’s why we’re here.
If you love your JRock, then we’ve got some of the songs that have been getting us through the past month as we wait desperately for warmer weather to arrive. And if you want even more, be sure to check out the Rice Digital Spotify Playlist, which has some of our favourite releases over the past month as well as some classic tracks mixed in there.
It Was Never Love For Me – Scandal
With one of my all-time favourite JRock bands releasing a new album this month, I have been so excited to see what their new sound would be. Scandal have a habit of changing up their style nearly every album while still managing to sound like themselves, which is impressive for a band that has put out a total of ten albums already.
It Was Never Love For Me is the kind of bittersweet ballad that I love to hear. The band’s vocals have never been this crisp and strong and it sounds for all the world like a love song, but really it is the opposite. It tells the story of a relationship that has ended, not because of a fight or anything major but because it has run its course and the two are going in different directions. I love the more mature tone of the song and the rest of the album feels the same.
Thunderstruck – Man With A Mission
It takes some real stones to cover one of the most iconic rock tracks ever, but if there is one thing Man With A Mission has never been, it’s shy. This is AC/DC with a distinctly JRock sound to it, with a different vocal style and the inclusion of scratching to update it and make it fit in with the rest of Man With A Mission’s catalogue.
A good cover requires walking a fine line between keeping what worked about the original and making sure that you put your own spin on it. This cover does a great job, with that iconic opening guitar riff and the drums still there while sounding different enough that I never think to myself “I should just listen to ACDC.” Leave it to these genetically engineered super-wolves to create the perfect rock cover.
Bad Mode – Hikaru Utada
There are few sounds on the planet more soothing than Hikaru Utada’s singing. They have been familiar to many of us from their work on the Kingdom Hearts title tracks over the years, but they are one of the biggest recording artists in Japan. Their style is effortlessly cool and continues to be one of the driving forces in the Japanese pop scene.
Bad Mode is the title track for their newest album and it has a great R&B and funk vibe to it. Perfect for dancing either alone or with someone else. If you enjoy this, then definitely take a look at Hikaru Utada’s catalogue of work. There is almost certainly something in there that you’ll love.
That’s our JRock round up for January. If you’re looking for more music in your life, we’ve got our Spotify playlist to check out. If you want to find out a bit more about the folks that bring a lot of these bands to the English-speaking world, including both Scandal and Man With A Mission, we got to sit down with JPU Records earlier this month to pick their brains about the process.
And as always, if you’ve got any of your own JRock hits you want to share, feel free to drop us a comment or pen us a letter for the Rice Digital Friday Letters Page!
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