Da-Little used to be an unsigned Japanese singer who uploaded covers of songs on popular Japanese video website, Nicovideo.com. His voice is stunning, and I can't help but favour his covers more than the original songs. Below are two videos I highly recommend.
The first song happens to be my favourite from this amazing singer, and the dancers are from TreeTop, which is a large and very popular dancing group, with a lot of members. And I mean a lot.
If I had issue finding information about Frenzy 프렌지 a few posts ago, it's a near impossible job to find anything about this singer. There is a little entry about him here which mentions that Da-Little is also known as Hiradon/ひらどん/hrdn, has a twitter, and is now the singer for the band Sputnik, signed under the label of Nextfarm, whose offical website has a PV on the main page, with several others if you take a look around and downloads to some of their songs. From what I've found, Sputnik is a rather happy, dancing, typical Jpop band... But I really feel it doesn't promote Da-Little's voice enough, as it often uses autotune which is desperately not needed. They are however, an interesting band and I really wish the best for them.
Recently I've been listening to Big Bang quite a lot, and inevitably, stumbled upon each member's single albums. Big Bang (빅뱅) is a Korean pop band with five members, including leader G-Dragon, T.O.P, Taeyang, Seungri and Daesung. Before I actually got into Big Bang, I would sometimes listen to much loved singer G-Dragon. His 'Heartbreaker' and 'Butterfly' were pretty epic for the ears of my younger self. Then, a couple of months ago, I really got into Taeyang's music. His part in 'Wow, fantastic baby' is actually my favourite, and his style, voice, charm is top notch. Taeyang is my favourite member of Big Bang.
But. For one awesome voice, and a very epic style I have to appauld Daesung!
His song 'Lunatic' even encouraged me to write this post. I could not help but fall in love with such a different style for a kpop artist to sing.
In this blog I only wanted to include top quality music that deserves more attention than it gets. Despite the band itself having a big fanbase, this song is highly underrated.
Daesung has also performed the Korean version of 'This is the moment' (left) and a personal favourite, 'Baby, Don't Cry' (right).
For me, Daesung's variety of performances along with his unique style, emotional and fantastic voice -- It's something that should really become a trend for other Korean artists. A good musician shouldn't just stick with safe ballads or just simply sing songs written for them. A really good musician makes them their own, and I think Daesung can really do this well.
I only hope Daesung continues to do what he does well - sing and act with his pure 'Daesung-ness'. Whatever makes his performances so good and not boring - I hope he can confidently do this for as long as he wishes. In the K-Pop genre/era, there is a muffling of Korean talent caused by money hungry companies. As with a lot of mainstream music, there has been a routine of forcing bands and artists to sing sell-out song after song that sound very similiar to everything else already out in the market, thus preventing their artists to be creative. It's really self-destroying their careers, and I can only hope that Daesung and other talented Korean artists/bands can continue to be awesome.
RADWIMPS is a fantastic J-indie rock band that began in 2001, and still continues to the present day. J-indie itself is a genre that can get overlooked by a lot of Japanese Rock fans, but RADWIMPS is a goldmine for great music. Their tracks vary but each have some kind of similiar 'feel' to them, most likely helped by the unique singer's voice and their deep lyrics which usually have more than one meaning to it.
As it seems to be the trend in a lot of Asian music, RADWIMPS also incorportates some English lyrics to their songs. Luckily, they do this quite well, and even include Eddie Murphy in 'Setsunarensa' below. I mean, come on. This just proves how awesome they are.
My personal favourite is probably 'Dada'. Most likely because the drums and sound is particually awesome.
And finally, their most latest track 白日 which translates as - "Hakujitsu" which means "Broad Daylight" is a tribute to the victims of the Japanese earthquake in 2011. It is a touching song.
If there was ever an incredible band that needed more love, it is Frenzy. (프렌지) They are described as a post-rock/indie/shoegaze group, but without a degree in Korean it's very hard to find much information about this group. However, thanks to http://indiefulrok.blogspot.co.uk/ I have managed to find some basic information.
Frenzy is a three member band, with guitarist Jungmok, bassist Jungsik and drummer Sungmok. They have been doing gigs around Hongdae, and their aim is to create sounds that can lead to a poetic scene. And I think it is easy to say that they have successfully managed to do this. My only worry is that the interview was in 2009, where are Frenzy now? From what I have managed to found their most recent release was in 2010, with an album called 'Nein Songs', it includes:
01. 소멸하는 밤 (part.1)
02. Icarus
03. Lily
04. Bye
05. 소멸하는 밤 (part.2)
06. Apollo 11
07. The Great Panic..
08. 별주부전
09. Sundance
Unfortuantly I can't find anywhere to buy the album, but options to download are all over google. It's a pity really, bands like this really deserve the money.
Alas, the best info I can provide to you about the glorious band is the video above, just listen to their sound. They have a Myspace which features their songs here. It could do with a lot more publicity really. Their last.fm page is also lonely - only 243 listeners as of writing! Why not help bump it up?
4men (Korean) ACID Alex Ubago Alice Nine
An Cafe ANCIENTMYTH Angel Beats Soundtrack
Ao No Exorcist Soundtrack
Attic (Japanese) Ayabie
Ayane 彩音
Beach House
Big Bang
Björk
BoA
Bob Dylan
Bon Jovi
C2C
Can Atilla
Cem Adrian
Chrysostomos Clazziquai Project Cityhunter Soundtrack CN.Blue Coldplay Da-Little Daesung DBSK/TVXQ
Dear Cloud - 그럴수만
있다면 DJ Davi
DJ Okawari Elliot Minor
Epik High Emilie Autumn Enya EXO K EXO M
f(x) FACT
Fiction Junction
Flying Lotus
FreeTEMPO Frenzy 프렌지
G-Dragon Gackt Gallows (Japanese) Girugamesh Gummy
Greendjohn
Hans Zimmer
Haruka Shimotsuki
霜月はるか Hidden Orchestra Higurashi No Maku Koro Ni Themes Hyde IceDragon/Corey Powell
Immediate Music Infinite
IU
J.S.Bach Kateyo Hitman Reborn Soundtrack
K e e
Kalafina
Kanon x Kanon
Knights of Round
Kra L'arc en Ciel Lee MinkiLifehouse LIGHTBRINGER Lordi Loreena McKennit LM.C Mägo de Oz MaitoreiA Map The Soul Mblaq Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Ensemble Mithra (From Epik High) Miyavi
Mizuki Nana 水樹
奈々 Mocheeba Mor_ve_Otesi MUCC Mutyumu Murry Gold Nanyang Polytechnic Chinese Orchestra Nightmare NU'ESTONE OK ROCK Plastic Tree Radvimps
Röyksopp
Russian Red Secillia Luna S.H.E Shania Twain (Ah my childhood...)
Shelling -- Sea Dream
ShinEE
Shinichi Osawa
SID シド
Snow Patrol
SS501 Submotion Orchestra SUG
Super Junior
Supreme Team Sungmin Lee
Tablo Taeyang
Teshima Aoi
The GazettE THE KIDDIE The Pretty Reckless The White Stripes U2 UKISS Unsun VAMPS Velt Punch
Versailles
Vocaloid
Yalın herşey
Yoko Kanno Yiruma
Yuki Kajiura
