Perfume is a J-pop/electro/techno music group composed by three girls from Hiroshima Ayano Ōmoto, Yuka Kashino and Ayaka Nishiwaki. They founded the band in 2001 and they are right now one of the most popular bands in Japan. They are also starting to build an international presence, for example they made the song for the soundtrack of Cars 2 that is played in the movie when the cars are in Japan; the song is called Polyrhythm. Their coreographies, specially their “sweet dance”, has become an Internet phenomenon.
Do you like the music of Perfume? What are your favorite Japanese music bands?
Wadaiko Yamato is the name of a Japanese music group that uses taikos as their main instrument. Wadaiko (和太鼓) means “Japanese drum” and Yamato is the former name of Nara, the capital of Japan in the past. The band has been active for 20years, and it is still popular in Germany and Switzerland where this year they will play in different cities. In Tokyo they will play in September.
With this video you can have an idea of what they are able to do with some taikos, impressive!
Yodobashi Camera is one of the largest discount home electronics chain stores in Japan. After visiting a Yodobashi Camera store one of the things that you remember from the store is the atmosphere music. The original melody is catchy, sometimes you love it, sometimes you hate it… mostly when you are more than 10 minutes inside the store and it is played more than 10 times!
My quite free translation:
♪ The Yamanote line goes around in circles, the Chuo line cuts it in the middle, in the west exit of Shinjuku, there it is: Yodobashi Camera!
♪ In Shinjuku, where young people meet, there is a happy camera shop, there are also video cameras and watches in Yodobashi Camera!
♪ In the west exit of Shinjuku, there is a big camera store, there are also word-processors, there are also video games in Yodobashi Camera
♪ Good mothers, good fathers, good families, we have home appliances, that is our philosophy/motto, home appliances also in Yodobashi Camera
It turns out that the first Yodobashi Camera store opened in Nishi Shinjuku (West Shinjuku) in 1975, before that it was a simple camera shop located in the north of Shibuya. Nowadays there are 21 stores around different cities in Japan, among them the largest home electronics mall in the world.
Video with the most recent version of the Yodobashi Camera song.
A couple of photos of the first Yodobashi Camera, the one in the west exit of Shinjuku. It is the store that I usually go to.
