YUKI - Joy

I went to a lot of concerts when I lived in Japan and I saw a lot of talented Japanese musicians. Some were popular amongst very specific demographics while others were famous with people across the board. Today is an example of the latter, the time I saw YUKI. I went with a couple of Japanese friends to this great music festival that had all kinds of great and interesting artists. Two of which have already been featured on this blog - Ua and Polysics. YUKI was seen by many as the headliner of the event because she is probably the most famous and has remained relevant for almost 15 years. Just before the concert began one of my friends told me that YUKI had recently had a miscarriage which actually made it pretty hard for me to listen to her songs which were no doubt inspired by the child that never was. And her songs are always quite beautiful. Just recently she gave birth to a child on August 29, 2006.

Yuki Isoya, or generally just YUKI, began her career as the front woman for the near generation-defining noisy pop Judy and Mary in 1991. If you are Japanese, you'd have had to have been in a coma for the past 15 years not to know at least one of their songs. In all, they released seven albums, three compilation albums and twenty-two singles. Judy and Mary broke up in 2001 following the WARP Tour Final held at the Tokyo Dome, where fans bid them a tearful farewell. I thinks it's a matter of time before they rejoin if only to release an 'it's been a while' album. Japanese bands usually seem to enjoy functional relationships and if they break up it's usually genuinely to explore other creative directions.

YUKI has done that. While I don't mind JAM, I think she has really pushed herself to new directions exploring everything from dub to club-inspired dance pop. Both incarnations enjoy popularity in Japan and abroad. She's a J-pop girl whose talent and innovation makes her more than a guilty pleasure. Today's video for Joy is off her 2005 release by the same name. It's really hard to choose which YUKI video to show because they're all pretty great but this is the song that really stood out at the concert so I have to give her props for that. The video really seems to borrow from the early Daft Punk play book which is great to see - it's all a lot of fun.