Make Believe Mailer #124: Tuned In (Music Magazine's Best 100 J-pop Songs Of The 2010s)

A Weird Decade, For The Better

Scroll down for the actual list

Fragmentation was an issue Music Magazine’s ongoing effort to craft Japanese music canons inevitably would run in to. The publication’s ‘90s lists could ignore this entirely owing to arguably the peak of media monoculture in the country. Its 2000s efforts, meanwhile, started running up against it, but the internet still wasn’t quite as disruptive as it would become, and the folks behind last month’s “Best 100 J-pop Songs Of The 2000s” handled it well, landing on a number-one cut that elegantly connects past, present and future.

Now comes the 2010s, and Music Magazine has chosen to plunge right into it a mere one issue after the last big ranking. It’s technically not the first attempt by them to sort out a period that feels so long ago but really isn’t that dusty yet — they already made a best 100 albums list. Yet that prompt allows for a lot of flexibility, and every Music Magazine album creation explores every nook and cranny of Japanese music — MULTIPLE albums included in past lists by Mitsuyoshi Azuma & The Swinging Boppers, which is exactly what it sounds like. Yet that wiggle room gets a lot tighter when the focus turns to the vague-but-not-THAT-vague world of “J-pop.” Writers can’t fill out space with alternative rap records and experimental electronica.

You have to focus if you want to make a good list. And for the team assembled this time around, they’ve looked at the 2010s in J-pop and decided…it was a period where pop turned towards the past and retrofitted it for a new era.

Suchmos, “Stay Tune,” #1 Of The 2010s

Music Magazine’s list is dotted with examples of well-worn sounds being transformed for then modern times. It’s not the only metric they used in constructing this — they also take into account charts¹, sales, YouTube plays / virality, general zeitgeist-ness and more, meaning this ranking is littered with huge hits — but what Music Magazine has done so well with these J-pop lists is tell a story alongside simply saying “these songs were the best.”

The top three say it all — Suchmos’ “Stay Tune” takes the cover and top ranking thanks to a number transforming the funk stylings of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s into something a new generation of Japanese listeners could play with in their own way. The silver spot belongs to tofubeats’ “Suisei,” which built its groove from a ‘90s hip-hop cut produced by Towa Tei…and has gone on to become its own sort of odd piece of 2010s nostalgia via covers and chuhai commercials, which the writers correctly mention. Hoshino Gen’s “Koi” at third is the least immediately reverent of the past, but remember Gen’s whole thing during this period was basically being a student of Haruomi Hosono, and that the melody in that mega-viral clip features drops of his “soy sauce music.”

It’s important to note that Music Magazine notices how J-pop was on the verge of transforming completely. I initially felt confused seeing YOASOBI’s galloping suicide bop “Yoru Ni Kakeru” come in at the nine spot…because I associate it so much with the first few months of the pandemic. But it technically came out at the tail end of 2019, which makes it total fair game here (and frankly maybe a little low all things considered). An assortment of creators who shaped the current state of J-pop get plenty of shine — most notably, Kenshi Yonezu, who really is the architect of the today’s mainstream sound, and he fittingly appears a lot — though some also work under the throwback theme too. Official HigeDAN DISM’s “Pretender” is number five, and while I’d mostly recognize it as being an early look at J-pop’s eventual turn to the gloomy, a friend who had never heard it before said it sounded like cheesy ‘80s arena rock. Which…well, yeah, I think that works.

There’s other small narratives I won’t dwell on² here, but the overarching one is of the past being transformed³. It’s fitting for a decade where “discovery” was everywhere, and became the primary way Japanese music was consumed by those outside the country (the biggest missed opportunity is that “Plastic Love” should absolutely be on a list like this, though specifically the mutant version that blew up). This is the age of “neo city pop” marketing, vinyl coming back, seemingly everything suddenly appearing on YouTube and of nostalgia writ large, especially as the Heisei Period gave way to Reiwa.

I personally would not have gone with “Stay Tune” at number one, but in an odd way it’s also perfect for this kind of assignment. It’s a song that took off because it made listeners think of glistening Bubble-era pop and other Showa luxuries…but as the group itself told me in an interview, they had zero idea what “city pop” was. “Stay Tune” is the sound of some Kanagawa kids channeling Jamiroquai, inspired by the 2010s ultimate remember-when release, Random Access Memories. The nostalgia it sparked is false, but a super catchy version all the same.

So, that’s kind of fitting, but here’s where I run into something I haven’t had to deal with in relation to these J-pop lists yet. The ‘90s and the Aughts exist as periods I’ve had to study, because I wasn’t living in Japan until the summer of 2009. Yet I experienced the 2010s fully, and covered it for The Japan Times and other publications. When I wrote my look back on the 2010s in J-pop, I explored a similar idea, of what tunes from the decade would be re-discovered in 2049 as this is how Japanese music is consumed abroad.

Yet I don’t think the defining sound or even theme of the decade is nostalgia, real or otherwise. I think it’s something much more…weird.

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, “PONPONPON,” #17 Of The 2010s

The 2010s is the decade where the internet and social media fully consume J-pop. At the start of it, you could still feel the frustration of 90-second “short version” music videos and artwork for idol singles blocked from the Amazon marketplace. By 2020, subscription streaming had established itself in the market and YouTube was no longer something to fear, but so essential that even the web-phobic agency formerly known as Johnny & Associates got on board.

While it took the industry a bit to get on board, plenty of listeners domestically and abroad were already turning to what was online to help scramble what J-pop was. Nearly every single song on the Music Magazine list that can be considered a true “hit” managed so thanks to YouTube. That could be based purely on music (“Stay Tune,” “Pretender”), a corresponding dance or meme offering extra juice for the primordial era of content creators (“Koi⁴,” “Koisuru Fortune Cookie”), or something appearing so bonkers to viewers anywhere that it attracted the attention of video reactors, Tumblr curators and Justin Bieber (“Gimme Chocolate!!,” “PPAP”).

Even the inclusions that aren’t traditional hits reflect the disruption brought on by the internet — tofubeats was the most mainstream artist from Maltine Records, a netlabel offering an alternative pop reality for listeners to get lost in, while this ranking includes a couple of Vocaloid songs, acknowledging the importance of what was then still seen as sub culture.

That’s all summed up in the song I’ve been championing as the best J-pop of the decade since the above-linked Japan Times story came out. It’s “PONPONPON,” and I don’t think it’s even close, personally. I’m not stupid enough to declare this “the first viral J-pop video on YouTube” — I remember the MEG one with the cats from college, before I knew who Yasutaka Nakata was — but this is the one that feels like something changing in how J-pop travels, becoming such a web hit to force its way into the mainstream. It’s the 21st century truly settling in all the way way way, ushering in a period where the familiar vanished, of “Cool Japan” meeting with BABYMETAL to try to learn how to do their jobs, of Pikotaro hanging out with heads of state.

Yet it’s not a reflection of just the internet, but the other epoch event defining the 2010s. Music Magazine only mentions it briefly in a few blurbs here — unlike its 2010s album list, which made it central — but it has to be emphasized how the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami…coupled with subsequent nuclear crisis in Fukushima…shaped all of this. Some of it enters psychological projection that might be a bit ambitious — the shift to glumness from younger creators as the years go on probably had at least a little with having to live through the worst natural disaster of your lifetime — but others are fact. “PONPONPON” became a hit in Japan during the summer of 2011 in part because it offered Technicolor escapism months after a nation watched entire towns get submerged. A lot of the silliest and bubbliest cuts excelled because the country wanted to get its mind away from terror. A song sung by two children and a talking dog seems like a bizarre inclusion for a critical undertaking like this, but that silliness was an emotional salve back in 2011, and should be recognized.

Kaoru to Tomoki, Tamani Mook, “Maru Maru Mori Mori,” #79 Of The 2010s

But let’s forget context and internet and trauma for a second. That’s all important, but it also distracts from what the true legacy of 2010s J-pop should be, in my opinion. Looking over this list and revisiting my own memories showed just how great, exciting and oddball the sound of pop was during these 10 years. It wasn’t recognized at the time, because the narrative played out by domestic and foreign music media zeroed in on the rise of K-pop globally, pitting J-pop against it. Let’s ignore that many of the generalist journalists driving this listened to like six songs total from between the nations. This was a prisoner-of-the-moment perspective. With Music Magazine acting as a catalyst, I recalled exactly what was really happening.

I can hear it in the playroom pop thrills of “PONPONPON,” or every clever genre mix-up BABYMETAL got up to, or the batshit Eurobeat dasai-pop of DA PUMP’s “U.S.A.” It comes through in Suiyoubi No Campanella’s clever club re-imaginations of Japanese folklore, and in the way people could transform singing-synthesizer software into something euphoric. I can picture it when I think back to the end of an indie-rock night at Shibuya Home in 2013, when a DJ busted out the new CD single from Dempagumi.inc and a room full of twee kids lost it to “W.W.D.” Or the time a Maltine Records party transformed into ultra via some LDH EDM. Nothing felt like it lined up with global trends, which hurt it at the time…but look past the buzz, and you find artists developing unique sounds, sometimes born from the past but also fresh. It can sound weird…but so much of it sounds amazing, and unlike anything else that was happening.

The 2010s is when J-pop defined its sound…which ended up being “whatever we want it to be.” In the 2020s, that’s blossomed into something bigger. But it all starts during these ten years, a rich period that’s only going to reveal more gems as the years go on.

Buy the actual magazine here or here.

And! Subscribers to Make Believe Bonus, the premium edition of this newsletter, will get a list of songs that should be on this list sometime this weekend. Subscribe today to see it in full (I’ll send out a preview too).

Music Magazine’s Best 100 J-pop Songs Of The 2010s List (Originally Published In August 2024, Links When Available)

Kenshi Yonezu, “Lemon,” #4 Of The 2010s

1. Suchmos “Stay Tune” (2016)

2. tofubeats Featuring Onomatope Daijin “Suisei” (2011)

3. Hoshino Gen “Koi” (2016)

4. Kenshi Yonezu, “Lemon” (2018)

5. Official HigeDAN DISM “Pretender” (2019)

6. Sakanaction “Shintakarajima” (2015)

7. Momoiro Clover “Ikuze! Kaitou Syoujo” (2010)

8. Aimyon “Marigold” (2018)

9. YOASOBI “Yoru Ni Kakeru” (2019)

10. cero “Orphans” (2014)

Suiyoubi No Campanella, “Momotaro,” #12 Of The 2010s

11. AKB48 “Koisuru Fortune Cookie” (2013)

12. Suiyoubi No Campanella “Momotaro” (2014)

13. Kaho Nakamura “Kittone!” (2018)

14. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu “Tsukematsukeru” (2012)⁵

15. Daoko And Kenshi Yonezu “Uchiage Hanabi” (2017)

16. cero “Summer Soul” (2015)

17. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu “PONPONPON” (2011)⁶

18. Quruli “Kohakushoku No Machi, Shanghai Kani No Asa” (2016)

19. Hoshino Gen “Sun” (2015)

20. Shinsei Kamattechan “Rock ‘N’ Roll Nariyamanai” (2010)

Oomori Seiko, “Midnight Seijun Isei Kouyuu,” #27 Of The 2010s

21. Haruko Amano (Kyoko Koizumi) “Shiosai No Memory” (2013)

22. STUTS Featuring PUNPEE “Yoru Wo Tsukaihatashite” (2016)

23. Kazuyoshi Saito “Yasashiku Naritai” (2011)

24. KIRINJI Featuring YonYon “killer tune kills me” (2019)

25. Foorin “Paprika” (2018)

26. King Gnu “Hakujitsu” (2019)

27. Oomori Seiko, “Midnight Seijun Isei Kouyuu” (2013)

28. Girls’ Generation “Gee” (2010)

29. Tavito Nanao “Circus Night” (2012)

30. Fujii Kaze “Nani Nan w” (2019)

Gesu No Kiwami Otome, “Watashi Igai Watashi Jya Nai No,” #31 Of the 2010s

31. Gesu No Kiwami Otome “Watashi Igai Watashi Jya Nai No” (2015)

32. Utada Hikaru “Hanataba Wo Kimi Ni” (2016)

33. BABYMETAL “Gimme Chocolate!!” (2014)

34. RADWIMPS “Zenzenzense” (2016)

35. Pikotaro “Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen (PPAP)” (2016)

36. DA PUMP “U.S.A” (2018)

37. Utada Hikaru “Hatsukoi” (2019)

38. KOHH “Binbo Nante Kinishinai” (2014)

39. andymori “1984” (2010)

40. MONDO GROSSO “Labyrinth” (2017)

Dempagumi.inc, “W.W.D,” #42 Of The 2010s

41. Yogee New Waves “Climax Night” (2014)

42. Dempagumi.inc “W.W.D” (2013)

43. UNISON SQUARE GARDEN “Sugar Song And Bitter Step” (2015)

44. Akaikoen “Imasara” (2013)

45. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu “Ninja Re Bang Bang” (2013)

46. Utada Hikaru “Sakura Nagashi” (2012)

47. Kenshi Yonezu “Flamingo” (2018)

48. Daoko And Yasuyuki Okamura “Step Up Love” (2017)

49. Sandaime J Soul Brothers From EXILE TRIBE “R.Y.U.S.E.I.” (2014)

50. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu “Fashion Monster” (2012)

CHAI, “N.E.O.,” #54 Of The 2010s

51. Daichi Miura “Be Myself” (2018)

52. Sakanaction “Wasurenaino” (2019)

53. Kiyoshi Ryujin25 “Will You Marry Me?” (2014)

54. CHAI “N.E.O.” (2017)

55. Cornelius “Anata Ga Irunara” (2017)

56. Rekishi Featuring Deyonna “Kirakira Bushi” (2011)

57. SEKAI NO OWARI “Dragon Night” (2014)

58. Akaikoen “Zettaitekina Kankei” (2014)

59. Yasuyuki Okamura “Bibanamida” (2013)

60. Kazuyoshi Saito “Zutto Suki Datta” (2010)⁷

KOHH, “Hikoki,” #64 Of The 2010s

61. BABYMETAL “Ijime, Dame, Zetai” (2013)

62. Oomori Seiko “Magic Mirror” (2015)

63. Kenshi Yonezu “Umi No Yurei” (2019)

64. KOHH “Hikoki” (2014)

65. The Cro-Magnons “Number One Yaro!” (2011)

66. Keyakizaka46 “Futari Seasons” (2016)

67. Kayoko Yoshizawa “Nokotteru” (2017)

68. BiS “nerve” (2014)

69. Shintaro Sakamoto “Matomo Ga Wakaranai” (2013)

70. Yuta Orisaka “Asagao” (2019)

never young beach, “Akarui Mirai,” #74 Of The 2010s

71. SMAP “Joy!!” (2013)

72. Kenji Ozawa “Ryudoutai Ni Tsuite” (2017)

73. SEKAI NO OWARI “Rain” (2017)

74. never young beach “Akarui Mirai” (2016)

75. BAD HOP “Kawasaki Drift” (2018)

76. Golden Bomber “Memeshikute” (2011)

77. EVISBEATS Featuring Dengaryu “Yureru” (2012)

78. Eito “Kosui” (2019)

79. Kaoru to Tomoki, Tamani Mook “Maru Maru Mori Mori” (2011)

80. Kurousa-P Featuring Hatsune Miku “Senbonzakura” (2011)

Kana Nishino, “Darling,” #83 Of The 2010s

81. Hoshino Gen “Idea” (2018)

82. Zutomayo “Byoushinwo Kamu” (2018)

83. Kana Nishino “Darling” (2014)

84. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu “Invader Invader” (2013)

85. Denpagumi.inc “Den Den Passion” (2013)

86. Shinsei Kamattechan Featuring Makoto Kawamoto “Front Memory” (2014)

87. BiSH “Promise The Star” (2017)

88. Southern All Stars “Peace And Highlight” (2013)⁸

89. Sheena Ringo “Carnation” (2011)

90. Utada Hikaru “Anata” (2017)

livetune Featuring Hatsune Miku, “Tell Your World,” #91 Of The 2010s

91. livetune Featuring Hatsune Miku “Tell Your World” (2012)

92. JP THE WAVY Featuring SALU “Cho Wavy De Gomenne Remix” (2017)

93. Sexy Zone “Lady Diamond” (2012)

94. moumoon “Sunshine Girl” (2010)⁹

95. Arashi “Wild At Heart” (2012)

96. Perfume “Flash” (2016)

97. BRAHMAN “Hekireki” (2011)

98. Soushi Sakiyama “Gogatsu Ame” (2018)　

99. NEWS “Chankapana” (2012)

100. ONE OK ROCK “Kanzen Kankaku Dreamer” (2010)

Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies

Follow the Best Of 2024 Spotify Playlist here!

1. I will say, they appear to not give a shit about the Oricon Charts whatsoever, or if they do it’s a teeny tiny bit of data. Which…is the right move! Oricon mutated into a fandom chart during this decade, and if you really want to feel a chill run down your spine, look at all the singles that have topped it since, oh let’s say, 2016.

2. Except for one! I caught a little bit of flack for a Tweet when the last Music Magazine list came out because I said some of it didn’t seem very J-pop, referring to Number Girl and rock acts that I think their fans would scowl at you if you called “J-pop.” But hey, definitions and meaning, not a big deal.

This time around we get…a K-pop song on the list! Girls’ Generation’s “Gee” comes in at #28, though confusingly not the Japanese version but rather the original Korean version, which technically came out in 2009 but didn’t arrive in this country until 2010. Its inclusion presents a lot of issues — including it being the greatest K-pop song ever, which should warrant it being way way way higher on any list — but the biggest being it isn’t J-pop! I get they are trying to capture the Hallyu Boom of 2010 here but like…I know it’s fashionable to pretend they don’t mean anything, but the “K” stands for Korean and the “J” stands for Japanese. That’s important, especially when making a list focused on one of them.

Just put “Mr. Taxi” in, solved!

3. Perfect example of it being…despite putting out all kinds of big singles and critically acclaimed works out in the early part of the decade, rock band Sakanaction gets represented here by the two songs they did that specifically nod to the past. Now, one of those is a monster hit, but it’s still telling that they make it instead of, I don’t know, “Music” or the one about Bach.

4. Caroline Kennedy did the dance!

5. This being the highest rated Kyary song is insane.

6. To reiterate…this is to me clearly #1 of the decade, especially if we are taking in to account influence. There are tourists who still think Tokyo looks like this video!!!

7. As mentioned above, the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami aren’t a dominant presence in this list in the way they hovered over Music Magazine’s albums list…but they do haunt the corners. This otherwise Boomer-tastic Beatles tribute appears on this list in part because following the natural disaster and subsequent crisis at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, Saito re-imagined this one as a protest song. Goofy retro-isms were transformed into jabs at the government and other institutions of power over their mishandling of it all. That version is awesome, and one of the most effective protest songs from a period rich with them.

8. Absolutely fantastic video, and a real trip…for a little bit Southern All Stars were ON ONE politically. Will also say…funny to think “wow, 2013 was really dramatic with geopolitics!” given the decade that followed.

9. “Vindication” isn’t quite the right word, but seeing this on here might be the most thrilled I’ve been for anything included on this list. Not because I necessarily love this song…though I kind of do…but rather because few J-pop cuts of the 2010s have stuck with me like “Sunshine Girl.” All the way back in the summer of 2010, I wrote a whole post about how wildly unsettling I found this song. Over a decade, I still consider this one of the creepiest songs of the period, almost certainly by accident (the Music Magazine writers simply celebrate its use of reggae elements..c’mon guys, listen to those vocals, that shit is off! In a good way) but one I’ll still just think about randomly. Glad to see it here.