Front 242 is a Belgian electronic music group that came into prominence during the 1980s. Pioneering the style they called electronic body music, they are a profound influence on the electronic and industrial music genres.
Venom are an English extreme metal band formed in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1978. Coming to prominence towards the end of the new wave of British heavy metal, Venom's first two albums, Welcome to Hell (1981) and Black Metal (1982), are considered major influences on thrash metal and extreme metal in general. Their second album proved influential enough that its title was used as the name of the black metal genre; as a result, Venom were part of the early wave of the genre, along with Mercyful Fate and Bathory.
Yukihiro Takahashi is a Japanese musician, singer, record producer and actor, who is best known internationally as the drummer and lead vocalist of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, and as the former drummer of the Sadistic Mika Band. He is currently a member of the group METAFIVE.
Prunus serrulata or Japanese cherry is a species of cherry tree that grows naturally in Japan, China, Korea and Russia, and it also refers to a cultivar produced from Prunus speciosa, a cherry tree endemic in Japan. Historically, the Japanese have developed many cultivars by selective breeding of cherry trees, which are produced by the complicated crossing of several wild species, and they are used for ornamental purposes all over the world. Of these, the cultivars produced by complex interspecific hybrids based on the Oshima cherry are also known as the Cerasus Sato-zakura Group.
Rats & Star, formerly called Chanels, was a Japanese male blackface pop group that specialized in doo-wop-influenced music. The group was led by Masayuki Suzuki.
Deborah Christine "Siedah" Garrett is an American singer and songwriter who has written songs and performed backing vocals for many recording artists in the music industry, such as Michael Jackson, The Pointer Sisters, Brand New Heavies, Quincy Jones, Tevin Campbell, Donna Summer, Madonna, Jennifer Hudson among others. Garrett has been nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Original Song, and won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 50th Grammy Awards for co-writing "Love You I Do" for the 2006 musical film, Dreamgirls.
Fishmans are a Japanese band formed in 1987 in Minato, Tokyo. They are known for their unique psychedelic sound and the distinctive vocals of the late lead singer Shinji Sato, as well as the drum playing of Kin-Ichi Motegi and rocksteady basslines of Yuzuru Kashiwabara. Fishmans remained relatively underground and disbanded with the sudden death of Shinji Sato in 1999, but later accumulated an international cult following largely driven by their popular acclaim on internet discussion boards. In a 2019 article for The Japan Times, James Hadfield wrote that their albums Aerial Camp and Long Season "are now undisputed landmarks in the Japanese rock canon."
Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc., often abbreviated as SMEJ or simply SME, and also known as Sony Music Japan for short, is a Japanese music arm for Sony. SMEJ is directly owned by Sony Group Corporation and is operating independently from the United States-based Sony Music Entertainment due to its strength in the Japanese music industry. Its subsidiaries include the Japanese animation production enterprise, Aniplex, which was established in September 1995 as a joint-venture between Sony Music Entertainment Japan and Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan, but which in 2001 became a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan. It was prominent in the early to mid '90s producing and licensing music for animated series such as Roujin Z from acclaimed Japanese comic artist Katsuhiro Otomo and Capcom's Street Fighter animated series.
Avex Inc. is a Japanese entertainment conglomerate led by founder Max Matsuura and headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1988, the company manages J-pop talents like Ayumi Hamasaki and internet sensation PikoTaro. It has also shifted into other business domains like anime, video games and live music events, partnering with Ultra Music Festival and hosting the annual A-nation. The company is a member of the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) keiretsu.
Plastics, or The Plastics, were a short-lived Japanese new wave band who rose to prominence in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Their music was a major influence on Japanese pop music and their songs have been covered by many bands, most notably Polysics, Pizzicato Five, and Stereo Total.
Hal is a Japanese pop band formed in 1996. They have worked with several Japanese pop and rock stars and also have won two Japan Record Awards for their musical arrangements for singer Ayumi Hamasaki.
Las Chicas Del Can was the first all-female merengue group from Dominican Republic. Originally created by pianist Belkis Concepción, several teams of female vocalists and musicians have alternately performed under the name Las Chicas del Can throughout the group's history.
Chica Sato is a Japanese musician and fashion model best known as the lead vocalist for new wave band Plastics who then went on to form Melon with Plastics bandmate Toshio Nakanishi. The duo became a prominent fixture in the Tokyo club and fashion scenes, serving as trendsetters responsible for bringing British, American new wave, graffiti, and hip-hop to Japan.
Toshio Nakanishi, also known by the pseudonyms Tycoon To$h or Typhoom Tosh, was a Japanese musician and graphic designer who was best known as the founding member of new wave band Plastics in 1976. He was initially a part of the technopop fever in Japan and later acted as a pioneer of the Japanese hip hop scene with his band Major Force.
Musukko Club (息っ子クラブ) was a short-lived male spin-off idol group of Onyanko Club. They made their debut in 1986 with the song Boku-tachi no Season, and broke up after their February 15, 1987 concert at Nippon Budokan. The seven members of the group were Ken Iwashiro, Shūsuke Namiki, Yoshinori Satō, Yōji Sawamukai, Kō Shimizu, Hirotoshi Shinozaki and Hiromitsu Shizuku. After 3 decades, the group reunited in 2016 and has been active ever since.
The Monroes were a new wave band from San Diego active throughout most of the 1980s. They are best known for their single "What Do All the People Know".
Sandii & the Sunsetz were a Japanese synthpop band that collaborated from 1979 until the 1990s. The Sunsetz, led by Makoto Kubota, and Sandii started as separate artists, and each have a separate discography. However, their collaboration provided a particular body of work that is representative of the period, and which successfully blended Eastern, Western and pop influences.
Alfa Records Inc., originally a publisher known as Alfa Music Ltd. and later succeeded by record company Alfa Music Inc., was established in 1969 by composer and record producer Kunihiko Murai. It was formed into an independent record label known as Alfa Records in 1977. A short-lived American subsidiary operated from 1980 to 1982.
Yann Tomita is a Japanese musician, composer, record producer, writer, and steelpan player based in Tokyo. In Japan during the 1980s and 1990s, he pioneered various music genres, including hip hop, dub, acid jazz, exotica, and electronic music. He is the first professional Japanese steelpan player, first Japanese hip hop producer, and the president of the Audio Science Laboratory record label, which he founded.
"I Love You, Oh No!" is a song written by Chica Sato, Hajime Tachibana, and Toshio Nakanishi for Plastics, released in 1979 from their debut album Welcome Plastics.
