Star Sparkle Blog

Popular Japanese singer Crystal Kay has teamed up with one of my favourite J-pop singers Namie Amuro for new song Revolution, so I thought I'd post about that today. :) Crystal (full name Crystal Kay Williams) is from Yokahama in Japan. Her mum is Korean (but I think born and raised in Japan herself) and her dad is African American. She can speak Japanese and English fluently and sings in both languages. Crystal started out singing for TV adverts as a child. She signed to Epic Records at 12 years old and released her debut single Eternal Memories in July 1999 aged 13 and her debut album C.LL. Crystal Lover of Light in March 2000. Since then she has released over 30 singles, some of the most well known are Hard To Say, Boyfriend Part II, I Like It (with m-flo ) and Motherland. Her 10 studio albums include C.LL., Amost Seventeen (2002), Call Me Miss... (2006), All Yours (2007), Spin The Music (2010) and Vivid (2012). Crystal has also brought out two EPS, Shining (2007) and Fl...

Like I mentioned in my post about J-Soul Brothers, I tend to know more Japanese solo singers and more Korean groups, lol. So I thought today I'd feature two videos, one by Japanese girlband FAKY and another by Korean American solo singer and rapper Jay Park . First up is Girl Digger by FAKY. They are a 5 member dance and vocal group, known as the Alternative girlband. They were created to represent Tokyo. The current members are Anna, Lil' Fang, Mikako and Akina. FAKY debuted in 2013 with members Anna, Lil' Fang, Tina and Diane but Diane and Tina left and were replaced by Akina. The name FAKY comes from the word Fake but the first two letters are from the word "Fantastic" and the last two from "Tokyo".  FAKY also stands for "Five Ass Kicking Youngsters". FAKY are an international group who are billingual since leader Anna is Japanese, but was born in New Zealand and also lived in Hong Kong in the Philippines before moving to Japan, and Ak...

A few weeks  ago I did a post on J-pop acts.  It was originally going to be about both J-pop and K-pop acts but was turning into a really long post, so I decided to split it up! The follow up post got delayed because of computer problems but here it is now. :) You can check out my J-pop Acts post here:   https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2015/09/j-pop-acts.html So here are the Korean acts. Some of them sing in Japanese and Chinese as well. Lee Hyori Lee Hyori, aka Hyolee, is a solo singer, who started out in the girl group Fin K.L, before going solo in 2003. Her last album was Monochrome, which was released in 2013. Video for my fave song 10 Minutes: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2012/05/weekly-music-video.html Girls vs Boys with Rain (see below):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2013/10/girls-vs-boys-k-pop.html Rain (Bi) Rain (Bi), whose real name is Jung Ji-Hoon, is one of Korea's top solo stars. In addition to singing he dances, ac...

September was supposed to be J-pop and K-pop month but it got a bit derailed because I had computer problems! So I'm going to extend it into October. :) The last post I did was on J-pop acts . While doing that I discovered that Japanese singers Hiromi and Jasmine have new music (and some that's not so new but I don't think I've heard before). So today I'm going to feature two videos, one from each of them! First here's Hiromi's single TEQUILA SUNRISE, which came out in July. It's available as a bonus track on her compilation album BEST- FAN SELECT, which is due out on 28th October. Her latest single is BYE BYE YESTERDAY. I may feature that another week. And here is a Jasmine song, B*TCH*S. It's on her second album Complexx (2013). According to a comment on YouTube the lyrics are sexually suggestive! Update 27/5/20: Video now gone but you can find the song on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-852044490/jasmine-btchs Hope you...

I've done quite a few posts on Japanese and Korean singers and groups, so to fit in with September's J-pop and K-pop theme I thought I'd do a round-up of my favourite acts. I was going to do both Japanese and Korean acts but it was turning into a mega post, so I'll start with the J-pop ones and do K-pop next time! Koda Kumi Koda Kumi is my favourite Japanese singer. She's very popular in Japan and this year is her 15th anniversary of being in the music business. Here are some Koda related links: Video for one of my favourite songs, Trust You: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2012/01/weekly-music-video_21.html My absolute favourite song, feel: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2013/03/weekly-music-video_27.html Top 10 Koda Kumi Songs

Recently I did a post on the Japanese boyband J Soul Brothers . Their full title is J Soul Brothers from EXILE TRIBE, since they are part of the supergroup EXILE TRIBE. The rest of the members are from other Japanese groups. According to Wikipedia the other groups are EXILE,   E-girls , Generations , Gekidan Exile and The Rampage but EXILE TRIBE appears to be mainly made up of EXILE, J Soul Brothers and GENERATIONS. EXILE are a 19 member group who were founded in the late 90s by HIRO. They were the original J Soul Brothers but later changed their name to EXILE. The current J Soul Brothers are a new group formed by Hiro and they are also known as Sandaime (Third J Soul Brothers). (See my other post for more). EXILE TRIBE  were formed in 2012. To date they have released 3 singles, 24karats Tribe of Gold, Burning Up and The Revolution (their most successful) and 2 promotional singles, Keep On Singing and 24WORLD. They released their first album, Exile Tribe Revolution in Aug...

Korean singer BoA recently made a comeback with her new album Kiss My Lips. It is her 8th Korean studio album (she has also released 8 Japanese language albums and 1 English album) and came out in May. This year marks BoA's 15th anniversary in the music business, she released her debut Korean album ID; Peace B in August 2000. Here are the videos for two singles from the new album. First of all here is Kiss My Lips: And then Who Are You featuring Gaeko: Which song is your favourite? :)

Everything's K-pop or J-pop this month, so today's video is for the song I Need a Girl by Taeyang from the Korean boyband BIGBANG and featuring G-Dragon (also from BIGBANG). Taeyang's real name is Dong Young-Bae. His stage name Taeyang means "sun". He started out as a child actor before joining the South Korean record label YG Entertainment aged 12. He and G-Dragon (aka GD) were supposed to be a duo but ended up becoming part of BIGBANG. Taeyang's first solo song was My Girl which was released in 2006 and appeared on BIGBANG's debut album BIGBANG Vol 1.- Since 2007. But it wasn't until 2008 that he really launched his solo career with the release of mini album Hot in May. He released two singles from Hot, Only Look At Me and Prayer featuring Teddy from Korean/American hip hop group 1TYM . Taeyang has also released two full length solo albums, Solar (2010) and Rise (2014). Some of his other singles are Wedding Dress, Ringa Linhga and Good Boy ...

I don't know that many Japanese boybands. It's funny but I mostly know Korean groups and Japanese solo singers! I know KAT-TUN , Arashi (although they're more of a rock group, I think) and Hey! Say! JUMP but not many more. A friend recently introduced to me the band (or vocal and dance unit) J Soul Brothers , so I thought today I'd do a post about them. And of course it fits into the J-pop and K-pop theme I'm doing this month! This is a good opportunity to find more J-pop boybands too. :) The J Soul Brothers were originally formed in 1998 but have gone through two line-up changes. The current incarnation- full title Sandaime (Third Generation) J Soul Brothers from EXILE TRIBE * or J Soul Brothers III- was formed in 2010 by HIRO who is the leader of Japanese boyband EXILE (which has an impressive 19 members!) and founding member of the First Generation J Soul Brothers.  It was decided that EXILE and former Nidaimie (Second Generation) J Soul Brothers members N...

I've decided to have a J-pop and K-pop month. I thought it would be good to have themed months every so often, so September is about everything K-pop and J-pop! :) To start with here is Girls' Generation's new music video for their song You Think. It's on their 5th album Lion Heart and both are available now.