Music Podcasts from Japan

Rich Pav Podcast Episodes, Soliloquy, Soundseeing

Another cringe-as-I-upload kind of episode.

Links go right to the RSS feeds to save ya’ll some trouble. If you know of any good music podcasts from Japan that actually play music, let me know and I’ll add them to the list.

  • Monochrome Cafe – Professional, very, very mellow. Do not listen to while operating heavy machinery.
  • Pod the Music – Professional, J-Pop. If you like J-Pop, this one’s probably your best bet.
  • Progressive Music Cast – Amateur, infrequent, not sure if they actually get around to playing any music, but it’s highly ranked.
  • abcdefg*record – Podcasts from an independent label. More talk than music. The music is definitely not mainstream. Might appeal more to the pink haired, body-pierced, tattooed crowd.
  • BEATCLUB – 1 minute samples. Very popular, maybe I’ll like it more if I give it a chance.
  • NETZ_MUSIC – Commercially sponsored, mostly talk, songs not played all the way through. Perhaps interesting if you’re fluent and curious to hear famous musicians just be themselves.
  • Pod Street Music – Not exclusively Japanese music, but podsafe.
  • TEPCO & Yoshimoto EntamecasTY – Commercially sponsored, either mostly or exclusively talk.
  • Oricon Single Top 40 – Commercial, professional, no music, just listing off the chart-topping song titles.
  • Radio Sakamoto – Ryuichi Sakamoto’s podcast for J-WAVE FM. He’s articulate and easy to understand in comparison to other podcasters, but unfortunately no music, which seems to be typical for podcasts produced by radio stations. They strip the music from the their radio shows and recycle them as podcasts.

In summary, I haven’t been able to find a music show I like by searching the podcast rankings, but keep in mind that J-Pop really isn’t my thing. I guess it’s like someone who lives in Nashville but would rather have his ears chewed off by rabid weasels than listen to country music. If you can read Japanese, check out po-di-um.net’s blog or Staff Picks for other recommended podcasts. They review all kinds of podcasts, not just J-Pop ones.

Update: Listener recommended J-Pop podcasts:

  • Jpop Blast – Definitely not podsafe. I don’t owe the price-gouging music industry here any favors for putting out a never ending barrage of homogenized bubble gum pop songs sung off key by here-today-pumping-gas-tomorrow cookie-cutter teenie bopper dance troops, so tune into to their show if that’s your kind of thang. (…Did that come out of me? Golly gee, who says you need a vagina to turn into a PMS monster?)
  • Muzie – Not a podcast but rather a community site for indy & independent artists in Japan. The should have a podcast, really, because on sites like this, sifting through the sludge for gold nuggets is an arduous process.

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Rich Pav

Richard has been living in Japan since 1990 with his wife and two teenage sons, Tony and Andy.

12 thoughts to “Music Podcasts from Japan”

    1. Looks like they’re play authentic J-Pop. As long as JASRAC lawyers don’t find out, they’re good to go.

      You’ll probably like what they play on “Pod The Music” too. This evening I listened to their back episodes and their playlist isn’t half bad.

  2. Am I the only one who can’t download the “Pod the Music” and “Monochrome” podcasts? It lets me subscribe to them but for some reason it won’t download the episodes.

    1. My PodCast client wont finish those downloads either Eric. It gets to 100% but wont finish the file. So I just downloaded some of them manualy.

      I was thinking it might be the Kanji interfering with the file writing. But I dont know.

    2. What RSS client, OS, etc? Have you ever subscribed to any other feeds with Japanese filenames? I’ll let them know about the problem if we can figure out where it lies. If you use iTunes, try iPodder Lemon or whatever it’s called these days, or vice versa.

      1. Just came in to work this morning and they’re all there… two days after I tried to subscribe.

        I’ve just been using iTunes to download podcasts. I do have NewsFire at home and might look in to using that to grab my most favorite podcasts if iTunes keeps messing up. Never had an issue with Japanese filenames before.

      2. OS: WinXP(sp2)
        Client: Doppler(also tried IPodderX)
        No I dont have any other Japanese filenamed feeds.

        I’m not sure what it is, but like I said it gets to 100% and even writes the temporary file fine. But when it comes to moveing the temp file to the regular folder it just freezes.

        It will even start over from 1% after about 10minutes.

  4. J-Rock and the ManyFreaks podcasts are good. Both spoken in English, JRock is amateur but ok, and ManyFreaks is out of Canada, and plays mostly Visual Kei. Both are good if you’re into something a little heavier and sometimes, a whole lot cheesier. Kinda like the equivalent American hair metal, I guess. 🙂

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