Koiko | Jpop

Musical style: J-pop!

Similar bands: Morning Musume

Who in the name of sweetums lemon-yellow rabbits is Koiko?

Born in 1979 in Nobeoka, Koiko is among the new generation of indie J-pop singers, and she’s signed with the japanese indie lable It’s Oh! Music.

So far, Keiko has only made a couple of singles, as far as we can see. But the japanese indie scene is still growing so we hope she will help to spearhead the movement and make a few more.

As the mp3s will show, the japanese version of indie isn’t anything like the westernised version – no angst, no growling guitars, no beer-fuelled rebellion – not as far as we can tell, anyway. What you do seem to get is a lot of off-kilter, cute songs about vitamins and waiting for the bus.

True to the J-pop style of fusing japanese music with western styles, Koiko’s J-pop sound mixes her cute Japanese voice and japanese musical influences (mainly Kyouhei Tsutsumi) with American R’n’B (Tamla Motown) and she throws in some lyrics spoken in french for good measure.

We WERE going to give you the ‘Vitamin!’ mp3 as well as the ‘Tasogare Bus’, but every girl has to make a living, so although we found the mp3s on Keiko’s website, we hope that – if you like her music – you’ll go and buy ‘Vitamin!’ for yourselves. Internet singles cost next to nothing!