Tag Archives: Polkadot Stingray

Music Video Roundup

Posted on by

Milkyway – Jigoku de aitai

Lead track from their new minialbum dropping next month. This is the best Milkway song in a long time! The title translates to “I want to meet you in hell” and was inspired after Kaori got dumped.

 

Regal Lily – Transistor Radio

Also from a minialbum coming next month. A little poppier than their usual style but very enjoyable.

 

Polkadot Stingray – Synchronisica

A second music video off their recent 4-track EP. As always, a very polished video and more dressing up in various costumes.

 

Katokitto – Kamisama no hakarai

Third video from their minialbum that came out just with week — the first with a real director, Katou Mani, who does a lot of indie/pro music videos. This whole mini goes in some interesting directions with their sound.

 

Okazaki Taiiku – Kanjou no pixel

Another hilarious video from Taiiku last month.

 

Sappy – Orange&fall

Finally, last week’s video from Sappy out of Kobe. I believe this is the first time mentioning them, but they are a five-piece pop band heavy on the keyboards. This isn’t my favorite number by them.

Best Japanese Music Videos of 2016

Posted on by

Polkadot Stingray – Telecaster Stripe

This is the perfect indie video. It’s not fancy but it’s super clean. And the most impressive thing is that band leader Shizuku (vocals/guitar/songwriting) directed and edited the whole thing.

COMezik – Imagination

Simple, powerful, beautiful, and featuring bass/vocal Lin’s amazing art.

Yabai T-Shirts-ya-san – Party People

This video is hilarious from one little (big?) gag. You can watch or read here for my post about it.

Okazaki Taiiku – Music Video

Music Video is a hilarious music video where Okazaki Taiiku sings about cliches for Japanese music videos while doing them in the music video. Music video. You get the most out of it if you understand Japanese, but the beginning segment goes something like:

Walking and singing while facing the camera
Suddenly the band members come in from the sides
Then suddenly cover the camera with your hand
And it cuts to a different location

FLiP – Rainbow

This FLiP video makes the list simply because this is their last song and it so well fits the song and the hopeful, uplifting tone they aimed to set their final show before their hiatus.

Polkadot Stingray: Taking the Indie Scene by Storm

Posted on by

Lately the scene has been abuzz about Polkadot Stingray, a four-piece indie rock band from Fukuoka. Although they only formed their band about a year and a half ago, they are already starting to hit the bigger indie music festivals (like Mihoudai in Osaka this summer) and charting on the indie iTunes Japan (this also means international fans can actually buy their music, although a bit of a runaround to set up a Japanese iTunes account, as opposed to many bands with venue-only CDs). On their first visit to Tokyo only a few months prior, they played four nights back-to-back and all four shows sold out. Their wide-reaching popularity is probably driven by this extremely well-done, self-made music video for their song Telecaster Stripe. The director is none other than frontwoman Shizuku. With over a million views, it is a huge accomplishment for a band that hasn’t yet signed to a label.

More recently, they put out a video for the single Ningyo (“Mermaid”)　off of their upcoming EP being released at CD shops Japan-wide in November.