J-Pop Rock: SEKAI NO OWARI

Often I discover music through association, for instance by looking at related videos when browsing YouTube. Other times it's because artists I know collaborate with artists I don't know yet. This last example was the case with SEKAI NO OWARI who I discovered while doing research for my blog about Clean Bandit. SEKAI NO OWARI, Japanese for 'End of the World', started out in 2010 as an indie-pop band. They released several songs, most of which are decent sounding like Angel and Devil, but they're not really my cup of tea.

Now try to imagine combining an auto-tuned voice, marching music, a choir and classical piano. Sounds interesting right? Well that's exactly what the group did in 2013 for their song RPG. It's a sound that works well and the group continued to use it in songs like Snow Magic Fantasy and The Flame and Forrest Carnival. However the group didn't sit still and started collaborations outside of Japan to diversify their sound. Dragon Night for instance was produced by Dutch DJ Nicky Romero, while Mr.Heartache was produced by Adam Young of Owl City. Nevertheless I like the band best when they do their own crazy Japanese thing with instrument playing animals and folk-dancing wolves in fairytale surroundings (look at Hey Ho and you'll understand what I mean).

SEKAI NO OWARI has announced that they'll release a new album this year and I for one can't wait until it's released. Meanwhile I'll keep listening to my favourite song of theirs, ANTI-HERO, which features one of the fastest piano-parts I've ever heard in a pop song.

Other favourites: Death Disco (gives an idea of their live-show)

                            Tokyo (collaboration with Owl City) 

                            SOS (amazing piano melody)

Listen to more songs on SEKAI NO OWARI's official YouTube channel

Indie pop: Skylar Grey

The first time I heard of Skylar Grey was in 2010 as a featured artist on the song Coming Home by Diddy-Dirty Money. A great hip hop song and probably still one of my favourites of 2010. 
It wasn't until two years later that I heard Skylar's first solo song C'mon Let Me Ride. It's a catchy song that makes fun of the sexualisation in the music industry. But although I like it very much it's not really representative for Grey's style. Take for instance Final Warning and White Suburban, which both come from the same album but have a more modest arrangement and are darker in tone.

A signature sound which Skylar often uses can be clearly heard in her collaboration with Travis Barker (Back From The Dead) and the more recent and beautiful Come Up For Air. Both of these songs prominently feature the drum part, only accompanied by some minor additional instruments. This is something that I, being a drummer myself, can really appreciate.

Last month she released her latest album called Natural Causes. The album features several great songs, like Kill For You (again a collaboration with Eminem) and Lemonade. My favourite song of the album at the moment however is Moving Mountains. It's a very plain song, just Skylar and her guitar. Normally I don't care much for this type of song, but this one's got me hooked.

Other favourites: Wear Me Out, Coming Home Pt. II and Cannonball

Check out Skylar Grey's Official YouTube channel for more videos.