Sunshine Underground

This morning I woke up with Chickenrace – Heartbeat in my head which was a first for me. Generally I don’t listen to a lot of Japanese music, only a handful of bands due to my limited (none) knowledge of the language. This song was introduced to me by Jason who ~~heard it in the opening of an animation~~ discovered them on Youtube. It had everything we loved – catchy synths, chunky bass lines and head-bopping melodies. I didn’t understand a single word of it besides the “every night” and “anyway” in the chorus but it didn’t matter. It showed me that Japanese bands were capable of coming up with tunes that were just as catchy as their western counterparts.

It wasn’t long until we found their discography and listened to all their music. Since I can’t really talk about the content of the lyrics (I haven’t bothered looking up what their songs mean), I listen to them for their vocal melodies and funky guitar riffs – I’ve yet to come across a band that does pop punk funk as well as these guys. Then again, it’s probably quite a niche genre? I don’t know, I haven’t done any searching. I can’t seem to find a lot of information about them online besides a now defunct Purevolume page. Youtube also has a very limited selection of Chickenrace songs so I can’t link all my favorites, but here’s what I’ve managed to find:

Chickenrace – Farewell