Happy 2009!

Another year has gone and just like at the end of every year, people take a few moments to look back on the past year, but also look ahead to the future with various new year’s resolutions. At JaME, we’re eagerly looking forward to see what the next year will bring us, but we are also particularly fond of looking back, by creating several articles and also listing our own Top 3′s with “best of’s”.

Please feel free to comment on this post with your own top 3′s or comments on the selected ones by the JaME team members. Also, in order to find the lowest low of 2008, we have taken all the disappointing moments mentioned, and created a poll on the weblog. Please vote for the ultimate Jmusic disappointment of 2008!

Jacob’s choices:

Artists of the year (in no significant order)
1: POLYSICS
2: Dir en grey
3: MUCC

Albums of the year
1: POLYSICS – We ate the machine
2: Dir en grey – UROBOROS (shocking, I know)
3: miyavi – THIS IZ THE JAPANESE KABUKI ROCK

Singles of the year
1: MUCC – Ageha
2: Sugar – ruddy afterglow
3: MUNEHIRO – Hinomaru Power ~Kimi no Chikara~

Concerts of the year
1: POLYSICS in Detroit
2: Dir en grey in Pontiac
3: Rockstar Taste of Chaos Tour in Detroit (MUCC, D’espairsRay and the Underneath)

Disappointments of the year
1: RENTRER EN SOI singles and announcement of disbandment
2: X JAPAN, in every way
3: Yuuki of UnsraW’s bad health (do they know if he’s actually died or not yet?)

Surprises of the year
1: South America getting some (well deserved and long awaited) attention
2: Dir en grey hits the Billboard chart
3: SADS reunion! (Oh wait, that never happened. I can’t find a third thing to be surprised about?)

Best newcomers/discoveries
1: ROACH!!! – I caught onto this bandwagon late
2: DELUHI – A nice little gem in the sea of visual kei bile
3: MUNEHIRO – Thanks to Kay for the awesome recommendation!

Anna’s choices:

Artists of the year (in no significant order)
1: SID
2: Miyavi (world tour!)
3: Ayumi Hamasaki (mostly because of her 10th anniversary thing)

Albums of the year
I can’t answer! There was a lot of great music this year, but to be honest none of the albums really stuck with me. ;__;

Singles of the year
1: alice nine. – CROSS GAME (I’m biased, but I pick it for that third song)
2: acid black cherry – 20+∞Century Boys (Yasu just keeps stepping it up with those PVs, lol)
3: chatmonchy – Kaze Fukeba Koi

Concerts of the year
1: Miyavi at THE WALL in Taipei
2: Gackt at Omiya, Tokyo (the man was on time for meeeee XD)
3: LM.C at FORMOZ in Taipei

Disappointments of the year
1: Miyavi taking out his piercings! I know it was a personal decision, but I loved his lip ring!
2: SuG. They haven’t released anything I really like recently.
3: w-inds. Their most recent single isn’t as good as I hoped it would be.

Surprises of the year
1: X JAPAN’s reunion (and then subsequent hiatus, which was less of a surprise)
2: Gackt in a Hollywood movie. I still lol.
3: More personally, the fact that I actually went through a brief stint fangirling Hey! Say! Jump XD

Best newcomers/discoveries
1: lynch. (I hadn’t really listened to their stuff before reviewing them, and now I find I like them!)
2: Aoyama Thelma
3: lolita 23q (I only just started getting into them this year)

Cage’s choices:

Artists of the year
1: Ayumi Hamasaki
2: Namie Amuro
3: MUCC

Albums of the year
1: MUCC – Shion
2: Namie Amuro – BEST FICTION
3: Dir en grey – UROBOROS

Singles of the year
1: Namie Amuro – 60s 70s 80s
2: Ayumi Hamasaki – Mirrorcle World
3: BoA – Eat You Up

Concerts of the year
1: MUCC (Taste of Chaos)
2: Gallhammer
3: Girugamesh

Disappointments of the year
1: lynch. haven’t released a new album.
2: Merry didn’t perform in Europe.
3: -

Surprises of the year
1: The fact that so many artists made it to their 10th anniversary XD
2: Koda Kumi’s “controversial statement”.
3: BoA’s American debut.

Best newcomers/artist discoveries of the year
1: 9GOATS BLACK OUT
2: Kanon Wakeshima
3: -

Meg’s choices:

Artists of the year
1: 9GOATS BLACK OUT
2: the studs
3: moran

Albums of the year
1: the studs – and hate
2: girugamesh – music
3: MUCC – shion

Singles of the year
1: 9GOATS BLACK OUT – devils in bedside
2: the studs – niji no iro
3: moran – element

Concerts of the year
1: Girugamesh at Shimokitazawa ERA
2: MUCC at the Filmore
3: Chariots/Nega/Siva at Shibuya O-West

Disappointments of the year
1: Cancellation of Clash Against Commercialism
2: Ruvie’s disbandment
3: Versailles at Anime USA

Surprises of the year
1: Ruvie playing secret at the heidi./jully tour final
2: Chariot’s hiatus
3: moran’s (great) releases

Best newcomers/artist discoveries of the year
1: Oreskaband
2: Anna Tsuchiya
3: OZ

Jess’ choices:

Artists of the year (in no significant order)
1: miyavi
2: the underneath (they accomplished so much in one year!)
3: TOHOSHINKI (so what they’re korean originated XP)

Albums of the year
1: miyavi – THIS IZ THE JAPANESE KABUKI ROCK
2: DIR EN GREY – UROBOROS
3: TOHOSHINKI – Jumon (Mirotic)

Singles of the year
1: Gackt – Jesus (what’s this? not a ballad?  omgggg)
2: DELUHI – HYBRID TRUTH (I could listen to this for hours)
3: TOHOSHINKI – Jumon -MIROTIC-

Concerts of the year
1: The whole TASTE OF CHAOS tour
2: Dir en grey in NY
3: miyavi in Anaheim, CA

Disappointments of the year
1: X JAPAN. (jyping the people who went to their first concert timewise and continualing canceling their concerts and rescheduled concerts)
2: Clash Against Commercialism being canceled. (especially since it was a last minute cancelation)
3: ELLEGARDEN going on an “indefinite haitus”.

Surprises of the year
1: Gackt in the Hollywood movie “Bunraku” (I’m still loling too, anna XD)
2: RENTRER EN SOI’s ninja disbandment, especially since a banner on their OHP advertised the last show before they even made the announcement.  One day everything was fine and next it was WHAT IS THIS BANNER ADVERTISING THEIR “LAST SHOW” ABOUT? D:
3: X JAPAN fans still believing in their fandom Versailles having to modify their band name because of some idiotic american woman’s copyright.

Best newcomers/discoveries
1: DELUHI (I agree with Jacob. They will go far)
2: knotlamp (they will be the new ELLEGARDEN)
3: kalvary (I really like their versatility and jazz/blues-like feel)

Kay’s choices:

Artists of the year
1: INORAN
2: Sherbets
3: PUSHIM

Albums of the year
1: lecca – City Caravan
2: Sherbets – MAD DISCO
3: INORAN – Apocalypse

Singles of the year
1: PUSHIM – Rainbow
2: MUNEHIRO – Again
3: Namie Amuro – 60s 70s 80s

Concerts of the year
1: Metis in Tokyo (acoustic set)
2: INORAN in Tokyo
3: Sherbets in Fukuoka

Disappointments of the year
1: My favorite artists not playing live when I was in Japan
2: Hirakawachi Icchome disbanding
3: X JAPAN’s broken promises (even though I am no fan of the band)

Surprises of the year
1: All the bands that reunited
2: miyavi doing an actual -world- tour
3: GLAY performing a mini-tour in the US

Best newcomers/discoveries
1: Chihiro Onitsuka
2: INORAN (re-discovery)
3: Tamurapan

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