[J!-ENT] J!-ENT Celebrating its 15th Year Anniversary - 1988 - TATTOO & KROQ

Everyone I know who listens to Japanese music has a point of time they can reference when they started to become fans. And I am seldom asked, who was the first Japanese music artist that caught my attention.

Although later in the 80’s, I became smitten with Moritaka Chisato. The actual person that actually caught my attention first was Matsuda Seiko and Nakamori Akina for JPOP.

For Japanese rock, I have not listened to Japanese rock music until an international hour on my favorite alternative rock station back then in Los Angeles, KROQ, did a feature on female Japanese rock groups.

I was introduced to the Go-Bangs with their song “Special Boyfriend”, a female rock band inspired by the Go Go’s and the Bangles (which the DJ said the name was derived from) and Princess Princess. I would spend the next six years trying to find a Go-Bangs album.

But if I had to pick one artist that first generated my interest in the music, although I heard Matsuda Seiko first, the truth is for a song, Nakamori Akina caught my attention first.

A soft spoken woman, with a low sexy singing voice and very sexy. The song was “TATTOO” and fortunately with youtube.com, you can experience that nostalgia of Nakamori performing the song on television that year.