Best Japanese Music of 2020: The JPU Records Playlist

Hello! If you're here just for the tunes, scroll down and get listening! For everyone else, read on. The JPU Records Playlist is a collection of tracks from Japan and beyond handpicked by members of bands on our roster or our staff and available on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube and Deezer. For the majority of 2020 members of SCANDAL and Lie and a Chameleon took turns selecting their favourite songs and offering a further glimpse into their musical inspirations. Now, for the first time this year, the playlist is crammed with great Japanese music we've released. They're all from this year (or there abouts) and spans everything from Japanese indie rock bands, heavy metal and some sneaky slices of J-pop.

We kick off the playlist with what we think is one of the best Japanese songs of the year: Sokoninaru's 'avoided absence'. Just wait for that guitar solo to rip apart the intro. This is followed by a track that was originally released in 2011, but after YEARS of negotiations with Sony Music Japan, we were finally granted the rights to the GazettE's catalogue to stream. We could've picked any of the GazettE' tracks, to be honest, they're all gold. Then there's 'Flying High' by BAND-MAID. We released their brilliant album CONQUEROR at the start of the year (the CD version includes English lyric translations and Romaji, along with all BAND-MAID CDs released from us!).