JaME's Alternative Idol Playlist

In September, we brought you a playlist celebrating that most quintessential aspect of Japanese music, the idol groups that regularly dominate the Oricon charts with their upbeat mainstream pop tunes. In October, we took a look at the flipside of idol culture and the music coming out of the independent and underground scene. We left behind those colour co-ordinated platoons of winsome idols and introduced you to the ‘alt-idols’ that scream their guts out, wave nail-studded baseball bats around threateningly and run naked through the forest.

BiS, formed by Pour Lui in 2010, supposedly with the intent of aggravating her manager Junnosuke Watanabe who she didn’t get on with, had the effect of giving the idol scene a huge shock. Their madcap antics and in your face attitude proved that success could still be had without confirming to the sweet, friendly, ‘kawaii’ idol stereotype. Other independent groups have followed in their footsteps, branching out into all sorts of musical genres and breaking the conventions of what idols are expected to be.

The selection of tracks put together by our team celebrates the creativity, variety and occasional strangeness of the underground idol scene. Take a walk on the wild side and check out our alt-idol playlist.


Did your favourite alternative idol group make the list? Which songs would you add? Let us know with a comment on social media.

If you're enjoying the song selections, feel free to follow our Spotify account to stay tuned for more, or to check out some of the other Spotify playlists our team has put together further down the page.