I occasionally mention my other musical tastes on Happy Disco, but I’ll reiterate the basic gist. Before I got into idol music my biggest musical interest was in indie/alternative rock. I really liked some good power pop stuff. I still like these artists; I go to concerts and buy their albums. I’m going to go see Broken Bells and Arctic Monkeys on tour this spring (this is going to be the third time I’m seeing Arctic Monkeys, and they’re always fantastic). My favorite band is The New pornographers. However, this was my primary music taste before idols. I had some other things in there; some harder rock, some classical, but it was mostly this.

However, despite all my music interests in this regard, idol music has really stuck, and has influenced my music tastes in a very major way. Before I became a fan of idol music, pop music wasn’t really my thing. I liked it growing up, but once I got into my teen years I pretty much abandoned pop music. However, obviously, I’ve gotten into it with idol music. I don’t listen to much top 40 radio still, but I’ve become a bit of a Katy Perry fan.

Recently, I’ve gotten a new interest in hip hop music. This isn’t something I ever thought I would like, but I’ve been giving it a shot and I’ve been pleasantly surprised. A lot of this is because of how much I really like Rhymeberry, and how often I’ve listened to stuff like SUPERMCZTOKYO. That and the Dempagumi.inc cover of Sabotage has made someone who always swore that she didn’t get hip hop actually pick it up.

So idol music has really pushed me as a music listener, and I know I’m better for it. I can’t help but think that this has to be true with other fans, at least to an extent. I mean, think of all the disco sound that you hear in Koisuru Fortune Cookie. Or the saxophone in Watashi ga Iu Mae ni Dakishimenakya Ne. Or the big band sound in Mr. Moonlight ~Ai no Big Band~. Or Iwasa Misaki doing enka and Matsui Sakiko doing instrumental piano. There is such a wide diversity of sound in idol music that I have to think that it’s expanded other people’s interests as well.

I think this is one of the things that has kept me an idol fan for years, and why I think I’m an idol fan in it for the long haul. There is a big musical diversity in idol music. Even artists can wildly change from release to release. It’s never boring, and it’s often edifying. It’s easy to play down idol music because the idols themselves don’t write it and they aren’t always the best singers, but I think that Japanese idol music is an extremely interesting genre, and certainly the one I want to pay attention to. So while it’s easy to be dismissive of idol music, I think that’s not being entirely fair. This is a diverse, great genre that is well worthy of our attention as music fans.

What do you think? Has idol music changed your music interest at all? Let me know in the comments!