Eurobeat Rabbit Hole

I mentioned in the "My Sweet Banana" post yesterday that we were listening to some Japanese music stations to get us in the mood for some group Internationalization work at FeedBurner. Earlier in the day, the music was very "Japanese Idol"-like, but then towards the end of the day we were slammed into a bunch of music that sounded like Happy Happy Hardcode-esque rave music. Being fans of the >155BPM genre, we were intrigued, especially since we didn't recognize any of the music, and the lyrics had a very Engrish feel to them.

After some research, I now realize we had been unwittingly transported to the world of Eurobeat music. I love stumbling into rabbit holes like this. It turns out (according to this history) that Eurobeat (and it's slightly slower sibling Eurodance) is exclusively produced in Italy, but then only released in Japan. It starts out on vinyl and then ends up on compliation discs. So, for example, the My Sweet Banana song from yesterday was found on the compilation "Super Eurobeat: Vol. 170". Yes, 170.

That's so cool that there's this whole big genre that I had no idea existed. Steve, you're heading to Japan next week. Would you mind picking up a few compilations for the office? And some Dir en grey too?