Cowboy Bebop is one of the most beloved anime series of all time, and if you ask its fans why, you can expect to hear about its music. Composer Yoko Kanno created an eclectic blend of jazz, rock, lullabies, folk and funk (to list just a few) for Cowboy Bebop's many moods and environments. Cowboy Bebop's blend of science fiction, westerns and gangster films promised to be "the work which becomes a new genre itself," and only Kanno's score could deliver.

In this volume of 33 1/3 Japan, musicologist Rose Bridges helps listeners make sense of the music of Cowboy...

In Tokyo in the early 1990s, an indie band called Flipper's Guitar were at the forefront of a new direction in Japanese popular music known as Shibuya-kei. The band's founder, Keigo Oyamada, would go on to produce a series of albums under the name Cornelius which are among the most innovative in Japanese popular music of the past two decades. Oyamada's third album under his Cornelius alter ego, Fantasma (1997) played a key role in putting J-pop on the world map of Western music fans, while Oyamada himself is today one of the most respected figures in the Japanese music industry....

In Tokyo in the early 1990s, an indie band called Flipper's Guitar were at the forefront of a new direction in Japanese popular music known as Shibuya-kei. The band's founder, Keigo Oyamada, would go on to produce a series of albums under the name Cornelius which are among the most innovative in Japanese popular music of the past two decades. Oyamada's third album under his Cornelius alter ego, Fantasma (1997) played a key role in putting J-pop on the world map of Western music fans, while Oyamada himself is today one of the most respected figures in the Japanese music industry....