2013: Japan & Korea’s All Kills

Save by Meg continues the Pacman feel of a lot of Japanese pop, but is fused with some very cool and skittish guitar work.

Moving past the solo idols, let’s look at the girl group who made all the waves this year: Momoiro Clover Z, who are kind of the evil twins to Korea’s Crayon Pop with their shared love for goofy outfits unconcerned with sexuality.

This track, Neo Stargate, is gloriously oddball, like some kind of dubstep opera that goes on for seven minutes. Epically alien stuff that outdoes I Got A Boy in the song length stakes.

Bonus: Taiwan

Perhaps the blonde sheep on this list due to her goldilocks looks, Taiwan’s Joanna Wang put out her 6th album Galaxy Crisis this year, a collision between Janelle Monae and YMCK, if the former had the voice of Mari Wilson that is, and the latter were a little more radio friendly on the ears.

I’m sure some would describe Joanna Wang as the Asian Monae, but there’s nothing particularly Asian about her music, unless doing an 8-bit video game concept LP counts as being Asian, in which case we’re all Asian now. Coins was the all kill track from the LP, with a great video to boot.