Aimyon talks about her sense of “Showa” and “Heisei” in latest Yahoo! News interview

24-year-old singer Aimyon is featured in a Yahoo! News interview by Kaneko Atsushi.

Born in 1995, during the Heisei period (1990-2019), she is known for her sense of “Showa” (1926-1989) due to her style of music (which has a sense of folk and modern style).

Popular among the younger generation, especially those in their teens and 20s, her music has become popular enough that she participated in the NHK Kouaku Uta Gassen last year and had her first concert at Nihon Budokan in Feb. 2019.

In the interview, Aimyon discusses that while she’s only lived during the Heisei and not Showa, she feels fortunate that she performs music with a “Showa” style.

Aimyon said that she is not only interested in the present era but also eras when she wasn’t yet born.  She feels it’s a very good thing and that she was able to to grow up fortunate to learn about different eras.  For example, remembering when her grandmother introduced her to red records from Columbia or discovering her father’s Spitz CD’s in his bedroom.

She was also infuenced musically by her father who listened to Hamada Shosuke and Hirai Ken and Hamada listened to folk, so she started listening to Jackson Brown, Bob Dylan, etc.  She loves singing songs but if people asked her to just sing songs now, it wouldn’t be right as there are many great songs and she likes to sing and mix things up.  In fact, her musical arrangements range from rock to R&B.

Aimyon said that music is like a “Time Machine”, when you listen to songs a few years later, you may recover your memories from those days.  An example she gives is ORANGE RANGE and when she hears their music, she remembers that it was time for lunch in junior high school.

She also talked about how digital music is becoming the norm overseas, and if you want to put out a CD, she feels that one should put it out.  There is a desire to leave something that is created by her as part of the expression like a photo and she would like to keep her works released until the day she dies.

You can read more of her interview here.