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The story
A thread on 5ch asking “tell me some female artists a 40-something guy can listen to without embarrassment” took off. Suggestions ranged from overseas names like Taylor Swift and Joni Mitchell to Japanese singer-songwriters like Toki Asako, Omori Seiko, Ishibashi Eiko, and Nakamura Kaho. At the same time, some pushed back on the whole premise, arguing “it’s lame to listen to something you don’t even like just because it’s not embarrassing” — and the thread drifted from song picks into a debate about the mindset of choosing music by how embarrassing it is in the first place.
What people said
Love love ACAne-chan (the band's vocalist)
Toki Asako's pretty good
If it's gotta be Japanese, I'd go with Ishibashi Eiko
The album with the ocean cover art is in my all-time top 50
Aimer
Her album "Topaz" is a classic
Singer-songwriter shows always pull in a certain number of creepy old dudes
I like Fujisaki Aoba-chan
She's even got her own regular show on 60try-bu
Background and talking points
What stands out in this thread is the sheer range of genres among the names put forward. Everything from major overseas acts like Taylor Swift and Joni Mitchell, to Japanese singer-songwriters like Toki Asako, Omori Seiko, Ishibashi Eiko, and Nakamura Kaho, to names from the Hello! Project idol world all got thrown into the mix. Underlying this is the fact that the standard of “not embarrassing for a middle-aged guy to listen to” differs from person to person — and within the thread, that surfaced as pushback along the lines of “it’s lame to listen to something you don’t even like just because it’s not embarrassing,” which shifted the conversation away from the actual song picks and toward whether choosing music based on embarrassment makes sense at all. One thing readers could easily misread: none of the names mentioned were being endorsed as objectively “approved for middle-aged guys” — each one was simply a poster listing their own personal taste.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “Tell me some female artists a 40-something guy can listen to without embarrassment.”
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