Ok, well there isn't a lot of great J-pop, but there is some to find. I'll give you a rundown here of some of my personal favorite Japanese Music.
Yui - Japanese pop/rock star. She's a rarity for J-pop stars in the fact that she's actually very talented. She's excellent at the guitar and writes most of her own music. My top recommendation.
Shakalabbits - J-punk/ska band. My students turned me on to this group. Very fun music.
Jin - Another J-punk band I was turned on to by my students, I haven't listened to them a lot yet but they're fairly similar to Shakalabbits, but a bit heavier.
M-flo - Japanese hip hop band which is IMO one of the best hip hop bands I've ever heard. Better then anything anywhere else in the world. These two guys are incredibly talented, and their music style varies so much it's amazing sometimes. Also they are 100% fluent in English and it's absolutely mindblowing to hear them switch back and forth between English/Japanese midsentences. And on top of that they even rhyme Japanese with English.
175r - J-pop/punk. Similar in style to US pop/punk music. Nothing deep, just some fun fluff with funny lyrics most of their time.
Asian Kung-Fu Generation - Their newer stuff is pretty poppy, but their older stuff is more punk. I highly recommend checking out some of their older stuff.
Eastern Youth - Not a very popular band in Japan, they're known but not huge. Great pure punk music. Their CD's have been released in the US.
The Pillows - Another band which has a small following in Japan but is quite good. You might be familiar with them as they did the music for FLCL. Often called the Japanese Pixies, which is about the best description for them.
go!go!7188 - J-rock/punk. Really really good stuff. I don't really have much to say to describe em... just that they're great.
GUITAR WOLF - nothing more needs to be said.
HY - Decent J-pop/rock band. Have a little bit of a reggae twist to some of their songs.
Remioromen - Similar to HY, J-pop/rock band. Have a few songs that are insanely famous over here, including Konayuki, which I've found to be a song that if you can sing it at Karaoke it 100% guarantees you will get laid.
The Blue Hearts - J-Punk. Really really good punk, along the lines of oldschool punk like the Ramones and Iggy Pop. They're the ones that originally did the song Linda Linda.
Mr. Children - The Japanese Rolling Stones, they've been around fucking forever. Decent J-rock.
Orange Range - J-rap/rock. Not too shabby, pretty damned popular as well.
And I think that covers most of my recommendations. Some I didn't write alot for but that doesn't mean they aren't really good, I just suck at writing about music.
As for buying Japanese CD's... you don't. The Japanese CD industry has a fucking stranglehold on the consumer here who doesn't perceive of anything being of value if it's not expensive. Due to that CD's usually start at around $20 and go up from there. Everyone I know just rents cds then copies them to their hard drive, almost no one actually buys that shit.
If you want any of the bands I mentioned I can upload them to the usual places.
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