There is a new online Japanese music store on the horizon. It’s called HearJapan and has a nifty torii/music note logo (see left). But that’s not all; it also has music I hear.

It’s a bit exclusive and very beta right now, but I’ve been given a coupon code for people to take a peak inside. (see below) Every song has a 30 second clip (some may be a little shorter) to preview and most songs are only 100 yen (about 90 cents US). Of course all descriptions and menus are in English.

Coupon Code: 9kk3m
http://www.hearjapan.com/login/register

You must use the above code and URL since HearJapan is still a (somewhat) closed beta.

The Pros:

• Everything is in English and accessible to the native English speaker no matter where you live (Hello iTunes Japan!)
• Extremely high quality MP3s
• No DRM which means you can play your MP3s on any device anywhere
• Japanese Search—in addition to searching in English, you can also find artists by their Japanese names
• 30 second samples streamed for free
• Latest artist, concert and album information in English

The obvious Con for now is the selection is quite modest, but HearJapan writes:

Over 80% of the artists and groups that HearJapan has already signed to the site are not on the site as of yet. From start to finish it is a long process for each artist, so please have patience. Many larger labels are also waiting for HearJapan to officially open before committing to anything. Currently we are in talks with dozens of labels. In order to bring the fans all of the music they desire, we decided to jump start the beta release to get more labels signed on faster. HearJapan is quite a revolutionary concept, so the most important thing now is to show the labels that there is demand for Japanese music outside of Japan. If you, the fans can do this we are confident that we can make you happy.

If you like JPop (no Enka yet—Come on Tendo Yoshimi!) try it out. I’ve found a few songs that are rather nice.

Coupon Code: 9kk3m
http://www.hearjapan.com/login/register