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#IHEARTJROCK Best of 2023

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Welcome back to another 3 hour #IHEARTJROCK!! This was recorded live in the Valley Free Radio studios on Saturday 12/30 at 10PM EST. This recording has removed local psa and underwriting

This night we celebrated the year of 2023. There was a lot of great music we played on #iheartjrock this year. We have a countdown of the most 20 songs played this year. That will appear in hour 2 and 3. The first hour is dedicated to SixTONES / West. / King & Prince and Arashi. These fans are so kind to us. DJ Sakura666 played her most favorites from each band. Playlist is below.

We start with #SixTONES ! They are DJ Sakura666 sunshine. She listens and watches their videos at the gym. They are a lot of fun and very silly. Thank you very much for always sending their merchandise. DJ Sakura666 is definitely the biggest #SixTONES fan in USA. The above photos are of #SixTONES latest album The Vibes. They also appeared a few times in newspapers and on the First Take, which is huge on Youtube. 

SixTONES ABARERO
Jesse – Never Ending Love
SixTONES – We can’t go back

West. who renamed in 2023 are another upcoming band from Japan DJ Sakura666 really enjoys. The music they have is a bit more rock and roll. We received a lot of West. music this year. We were exposed more to their style with weekly Youtube updates and social media posts. Fans also exclaim their admiration in the request page! These 3 are total bangers from West. in 2023!
WEST.- 絶体絶命
WEST. – Boyfriend
WEST. – Power

King & Prince went through a lot in 2023; they lost 3 of their members. But they carried on. And they are doing great! The other members are also doing great; but King & Prince are still putting out great sounds in 2023. Ren and Kaito work real hard and put out a lot of new music and also perform live. DJ Sakura666 favorites King & Prince tracks in 2023

King & Prince – Magic Word
King & Prince – Chase it Down
King & Prince – Magic Touch

Arashi went into hiatus at the 12/31/19. Members of the band, moved on and got married and enjoyed the family life. Other members host variety shows, other members are in the movies, others on nightly dramas. This is a great band and fans love them and miss them dearly. Each year we celebrate birthdays and have been playing them for years now.

Arashi – IN THE SUMMER
Arashi – Party Starters
Arashi – Yes? No?

Kinki Kids シュレーディンガー New Single from Kinki Kids  

The following countdown is for all the songs played in 2023 on #iheartjrock. Results are from all the playlists on DJSAKURA666’s Spinitron page. Valley Free Radio helps support artists from everywhere!

Countdown starts!
20. ARLEQUIN – PICTURES *jrock #vk
19. Arashi – Whenever You Call #jpop
18. SixTONES – Boom-Pow-Wow! #jpop
17. RIKU (THE RAMPAGE) – Stand By You #jpop

We took a great in the middle of the countdown to memorialize lead singer of Buck Tick who passed away in Sept 2023. Atsushi Sakurai 櫻井 敦司 Iheartjrock.com has a memorial page for the artist. Please visit and leave a comment, link below opens to a new page.

iheartjrock.com/acchanforever

BUCK-TICK – Scarecrow

Back to the countdown
16 Oblivion Dust – Satellite *jrock *jpop
15 Oblivion Dust – Lust & Graffiti *jrock *jpop
14 Makoto Yumikura – Cherry *jpop
13 kINKI Kids – Amazing Love *jpop
12 BE:FIRST – Smile Again *jpop
11 SixTONES – CREAK *jpop
10 kINKI Kids – 夏の王様 *jpop
9 Hyde – SEASON’S CALL *jrock
8 BE:FIRST – Boom Boom Back *jpop
7 Travis Japan – Candy Kiss *jpop
6 Tomohisa Yamashita – Forever in My Heart *jpop
5 TOMOHISA YAMASHITA – I See You *jpop
4 King & Prince – ツキヨミ *jpop
3 ENDRECHERI MYND *jpop
2 Tomohisa Yamashita – Beautiful World *jpop
1 Tomohisa Yamashita Sweet Vision *jpop

Our favorite artist in 2023 seems to be Tomohisa Yamashita! We played his songs every week we were in the studios in 2023. He had a great and amazing year. DJ Sakura666 did receive all copies of his release, thanks Sweeties! Sadly we did not see his live performance

Thanks for tuning into #IHEARTJROCK in 2023. We will continue in 2024!

Also during the countdown, DJ Sakura666 read off the results to the BEST of 2023 which fans could vote on back in December. Can’t seem to find a way to put it on the page, but we will give a quick run down and also leave a link to the results.

Bands you listened to MOST in 2023

1. BEFIRST
2. SixTONES
3. Travis Japan
4. Arashi
5. The Rampage

Kinki, King&Prince, Niziu, Jo1, WEST. , Mrs Green Apple, King Gnu

Solo Artist

1. Tomo
2. Tsuyoshi
3. Endrecheri
4. Nissy

吉田広大 , RIKU , milet, Yaosobi and a whole lot of other artists I have never heard of but plan on playing them in 2024

Favorite Song

1. Mainstream
2. Candy Kiss
3. TIE!!! Sweet Vision / Creak 

Jrock/VK

1. Hyde by far!
2. Dir En Grey
3. Fukuro
4. Sukekiyo
5. Acme

a lot of なし( Na shi) and No and None

Films

1. Suzme
2. City Hunter
3. Blue Giant
4. Super Mario Brothers Movie

Anime

1. One Piece
2. Jujutsu Kaisen
3. Demon Slayer
4. What will you do Ieyasu
5. Attack on Titan

mentions Blue eye samurai and “なし Na shi

Regular dramas/action movies

1. High & Low The Rampage movie, it’s up on Netflix
2. See Hear Love
3. The FIrst Slam Dunk
4. Kyrie
5. Tokyo Mer
6. GMEN

Video Games

1. Super Mario Wonder
2. FInal Fantasy XVI
3. Spiderman 2

and again there were a lot of no answers which was ok!

Lastly
Iheartjrock beat SakuraUnderground, but not by very much.
I was just thankful there was no “i don’t like either” or “they suck”

Thanks for the feedback as well, I would like thank everyone for their time and support. I hope to have another great year in 2024.

We can’t seem to link the page, so we are going to post screen shots of the poll. Thanks for all that filled it out. It was so much fun! I don’t think it works very well. There were songs with 0% which we voted for everything. Click the screen shot to get a bigger image.

One last thing! The Best of 2023 playlist ! It’s only 2 hours but it’s filled with all our favorites, your favorites . Everything from Japan!