Selective Hearing began as a short series of articles in 2006. The music covered at the time was primarily North American Pop and Urban music. Those articles were snarky and rather non-informative shots at the new or popular music within those genres. In late 2006 the focus of music coverage shifted to Japanese Pop with an emphasis on the Hello! Project.
During that transition period the articles became longer and much more informative. Eventually they were broken off into their own mini-blog which resulted in Selective Hearing joining the International Wota network. By February of 2007 there was enough content to create the stand-alone Selective Hearing web site that you are currently viewing.
In April of 2009 content was expanded from album, single and DVD reviews and started to include coverage of concert events, starting with the first North American performance of Hangry and Angry at Sakura-con in Seattle. Through that an affiliation with JPH!P was formed, which lead to the beginning of Selective Hearing Radio. In July of that same year, Selective Hearing was also present at Morning Musume’s first mainland North American performance at Anime Expo in Los Angeles.
Since then Selective Hearing has also covered:
- The Las Vegas stop of the Utada In The Flesh 2010 Tour
- The Vancouver stop of the Wonder Girls 2010 World Tour
- SMTown 2010 in Los Angeles
- Berryz Koubou at Sakura-con 2011
- Scandal at AM2 2011
Also in 2009 coverage expanded beyond Japanese pop into South Korean pop. The emphasis for this site is mainly on the female and male vocal groups with a secondary focus on solo artists and trends within the industry.
Selective Hearing also serves as the host for the monthly series of DJ mixes known as G’s House Sessions and original remix productions of popular songs. Both areas also started as mini-blogs elsewhere and were later merged with Selective Hearing to be used as supplementary content.
The sound of G’s House Sessions sits firmly within Vocal House territory with a strong preference for the Soulful, Deep and Funky tracks. All mixes come complete with track listings and either a direct download or podcast link for you to choose from.
The sound of the remix productions can vary but about 90% of them fit within the House or Pop/Dance genre. Download links may not be available for some songs due to contract restrictions, in which case a play only version is provided.
The goal of Selective Hearing has always been to provide a deeper understanding of music that may be misunderstood by the general public. Every article will attempt to help break down the stereotypical view of Japanese Pop as hyper and full of squeaky vocals, Korean Pop as copycats of their American counterparts, Urban music not being as good as it was back in the day or House music being nothing more than repetitive 4 on the floor with little or no musical substance.
Hopefully you will find what you read here to be of value to you in some way.
If you are interested in purchasing the music covered here there are many resources provided for you to do so in a legal way that helps support the artists that create the songs that you love.
Thank you for visiting Selective Hearing, enjoy your stay.
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