OFFICIAL HIGE DANDISM

Tokyo-based quartet OFFICIAL HIGE DANDISM (Satoshi Fujihara, Masaki Matsuura, Makoto Narazaki and Daisuke Ozasa) blew up via guitar-centric songs that bridge the gap between J-pop and rock. They made their major-label debut in 2018 and were one of Apple Music Japan’s most-played artists from 2019 to 2021—one of the first streaming success stories in a market that was relatively late to the game, paving the way for other artists to follow. 2021’s Editorial features HIGEDAN experimenting with more electronic elements: “I think that messing up and trying again is part of the fun of making music,” vocalist/keyboardist Satoshi Fujihara told Apple Music. “We make lots of mistakes before finally coming up with our ideal vision. It’s a time-consuming process. That’s also exactly the reason why doing it holds a lot of meaning for me and I’ll always be crazy about making music.” In 2021, the band won the Apple Music Award for Artist of the Year — Japan.