Yoko Kanno

Yoko Kanno originates from Japan and is well known to those familiar with anime as the composer for the justly popular series Cowboy Bebop. Yoko Kanno and her band the Seatbelts (because they jam so hard) have composed countless songs of every genre. Usually ‘every genre’ means country AND western, or at worst, crappy imitations of classic songs, but this does not. Kanno is one of the few, perhaps the only one, who can perform creative songs in opera, bebop jazz, blues, and many other styles, all uniquely hers. She also is the main pianist for the group, and it has been speculated that she is, secretly, one of her featured singers.

Aside from her fabulous composing skills, she also is a talented linguist. She is fluent in Japanese (duh), English, French, and Russian. Not only is she fluent in all these languages, she writes songs in these languages. She has a particularly special ability to select words in the various languages to form an emotive language that sounds beautiful and can be translated from these various languages.

There are so many different songs I want to recommend listening to, so I will try to limit myself. I would listen to Voices, Rain, Tank!, Inner Universe, Blue, and Green Bird. It is very rare to find someone this talented who is not pretentious or money grabbing, but this artist truly deserves you money.