This week Slate writer Paul Collins points out a somewhat hidden passage to Japanese music: by switching countries in a pull-down menu in iTunes, you can check out the world of Japanese pop. Much of it, he notes, is in English and much of it is excellent:

Like the British invaders of 40 years ago, the Japanese seem to care more about our music than we ourselves do.

The result? Japan's bands are by turns bracingly experimental and jubilantly retro, a land where our own greatest music returns with an alienated majesty.

Okay, wait a minute. Whose music? Unless "Paul Collins" is a pseudonym for Little Richard, I'm not sure how he gets off claiming ownership of rock-n-roll or any of its bastard offspring. Popular music has been a transnational phenomenon since its birth in the heyday of recorded music. Jazz was being played in Shanghai before Mr. Collins was born and the Japanese surf rock explosion was roughly concurrent with the British Invasion. In other words, rock is every bit as much "their" music as it is "ours."

Anyway, that objection aside, Collins is to be commended for turning more people on to Japanese music. The problem, he points out, is that Apple doesn't want you buying Japanese music from iTunes Japan--they'll block any purchases you try to make with your US credit card. He suggests a sneaky workaround involving fake foreign addresses and Japanese iTunes cards.

However, you can also do what I suggested a few weeks ago and try Japan Files, a hassle-free, DRM-free alternative to "jTunes."