My favorite enka songs are Ishikari Banka, Kita no Yado Kara and Amagi Goe (currently, anyway). Another nice song is Jinsei Iroiro, although I’m not sure it counts as enka.

Hirahara Ayaka is pretty good. I’m not so much a fan of her pop songs (although they’re nice) but she does really interesting vocal versions of classical pieces, such as The New World Symphony and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

I suppose in particular, my favorite stuff (particularly while studying) is more on the melodic, mellow side, and looking through my most listened bands, mostly bands which tend to bury vocals a few inches beneath instruments. (；´∀｀)

This can make comprehending lyrics difficult without some extra focus, but works well for me since, similar to what you mentioned, Liana, I tend to get super distracted by lyrics (clear ones especially) while writing or studying. So for me, that kind of stuff is great all around! I think some of my favorite examples would be sleepy.ab, wooderd chiarie, Cruyff in the Bedroom, plastic girl in closet… among many others.

On the more upbeat, easier-to-comprehend side of things, some of my favorites include Supercar, Fox Loco Phantom, Cold Kitchen (though most of their stuff isn’t nearly that heavy), The Predators (pretty much anything by them), androp… again, just to name a few, but when I get started on music recommendations, I can go on for EVER.

Also, some purely instrumental bands might be worth looking into! I’m of the opinion that an instrumental band or even English-lyrics Japanese band is a good thing, as it can potentially open the doors to other bands. Among my favorites are ROVO, sgt., toe (incidentally, this one has some buried vocals, but it’s too cool not to link!) and Mono. I guess it’s a thing to have a super short band name if you’re instrumental?

When I first discovered her I harassed the people around me until they had all given her a listen and fallen as deeply in love with her smoke and honey voice and mysterious smile as myself. Oh, and she sings amazingly too ;P

I really like Rin, they are all highly trained on classical Japanese instruments and use those in a blend of pop/rock and classic Japanese music that’s impossible to explain but amazing to listen to. While this video is instrumental: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo4-mmiNoKA most of their music DOES have lyrics, I just think this song captures the essence of their style best. And it kicks ass.

Beyond that, I really only listen to rap music, most of which is probably not too accessible to non-hip-hop-heads, but I think most people can appreciate Shing02 ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvArYx_wHPI )(And yes, that IS emi meyer singing backup vocals on that track, amazing u noticed). His album Waikyoku is probably the most accessible, both linguistically and musically, so I’d reccomend starting there.

But as you say doesn’t do a lot of good for recommendations!

Anyway, to toss out a couple names: Gomes the Hitman (I’m enjoying his album “Ripple” at the moment), 元ちとせ (“Hanadairo” I really like, her other albums not as much), 夏川りみ (“Kokoro no Uta”, highly recommended), anything by Rie fu (has quite a few English songs though), and Emi Meyer’s “Passport” album is a must.