I was misled by the Sakamichi Series and thought the 48 Group's songs were
similarly noisy and unpleasant. Recently, while watching old episodes of
"AKBINGO", I learned about the various groups within the 48 Group, each named
after a location: AKB represents Akihabara, Tokyo; SKE represents Sakae,
Nagoya; NMB represents Namba, Osaka; and HKT represents Hakata, Fukuoka,
among others. It's somewhat like professional baseball or basketball teams
that are each associated with a specific area. The biggest surprise for me
was discovering that early AKB songs are truly wonderful, capturing the
essence of J-Pop from the first decade of the 2000s. Even the first few songs
from SKE are great. Unfortunately, J-Pop has now completely deviated,
contaminated by K-Pop, leaving only noisy garbage behind.