The following is an overview of the year 2008 in Japanese music. It includes notable awards, lists of number-ones, yearly best-sellers, albums released, groups established and disestablished, deaths of notable Japanese music-related people as well as any other relevant Japanese music-related events. For overviews of the year in music from other countries, see 2008 in music.
The best-selling music artist in Japan in 2008 by value of sales, including sales of records and of DVDs and Blu-rays, according to Oricon, was Exile, with ¥19.58 billion.[1]
The following section includes albums by Japanese artists released in Japan in 2008 as well as Japanese-language albums by foreign artists released in the country during this year.