Update and J-Music

Above is "Last Song", a nice slower song from my favorite Japanese artist, Gackt.

Hello all, I know it's been quite a long time since my last update; I've been very busy with school. I've been doing English 1A, History 17, PHP programming, and an Internet class. This post is actually, in part, for the internet class, as part of what the instructor wants the class to do. My semester will be ending relatively soon, so I will most definitely take advantage of that and post quite a bit more.

Anyway, this post, along with another few posts will cover J-Music (J-Music stands for "Japanese-Music" for those of you who might not know). They will also, all have youtube video links. It will be a little bit each day since I don't have the time to sit down and compile large posts just yet. I hope these posts can expose J-Music to Western culture a bit more, maybe help break down some of the ideas that people hold about Japan, for instance, the idea that Japan is entirely traditional and doesn't have modern music and styles. I've heard that one out of many people before. ^^;


First, I'll start off with some J-Rock. There are many artists that are known quite well in America already, but there are many more which have almost no fan basis in America. I'll include a bit of both.

Another moderately slow song from Gackt, who, while being classified as mainly J-Rock, kind of isn't. He has rockish sounding songs, but many of his songs are actually slower. Another interesting thing to note, J-Rock could be metal, screamo, slower rock, just about anything that falls under rock, and is by a Japanese band. As such, some harder rock will be coming after Gackt. ^^

"Rain" by Gackt.


By the way, I've been trying to take some good figure photos for reviews, but I just can't seem to get good ones with a point and shoot camera, so I'll hopefully be getting a DSLR soon. *Crosses fingers for Christmas* xD

This is the last one I'll post from Gackt, and is also a faster song, more of what you might expect to hear when you think of "J-Rock". For those who may be interested, there are many sources of information about Japanese artists on the internet (along with artists of every other nationality), so I will post a link to some wikipedia information for each of them.

"Returner (Yami no Shuuen)" by Gackt.


Now for some harder rock. It might be a good idea for me to tell you all a bit about "Visual Kei" (lit. Visual Style in english.) Some people like this style, other hate it, but quite a lot of the harder J-Rock comes from bands that are Visual Kei (which can also be shortened to "Visu", something that I will be doing from now on.) One of the things that many people hate about Visu is the fact that many of the members in different bands look at least slightly androgynous. If people don't like this then that's fine, but there is no reason to judge how good a band is based upon their looks, even though Visu is based upon looks. xD

Here is a couple of videos from what is probably one of the most well known Visu bands, especially in America, Dir en Grey. They have had many different looks and styles of music over the years, but that helps to make them quite a versatile band.

Let me warn you now, Dir en grey does have screamo sounding songs, and some of the videos I link may not be entirely appropriate for younger audiences. :p

"Saku" by Dir en grey


Die en grey is actually a band that's been around for a while, they has their classic Visu days:

"Akuro no Oka" by Dir en grey


And, finally, my favorite song and music video by Dir en grey. This video is, to say the least, very crazy, most definitely not appropriate in many workplaces, and may be hated by many people. But I love it. ^^

"Obscure" by Dir an grey


Two or three more artists left for this post. Next will be a group called Maximum the Hormone, definitely among my favorites.

This first song is the second opening song for the anime "Death Note".

What's Up People! by Maximum the Hormone.


One of my favorite songs.

"Koi no Mega Lover" by Maximum the Hormone


I'll just post one up from this next band, the GazettE. I am only going to post one up for two reasons, one, it's their best song, and two, it's the only song of theirs that immediately comes to mind as one of my favorites. Not that their other songs are no good, they actually have many good songs, but none are nearly as good as this one, at least in my opinion.



Since I'm now running a bit short on time, this will be the last band for this post, more to come later. UVERworld, a band that might be known in America due to the use of one fo their songs in the anime "Bleach". That song is this next one.

"D-Technolife" by UVERworld.


UVERworld is a bit more of a softer rock band, not so metal sounding, but I love all types of music, hopefully everyone else might take this sort of point of view too. ^^

"Chance!" by UVERworld.


Last song of this post, it's a moderately slower song by UVERworld, nice to listen to. :p

"Kimi no Suki na uta" by UVERworld.


Well, I hope everyone enjoyed this post, and maybe became interested in some new bands, there are many more to come, and my posts will never be meant to be comprehensive, as there are so very many different bands out there.