Do you listen to Japanese or Western music more?
Which one do you like more?
Those who listen to Japanese music, who would you say is more known in the West?
If you've been to any Japanese concerts, how are they different from concerts of Western musicians?
It might be good to say your nationality so people know what point of view you are coming from. (You are Japanese?)
The only Japanese music I recall getting any airplay in my region (central Canada) is Puffy AmiYumi (PUFFY).
Japanese music I have in my collection is of Nobou Uematsu.
In USA and Canada we tend to only listen to English language music because of isolation from other languages and cultures.
Some concerts from various countries can be viewed online if one searches. Someone else would be better at suggesting musical acts.
I am American-Asian. So I suppose I can see things from both ends .__.
What's the difference in modern music really? Traditional music I understand, but the only difference I see in modern music is the language and local flavor. Is there any modern music genre that has roots in Asia? Rock, jazz, techno, hiphop etc. all have occidental roots (unless you wanna look as deep as Africa).
Just about all popular music today is technically "western music" ie: American music. But since its influences are so diverse and frequently "non-western", I guess you just have to call it "generic world popular music"
You don't have to look "deep" into West-African music to see its influences in American pop; it practically saturates it, but it's not its only ingredient.
I used to like Western music more, but since last December, I've been into a lot of Japanese-pop music. But I wouldn't really know which artists are popular in the western part of the world
I avoid most American music because it tends to have horribly shallow lyrics.
Of course, the reason why music in other languages probably appeals to me is because I don't understand the lyrics at all, but even in translation they seem to less often be about cliche subjects like boyfriends and self-hatred.
Blues and punk rock came from the West, so Western music has my vote.
I only listen to animu soundtracks because I'm a horrible, horrible weeaboo.
Japanese popular music, in my opinion, is nothing but bad imitations of American popular music (which is bad enough as it is). The only good "truly Japanese" popular music I can think of would be the Yoshida Brothers. But they're only good because they fuse their traditional Japanese music with modern WESTERN musical styles.
So it's a wash, I guess.
Western music, no contest.
Sometimes I feel like a lot of Jap music post 80s is more unique and impressive than Western equivalents - probably just cause I'm a big weeaboo, but they do have a way of coming up with new spins on something. Like Japanese new wave I sometimes feel like the songs are more energetic, well written, melodic than over here, or with VK I feel it's better than the scene/emo bollocks going on today or your typical poncy hair/glam metal. Even the really mainstream pop I feel is better than American pop - sugar high techno driven, anime style pop music probably grates on a lot of people's patience, but I like it and have no shame. Don't care if that makes me gay. Also, like the guy above said, Japanese-influenced Western music is normally a good idea. Never heard Yoshida Brothers though (sounds like I'd like them), but a lot of J-pop and artists like Ryuichi Sakamoto and YMO have Japanese melodic scale.
Still the fact remains that these people are aping Western sounds and that ultimately, without Western music Japan would still be playing shamisens and shit. Well that's daft but you know what I mean. They're better at taking certain genres we've done and going at it with more enthusiasm.
Honestly, I don't care. Why do a vs. thing? It's like Rock vs Electro. I think it's stupid, no offense hey?
There are multiple reasons to this; first, as someone already said in this thread, because of the cultural mixing, you can't really tell influences, even if different cultures will play the same genre differently because of said mixing.
I can say that for instance I love japanese punk rock. They have a tendancy to either go for more raw power (Guitar Wolf amongst others) or really groovy basslines and melodies (B-DASH and Mongol800, amongst others).
They seem to have a gift in sugary happy hardcore, too, and in low-tech music. Well that one is quite normal, given Japan is the land of the NES after all...
I listen to J-Rock and J-pop but when it comes to electronic stuff france is my man ;)
I don't know any electro artists from japan, maybe thats why.
help me out? :P
http://www.artskool.biz/jem Great site about old and new Japanese electronic music.
Japanese music will never be very popular in America because most Americans listen to music for the words...and often have rather strict opinions on what makes good music, sometimes excluding musicality itself. The bulk of Americans aren't musically educated and indignantly resist any attempt to make them so. And if they can't understand the words or the music, how can you blame them for not wanting to listen?
i prefer japanese style hip-hop (ex/ nujabes) compared to the more machismo-esque hip-hop/rap of western culture. It might be just because of the artist and my limited exposure to japanese hip-hop, but it feels much more relaxed and feminine(and much more in-common with jazz)than western-style hip-hop. I also tend to prefer japanese jazz over western jazz. When I listen to coltrane or benny goodman compared to yoko kanno's jazz band and the hiroshimas, it is much more mellow i believe
but then again, i really hate japanese rock
>>16
Japanese hip-hop is often closer to trip-hop, free jazz, and whatever, and also often has highly lyrical/poetic value. That's why it's great; but they also do have blingbling 'artists' that suck.
I disagree on the jazz though; they are different, but both have great musical 'value'.
Jrock, Jpop, and Jurban. NOTHING ELSE. Don't taint my ears with western...bleh
Japanese rap musician got their soul stucked in 90's hiphop era, and thats why its cool, oldskool leads !
The only Japanese bands/musicians I listen to are Merzbow, boris, susumu hirasawa and akira yamaoka.
>>21
No Masonna?
I listen to 403 and their songs are great except for the singing, it's very monotone. Only thing Japanese I really like it just their techno.
What about all of the amazing people from Europe? :/
IMO, they are way better than anyone from Japan.. but that's just my opinion.
Like I said, let Led Zeppelin force them to come to the dark side with the Beatles, Eric Clapton, and UK Subs. xDDDD
I used to listen to all sorts of Western music.. then 10 years ago I found Japanese, and I can't look back. Now, I love all sorts of J-music and now I think English lyrics don't fit well with music for some reason. I think it always sounds "off". Am I the only one who thinks this? And I really hate the repetitive sex and club lyrics and repetitive beats of Western pop, while I can stand repetitive "ganbare, go for your dreams" lyrics that come with Japanese pop. Huge cultural difference for sure..
I'm an Amerikkkan. I listen to a lot of music from all over the world, Japan included.
I'm a big fan of so-called "New Rock", which was the result of American psychedelic rock influence in Japan, characterized by bands like The Mops and Flower Travellin' Band. It really does seem to me to be uniquely Japanese in character; it reflects the situation of Japan in the late 60s/early 70s, and a lot of it draws from classical Japanese music. At the same time, the influence of American hard rock bands like Deep Purple is very clear.
It's hard to really say what I "like more", but I do count FTB as one of my favorite bands of all time.
I've seen a couple of Japanese groups in concert - ALI Project, Polysics, SCANDAL. It seems to me a lot of Japanese bands have a keen sense of showmanship which is lacking for a lot of American bands. I didn't know anything about SCANDAL when I first saw them (it was a double header concert with ALI Project which was what I was mainly interested in), but I became an instant fan after seeing them - it's so rare to see the sort of stage presence they had nowadays.
I listen to some Jpop and the rest is western music. As much as I like Jpop and think some of those shit sounds cool, I don't really like the fact that I don't understand what they are singing and I always have to look up translations, if I want to understand.
But what I hate the most is when these kids and teens tell me that somehow Jpop is just "sooooooooo much" better than their western counterpart, and give me reasons for them. eg "Ayumi hamasaki is just sooo amazing she writes her own amazing lyrics!" but they don't understand that... it's the same thing! it's only in Japanese! That irritates me the most.
I listen to pretty much only Japanese music. America, to me, has put out almost nothing but crap since I can even remember. Not to say there isn't some good American music, but I've listened to it so much I'm bored with it, so I turn to another country. Plus, Japanese music (J-Rock in particular) as much as I've heard almost always has amazing, beautiful lyrics, whereas every song here nowadays is about lovelovelove, hating yourself, breakups, lovelovelove, not caring about what anyone says about the person you're in love with. Honestly, I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR FREAKING RELATIONSHIPS. SHUT. UP. Oh, and let's not forget rap lyrics: sex, sex, sex, sex, drugs, drugs, cars, money, money, degrading women and various other people, etc. Just my opinion.
Looks like you've never heard Jurassic 5. Fuck all that mainstream shit you hear these days.
I only really listen to electronic music and it seems to me that Japan is just not very good at producing any serious house, techno, etc music. Everything that I hear from over there sounds like Euro Dance. Except Satoshi Tomiie, he's awesome.
>>29
Find some decent rap. I mean really. Check out Bliss N Eso, Lupe Fiasco, any of that stuff.
And I can think of a whole lot of western music with beautiful lyrics... Check out Under A Godless Sky by Rose Funeral.
Jazz, Rock, RnB, Blues, etc
These genres owe a lot to the West
I'm not that well acquainted with Japanese music though, besides obvious stuff like Sigh, Boredoms, Boris, etc
I don't listen to much Japanese music... only the Sex Machineguns and occasionally Onmyou-za... otherwise, I haven't found any good metal bands hailing from Japan, and thus my interests are drawn elsewhere.
>>34
Pretty much every genre of modern music was invented in the west. Japanese people just do their best to impersonate whatever comes out of Western Europe and America.
>>36
And they are very creative at that. Can't take that away from them.
Aye, that they are. Downright amazing sometimes.
Susumu Hirasawa is awesome, although I probably prefer P-Model to his solo career. "Sekai Turbine" though, what a song.
I was never able to get into FTB, but that album they did with Kuni Kawachi was great. Their singer sounds like bleeding Axel Rose though! A lot of those older 70s bands don't grab me - they sound too much like typical record collector / music-fan prog from any country. The main one I could never figure out was J.A Caesar - naff pretentious cult chant bonehead rock. He gets compared to Magma sometimes, but I like Magma...
That said, I like some Jacks, Hiro Yanagida, Happy End, Takeshi Terauchi, RC Succession, Hosono/Sakamoto/YMO, Sadistic Mika Band, Tomita etc. Speed Glue and Shinki are good too, I can't think of any 70s hard / blues rock bands that sound quite like them... there probably are, but I can't think of them. What would you say is good stuff with that Deep Purple and/or Japanese melodic influence?
Cmon, lets be honest, we all love Japanese culture here but is there really any genre of music which Japan can beat the west in? I honestly dont think so, im sorry.
America has a huge amount of shit pop music, and a small amount of some very creative stuff when you do a little digging (I'm not including all the legends, simply talking about 2008). Japan on the other hand has some pretty god-awful music too, but the ratio of shit:creative is a lot smaller.
I listen to both equally. As a long time musician, I can't say to myself or anyone else that I hate a type of music, I have to come to at least acknowledge it exist and there are some who like it. I listen to mainly rock/metal, mostly metal, but I do listen to Japanese music, that's like my secret type of music. I also listen to Jazz, classical, and the blues, and funk. I listen to almost anything.