I love a lot of Japanese music. Anyone who has gotten a look at my iPod knows that Japanese rock and Pop music makes about 60% of the music that I listen to. I have albums from bands like Asian Kung-Fu Generation, L'Arc~en~Ciel, the Beat Crusaders, and The Pillows, as well as various other songs that were used as openings and closings for different anime. This week I am going to start looking at my favorite Japanese rock songs.
The Band: I think that one of my favorite bands from Japan are the Beat Crusaders. Their music borders on the techno pop, but is heavily influenced by hard rock. Their songs are fast paced, and incorporate synth/keyboard in all of their songs. I think what first caught my attention with them was the first time I saw one of their music videos and they were wearing masks of their own faces printed using a dot-matrix printer. As I later found out, they wear these masks during their shows, and when they take them off, their faces are either blurred out, or they are digitally covered by their masks. The first song that I heard from them was Tonight, Tonight, Tonight which was used as one of the openings to the anime Bleach. Their music also heavily influenced (and was used in full) the music of another anime, Beck Mongolian Chop Squad. Recently I have discovered that they broke up last year.
The Song: This week I have chosen one of my favorite songs to listen to; the Beat Crusaders' Isolations off of their album P.O.A.~Pop On Arrival. I saw a youtube clip of them performing this song live and I couldn't get it out of my head. The concert I saw was the Rock In Japan Festival, 2005. They opened with the song, using the song's strong drum beat to get the crowd going. The concert footage has since been removed from youtube because it is almost impossible to post any music by the Beat Crusaders. The song itself is quite simple, but it's fast paced and there's a lot of energy. The drum beat is strong and fast with a a simple guitar riff being played over it. My favorite part about the song is the short synth/keyboard solo. The song is the second on the album P.O.A. right after a song called ~NAMPLA~ which acts as a soft intro to the album going right into Isolations which pretty much sets the pace for the rest of the album.
I don't listen to your type of music however i might check it out to see if i like it. Maybe i can use a change in music. Japan music sounds interesting and wouldn't mind seeing what it actually sounds like.
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