Ongaku!

You know, between the music and the anime, hairstylists must be seen as Gods in Japan.

Kidding aside, I've been listening to J-Rock for a bit over a year now. In terms of fairly mainstream music its' actually pretty good. Probably because they found a way to take traditional rock'n'roll and make it uniquely their own. Of course, plenty of bands are cash-ins, just like anywhere else, but overall the music is enjoyable and interesting.

Of particular note is the Visual Kei genre, which has held my attention for quite some time. Visual Kei is I guess a subgroup? of J-Rock that deals with visual representation as well as music. In otherwords, the band members doll themselves up in interesting and unique ways. Though I'm a big fan of music coming first and substance over style, I do think that adding a sense of style ontop of good music does make a band more interesting and stand out more. The way I see it, if you focus on literally every aspect of the musical group you've formed, right down to the way you present yourself to the public, then it should reflect in your music. If you're only interested in looking cool and being in a band for the sake of being in a band, that too will reflect in your music. In the end, though, I think I'm a fan of Visual Kei to an extent.

Also worth noting is video-game music composers. Which may seem odd, I realize, but the video game industry in Japan, from what I've been led to believe by blogs such as Kotaku (who I regularly post about), is seen in a different light compared to the west. While Western cultures do have their fair share of talented musical composers (Frank Klepacki being one of my favorites), Japan knows how to take things and make them uniquely their own. Not only do you have classic video game music composers like Nobuo (wrote the famous "One-Winged Angel" of I believe FFVII and the soundtrack for Lord of Vermillion), but characters like Daisuke Ishiwatari (one of my all time favorite composers) or musicians like SSH (Saitama Saisyu Heiki) who take even the most simple of video game tunes like the mario song and turn it into an epic 500 beats-per-second in your face power metal onslaught.

And finally, there's anime music, which does deserve a pretty good mention. I do think in terms of television shows the Japanese have much, much better music than we do. As Omega posted before, the OSTs of some anime series' are even the highlights of a show, usually because the music is more experimental and interested. I myself am a big fan of Yuki Kajiura, who wrote the music for .hack//sign, Pandora Hearts, and plenty of other shows. And many anime have special tracks that are very well known for how brilliant and well done they are. "The Real Folk Blues" comes to mind as one of the best closing theme songs, if not one of the best written musical scores, of all time. The song was written by Yoko Kanno, who did great work in other animes, such as "Ghost In the Shell," "Visions of Escaflowne" (which I hope to see soon), and "Darker Than Black" (one of my all time favorite animes).

So here are just a few of my choice tracks of music brought to you from Japan. Feel free to poke around, the only real strong recommendation I'd give is that if you haven't heard "The Real Folk Blues," you've been missing out.

Visual Kei-

Deluhi: s[k]ape:goat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0n82kzJVb4

Deluhi is your more traditional Visual Kei band.

Matenrou Opera: Eternal Symphony

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIqz5zclvUw

Matenrou Opera happens to be one of my favorite Visual Kei bands. They're pretty heavily influenced by a lot of metal bands.

Malice Mizer: Illuminati

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAFSqBGmllE

WARNING: Not safe for work. If you want the most bizarre experience Japanese music has to offer, this is probably it. Plenty of nudity, very little of it arousing (though your mileage will vary).

Video Game Music-

Daisuke Ishiwatari: So many tracks...

Shout & Burning (classic heavy metal)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EqsVYH-B-E

Holy Orders III (though really, just pick any Holy Orders version and it will be awesome)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3Jredj3n7k

Lust SIN (much different song style)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8MJxlfC1k8

SSH: Mario Theme

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xx3mhFPi7o

The guy totally cranks it up to 11.

Nobuo: One-Winged Angel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftoV4CnOIls

Very classic theme, known by those who don't even play Final Fantasy (myself included)

Anime Music-

Yoko Kanno: The Real Folk Blues

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4quWmUJYQCU

One of the best written songs I've ever heard

Yoko Kanno: Sesshoku

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTldsgvmUt0

From Darker Than Black, good anime.

Yuki Kajiura: In the Land of Twilight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu8Rrt9bZ-A

From .hack//sign, a very good mystery play.

Yuki Kajiura: Bloody Rabbit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdYkB-DaQ7E

From "Pandora Hearts," previously reviewed by Omega and a bloody good track.

Yuki Kajiura: The Vision of Escaflowne and Dance of Curse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePIUm0iGSTI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1VFqsew26c

Two tracks from the critically-acclaimed and well-liked anime "The Vision of Escaflowne." Very different from her other work.

Yoshihiro: Ophelia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96mlKRgkWJ8

From Ergo Proxy, a show I never quite got to finish. Rather good.