Of rock music from japan in recent years.

Ok – I’m going to keep it fairly short on this one would an “IBID” or “See recent posts” do for this?

If not let me summarize it –  Opinions vary, and when you are doing musical research and you are unsure of classifications or even how to put something in a box; things can become very hard.  Mind you, that my academic and personal opinion stands on the fact that if you need to put music in a box to categorize it, then don’t.  David Bowie isn’t classified as glam rock anymore;  I don’t beleive there is ever such a thing as a category for music.  Rock is just another term, another box to place these things in.

Can you classify something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/v/QOb0yNGW2k8

Gackt is considered Pop, yet his music is crossing genres and multi cultural boundaries by each and every album he creates.  From songs like Vanilla which are a cookie cutter Pop aspect, to Lust for Blood; a vampire esque song filled with emotion. (Mind you, we have yet to prove if Gackt is or isn’t a vampire.  It was only recently he officially released his real age.)

In pages 127-143 in Refashioning Pop Music in Asia, Carolyn S Stevens delves into the motive in a Japanese Rock Video; the aesthetic of pushing boundaries.  Alfee being the respective band, and a load of Christian Rock Imagery being the subject of debate. This is something Gackt’s previous band Malice Mizer was largely into doing, but in a more Classical Gothic, Lacuna Coil meets Nightwish sort of way.

(However, that was larger in appearance in the Klaha Era of Beast of Blood, Gensou Rakuen and other titles; Gackt was around during the late Memoire (post-Tetsu) and Voyage, Mervilles L’espace Era.)

For reference here is the “Love Never Dies” PV mentioned in the Section of the book previously stated above.

http://www.youtube.com/v/9aFj3BnVHGQ

This only further proves it is MUCH harder to classify music when you’re unsure of what the music is in the first place (I’ve never personally heard of Alfee until now.).  So in reference to earlier statements about how X-japan was wrongly classified as DEATH METAL, i will again complain they are still not speed metal, nor really metal at all.

Maybe a mix of Japanese Visual Kei will show the western world, you can’t really box Visual Kei into anything but “VISUAL KEI” – Even after they’ve gone mainstream.