Into the haystack

Japanese rock music is a massive genre. The best way to describe how giant it is would be with scientific classification, I'll actually try to do that..

Kingdom:	Audio
Phylum:	Music
Class:	Japanese
Order:	Rock
Family:	Visual Kei
Genus:	Nagoya Kei
Species:	Lynch.

That's about how complex it is, there are so many subtypes of Japanese music (music in general even) that it could easily make one's head explode. Now I don't presume to know all of them or all of the bands, and this is really my point.

I basically cut ties with music from all other countries, save for very select bands/songs, because it was just way too much to keep track of. I hope at some point to be one of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to Japanese rock, but there are so many bands that intersect with the Rock (order) lol.

Now I started out listening to bands from Visual Kei; Glay, L'arc~en~Ciel, X-Japan, Malice Mizer.. even in that small selection there is a huge amount of explanation required to understand the structure of visual kei. For example all 4 bands started out as visual kei, however X-Japan is also a heavy metal band and Malice Mizer is kind of gothic.. Both Glay and L'arc~en~Ciel have become pop/rock and have lost the Visual kei aspect to their music, but L'arc~en~Ciel when they were a relatively new band started a trend of dressing in white and coining the term "shiro-kei" which bands still use today. On a completely different note, there are many bands that can just be considered Japanese rock without being Visual Kei or being associated with it, Mr. Children and B'z are two that come to mind immediately. Although I'm not sure when they became active.

Honestly I can't listen to every new band that comes out, I just don't care enough and most of it is pretty terrible. But I do follow the trends and pay attention to bands that become major in the rock scene. For the most part I follow specific bands, bands that those bands play with and bands made of former members from bands I enjoyed, that has been the best way for me to find more music that I enjoy.

Anyway, I'd really like to discuss more of this and upload some new music for you guys at a later time. Again, I'll apologize for not updating regularly, I just haven't cared much about the stuff that's been released recently ;p

Talk to you soon internets, keep reading.