Friday Night Jukebox: Japan Edition

I figured the readership might enjoy a sampling of Japanese music in the spirit of Rufus’s enlightening seminar on music France. Here is X-Japan, commonly referred to as “X”. X’s music is one quarter metal, one quarter punk, one quarter Ziggy Stardust, one quarter Japan-as-number-one, Rising Sun, world-takeover, 1980s bubble-machismo; one quarter pure awesome, guy:

Another X for good measure – from the band’s last concert:

I love X-Japan. Nothing compares to being surrounded by blinding neon at 3:30 in the morning with an X concert DVD on three big-screen televisions that no one is trying to steal; no liquor laws, no cops, and bustling, friendly streets at a freezing cold outside bar with no chairs (but plenty of hot sake) (emphasis Japan-as-number-one, Rising Sun, world-takeover, 1980s bubble-machismo). Just neuralizing its awesomeness makes me want to stay up all night hoping America adopts a robust social safety net to prevent petty crime and destituteness plus total lack of restrictions whatsoever for starting a new business.

God bless freedom, and God bless Japan!

The Yoshida Brothers play the Shamisen, a traditional Japanese instrument, although the brothers experiment wildly:

This is Ikimono Gakari’s “Yell”. I remember hearing this song blasting from the speakers in minus-twenty-five-degree frigid winds at a ski resort in Hokkaido. The irresistible crack-rock that is mainstream Jpop reaches its hands into the pockets of even the most remote and inaccessible locales:

EXILE is a Japanese boy band that makes the Backstreet Boys look like George Clinton. Around 2008 or so, Japanese music producers decided like four or five dudes wasn’t enough and that it needed to be like eighty dudes so the kids could collect trading cards. All the other bands copied this, so now every music boy-group in Japan has like fifty dude-members:

Indeed, we’ve come a long way since X.