808 State / Ninety
Maybe some guys wonder what a bizarre taste I have, for in this section I pick up sometimes death metal, sometimes electronica, sometimes classical. Though I can understand your embarassment, for the generation I belong to this kind of musical taste is not unusual.
Since I was invited to rock music by YMO, I always enjoyed listening to electronica and techno. However, for me the techno music after the techno revival in the early nineties was just boring, for it is too monotonous and without complexity. For instance once I went to a club in Toronto to see Mr. Ken ISHII (though he calcelled the show and didn't appeared), there I got nothing but too much loud and so boring a DJ play by another guy instead of Mr. ISHII. It was unforgettable nightmare.
So, unless I get some chance meeting, I don't want to listen to techno artists except a few artists like Orbital, Shamen and 808 State, for their works have changes, contrasts and complexities appealing to me.
Kneuklid Romance /
Lastier /
Luca /
Rouage /
Nowadays pop music is well disposable in Japan. Almost everyday so many CDs are released, which make kids crazy so as to go to store to get them, then once downtracked to MD or MP3 formats they are disposed to an used CD store and sold by incredibly cheep price. Actually I got these 10 CD singles altogether by ´50, cheeper than a cup of coke.
However, I had to be astonished again by the lack of originality of these works. These bands all belong to so called visual movement, and they all play typical visual movement things, say, over-emotional vocals with too much melodramatic melodies and lyrics, too easy abuse of keyboards while all bands have no keyboard player, and a lot of borrowing ("pakuri"). However well they play their instruments (actually these guys plays quite well), their songs destroy everything with their talentlessness in composition.
I cannot understand why such distasteful songs can fascinate so many young girls.
Black Sabbath / Reunion
Anyway it's quite difficult to be always consistent.
As you know well, I'm a big Blaze Bailey fan and still refuse to call Blaze Maiden a dark era, although I'm never reluctant to admit he was a kind of tone-deaf at least in some period.
However, always an worse has another much worse one. That is, I can't endure Ozzy's vocal in this album at all. He cannot keep the pitch and vocal lines so that it's a torture for me.
Of course I'm happy to admit he has his peculiar style and taste. So far so good. Nevertheless it's true as well that he is another tone-deaf. However quite many peoples blame Blaze as tone-deaf, but no-one blames Ozzy. I cannot understand why so many peoples including critics can commit inconsistency like this.
I know everyone has one's taste, so however inconsistent one may be as far as one's taste it makes no problem. However as for critics, should they be more cautious their opinions and positions?
Rush / Presto
Despite many people being crazy about categorizing everything always there are some bands or musicians never to be categorized.
Although recently some new bands become famous in Japan, say, Cryptopsy, Kittie and so on, in Japan the most famous Canadian rock band is still Rush, while they do virtually nothing these days due to too sad accidents.
As for Rush there is another funny thing. That is, sometimes Japanese put them among "three biggest minor bands in the world", i.e. Motšthead, AC/DC and Rush. (talking just for fun and your interest, sometimes Japanese call "five greatest minor singer in the world" among which, as far as I know, at least Sammy Hager and Brian Adams are counted. Lumber jack's son Carlos! Oh my...)
I think Rush have to put up with their incredibly minor status in Japan because their music is hardly categorizable. For, as a general tendency, Japanese music magazines and critics tend to ignore such musicians cannot easily categorized, for example Ministry, Residents and Rush. Things are quite simple, I think. That is, they cannot understand anything without categorizing.
Masterpieces for Wind Orchestra: Symphonic Movement (Fennell (cond.), Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, '88)
Sometimes it is professionals that encourage preposterous amateurism.
Among bizarre sentiments of Japanese one can easily find praise of amateurism in some sports, fine art and music (even in some academic fields as well, oh Bodhi...).
As I already told, every summer we have a huge competition of amateur wind orchestra. And actually some groups do fantastic performances. However the problem is that because of this some people think in the field of wind orchestra amateur orchestra is much better than professional ones. It's almost 100% certain that these guys are foolish.
However, on the other hand it's true too that some professional wind orchestra is really bad. And an example is this CD! Initial two tracks from this CD are totally tasteless and boring!! Careless performances like this give silly people a source of such a crazy amateurism.
Atoll / OcŽan
Pop songs are good resources for studying languages, though there are some bands inappropriate for that purpose (like Traumatism, early Dimmu Borgir etc.)
Now I'm studying French (I have to do so for immigration). So I love to listen to Les Rita Mitsouko, Anonymus and Atoll etc. for this purpose too.
However, listening to this album with a long interval, today I've found this album has a quite similar atmosphere to some works of so called Japanese visual rock artists, say, L'arc-en-ciel (these bizarre and arrogant guys force people to spell it "L'arc~en~ciel", but I don't care such a foolishness.), Malice Mizer and so on.
Many Japanese think France and french culture is highly sophisticated. For example, if you tell a Japanese that you can speak English or German, the guy will reply like "Uh-hun, you're a businessman, doctor or philosopher?". However, if you tell that you can speak French, the person will scream like "What? That's great. You're highly sophisticated. Are you of a noble family?" Then among so called visual rock bands, not few bands pretend French atmosphere, but no band tries to put themselves German one, Spanish one nor Russian one (Eh? How about Canadian atmosphere?? Are you crazy, eh?)
Tubeway Army / Tubeway Army
Anyway, this reissue tells Gary Numan is one of the most sincere musicians of the world.
As for so called bootlegs I have many things to say. Some of them are complains against musicians and productions, some are those toward guys make bootlegs. As to the latter, the biggest thing is, of course, some staffs are pretty bad in quality and awfully expensive.
Well, this reissue contains a (in-)famous bootleg album of Tubway Army. While the Japanese market of bootleg materials is shockingly rich, those staffs of TA and Gary Numan are incredibly unpopular in Japan. So only quite few fans have these staffs. This CD made the access to one of them far easier for Japanese fans (though in Japan Numan fans are very few nowadays).
Sitty bootlegs should be beaten, but we have many things to listen to. Gary and guys in Beggars Banquet know our sentiment well. May 2001