Japanese rock

• 1. Introduction

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  Japanese rock is rock music from Japan. At its peak, one outdoor festival there has drawn crowds of two hundred thousand people, the largest music event in the country. That scale took decades to build. The first Japanese rock bands sang almost entirely in English, copying the sound of British and American groups from the 1960s. How did that borrowed sound turn into a business dominated by acts selling tens of millions of records? And why did a fight over language, whether a song could work in Japanese at all, shape some of the country's loudest rock scenes?

• 2. Learning The Western Sound

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  Rockabilly briefly caught on in Japan during the late 1950s. Authorities tried to suppress it, but elements of the style still reached the mainstream through singers such as Kyu Sakamoto.

  By the 1960s, Japanese bands were absorbing the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones, alongside Appalachian folk music and psychedelic rock. That mix became known as Group Sounds, or G.S. John Lennon became one of the most popular Western musicians in the country. By the late 1960s, groups such as the Tempters, the Tigers, the Golden Cups, the Ox, the Village Singers, the Carnabeats, the Mops, the Jaguars, the Wild Ones, and the Spiders were landing big hits. The Tigers were the most popular Group Sounds band of the era.

  After the Group Sounds boom passed, several folk singer-songwriters influenced by Bob Dylan and American folk music took its place. Members of the Tigers, the Tempters, and the Spiders later regrouped as Pyg, generally regarded as Japan's first rock supergroup.

  In the 1970s, a wave of acts billed as New Rock, including Power House, the Blues Creation, Murasaki, Condition Green, and Bow Wow, released albums of their own. Guitarist Yuya Uchida watched Jimi Hendrix perform during a trip to Europe and came home wanting to bring that sound to Japan. In November 1967 he formed Yuya Uchida & the Flowers to do it.

  Within three years, Uchida would rebuild that band from the ground up, chasing a much heavier sound.

• 3. Singing In Japanese

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  Happy End is credited as the first Japanese band to sing rock music in its own language. Their self-titled debut album came out in August 1970 on the independent label URC, short for Underground Record Club.

  Happy End's debut is remembered as a turning point in Japanese music, and it set off a highly public debate. Members of Happy End and Yuya Uchida argued over whether rock sung entirely in Japanese could actually last. Their second album, Kazemachi Roman, released in November 1971, settled the question alongside the success of the debut. Japanese-language rock had proven it could sustain itself.

  Carol, led by Eikichi Yazawa, alongside RC Succession and Funny Company, became especially famous and helped define that sound. Folk rock acts such as Tulip, Banban, Garo, and Yosui Inoue, blending rock with American-style folk and pop, also found wide audiences through the decade.

  Isao Tomita pushed rock in a different direction, toward electronics. His 1972 album Electric Samurai: Switched on Rock reworked contemporary rock and pop songs on a synthesizer and drew notice internationally. Inoue Yousui's Ice World in 1973 and Osamu Kitajima's Benzaiten in 1974 carried the experiment further, both with contributions from Haruomi Hosono. Hosono went on to found Yellow Magic Band, later renamed Yellow Magic Orchestra, in 1977.

  A louder, rougher reaction to all that polish was already forming in Tokyo's underground clubs.

• 4. Metal Goes International

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  Bandleader Yuya Uchida kept only his drummer when he rebuilt the Flowers in 1970, renaming the group Flower Travellin' Band. Their October 1970 album Anywhere included covers of Black Sabbath and King Crimson.

  After moving to Canada, the band released Satori in April 1971, its first album of original material. It is now considered an early ancestor of heavy metal, and, together with Kirikyogen, of doom metal too.

  More bands followed through the late 1970s: Bow Wow in 1975-44 Magnum in 1977, and Earthshaker in 1978, pioneering Japan's own heavy metal scene. In 1977 Bow Wow opened for Aerosmith and Kiss on their Japanese tours. By 1982 the band had played both the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and the Reading Festival in England. Lineup changes then pushed them toward a more commercial sound. They renamed themselves Vow Wow and relocated to England, where their 1989 album Helter Skelter reached number 75 on the UK Albums Chart.

  A wave of new heavy metal bands formed across Japan in the 1980s. Loudness, founded in 1981 by former Lazy members Akira Takasaki and Munetaka Higuchi, toured the United States and Europe by 1983. In 1985 they signed with Atco Records, becoming the first Japanese metal act on a major American label. Their albums Thunder in the East, Lightning Strikes, and Hurricane Eyes reached numbers 74, 64, and 190 on the Billboard chart between 1985 and 1987. In 1988 Loudness replaced singer Minoru Niihara with American vocalist Michael Vescera, hoping to grow their international fanbase. The move did not work out. Even so, the band remained popular among American heavy metal fans.

  Few bands in the 1980s had female members, though Show-Ya, fronted by Keiko Terada, and Terra Rosa, with Kazue Akao on vocals, were exceptions. In September 1989, Show-Ya's album Outerlimits reached number 3 on the Oricon chart.

  Metal wasn't the only sound turning heads in Japan's clubs that decade.

• 5. Punk, Underground, And Visual Kei

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  Bands such as SS, the Star Club, the Stalin, Inu, and Gaseneta defined Japan's earliest punk rock scene, alongside Bomb Factory and Lizard, who were produced by the Stranglers. Friction's guitarist Reck had previously played in Teenage Jesus and the Jerks before returning to Tokyo. The Blue Hearts also emerged from this scene.

  Director Sogo Ishii captured the early punk scene on film with Burst City in 1982, featuring a cast of punk bands and musicians. He also shot videos for the Stalin. An independent scene grew alongside it, including Aburadako, P-Model, Uchoten, Auto-Mod, Buck-Tick, Guernica, and Yapoos, the latter two both featuring Jun Togawa. Noise and industrial acts such as Hijokaidan and Hanatarashi pushed the sound further still.

  Boøwy's rise in the 1980s inspired a surge of new rock groups forming across the country. In 1980, musician Huruoma and American guitarist Ry Cooder collaborated on a rock album with Shoukichi Kina, the driving force behind the Okinawan band Champloose. Sandii & the Sunsetz followed, further blending Japanese and Okinawan influences. Alternative rock bands including Shonen Knife, Bloodthirsty Butchers, Boredoms, and the Pillows formed during this period. Nirvana's Kurt Cobain became a fan of Shonen Knife during the band's Los Angeles tour in 1991, and he later invited them to join Nirvana on a US tour.

  Japanese metal and rock bands also gave rise to visual kei during the 1980s, a movement drawing on Western glam rock and glam metal. Pioneers included X Japan, Dead End, Buck-Tick, D'erlanger, and Color, though major success did not arrive until the decade's final years. Buck-Tick's 1988 album Seventh Heaven reached number 3 on the Oricon chart, and its two follow-ups, Taboo in 1989 and Aku no Hana in 1990, both went to number 1.

  X Japan's second album, Blue Blood, reached number 6 in April 1989 and sold 712,000 copies. Their third album, Jealousy, released in July 1991, topped the charts and sold over 1 million copies. Two more number-one albums, Art of Life in 1993 and Dahlia in 1996, followed before the band split up in 1997. X Japan signed with Atlantic Records in the United States in 1992, though an international release never materialized. Through the 1990s, Luna Sea, Glay, and L'Arc-en-Ciel all sold millions of records, while Malice Mizer, La'cryma Christi, and Siam Shade also found success.

  A new stage for Japanese rock was about to open, and record-breaking sales were about to follow.

• 6. Chart Dominance And Festival Culture

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  In the 1990s, several Japanese rock acts broke into the mainstream. B'z, Mr. Children, Glay, and L'Arc-en-Ciel led the way, followed by Southern All Stars, Malice Mizer, Dir En Grey, and Shazna. Janne Da Arc, Tube, Spitz, Wands, and T-Bolan built audiences alongside Judy and Mary, Deen, Lindberg, and Sharam Q. The Yellow Monkey, the Brilliant Green, and Dragon Ash also found commercial success in the same decade. B'z became the best-selling artist in Japan, with more than 86 million confirmed records sold and an estimated 100 million worldwide. The duo also became the first Asian act inducted into Hollywood's RockWalk.

  By the 1990s, anime music had become one of the best-selling genres in the country. The rise of disposable pop was linked to karaoke's popularity, which drew criticism for encouraging a throwaway attitude toward music. Kazufumi Miyazawa of the Boom put it bluntly: "I hate that buy, listen, and throw away and sing at a karaoke bar mentality." Ska-punk bands including Shakalabbits and 175R carried a different energy through the late 1990s and into the 2000s.

  The first Fuji Rock Festival opened in 1997. A year later, Supercar released its influential debut album, Three Out Change, and stayed active until 2005, moving toward more electronic rock on later releases. Around the same time, Quruli and Number Girl began heavily shaping Japanese alternative rock. Music critic Ian Martin wrote: "Japanese rock bands could take on the British and American alternative bands of the 90s at their own game... and in doing so, they had laid new ground for Japanese rock to develop in its own way from this point on." Rising Sun Rock Festival opened in 1999, followed by Summer Sonic Festival and Rock in Japan Festival in 2000.

  New acts such as Bump of Chicken, Radwimps, Asian Kung-Fu Generation, ONE OK ROCK, Orange Range, Uverworld, Remioromen, Sambomaster, and Aqua Timez achieved success in the years that followed. Established bands like B'z, Mr. Children, Glay, and L'Arc-en-Ciel kept topping charts too, though only B'z and Mr. Children maintained consistently high sales over the years.

  Japan's underground scene became known internationally through noise rock acts such as Boredoms and Melt Banana, and stoner rock band Boris. Alternative acts including Shonen Knife, Pizzicato Five, and the Pillows also drew notice abroad, with the Pillows gaining international attention in 1999 for the FLCL soundtrack. Touring indie acts such as Mono and Nisennenmondai extended that reach further still.

  By the next decade, some of these bands would be filling arenas well beyond Japan's borders.

• 7. Going Global

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  Indie band flumpool sold over one million copies of their first digital single, "Hana ni nare," during the late 2000s band boom. Sakanaction played their first live concert at Nippon Budokan around the same time, building major success on singles such as "Aruku Around" and "Rookie." Their embrace of electronic music and synthrock set them apart from other rock acts. Gesu no Kiwami Otome, Sekai no Owari, and Alexandros also broke into the mainstream. Because so many indie and rock bands surged at once, competing directly with contemporary J-pop artists, the press dubbed it a band boom, crediting it with changing Japanese music more broadly. These bands leaned on softer, catchier songwriting rather than heavy sound, which won over pop fans who weren't already rock listeners.

  L'Arc-en-Ciel sold out Madison Square Garden in 2012, and X Japan did the same in 2014, among other large arena shows across the United States. By 2015, slap-guitarist Miyavi, whose 2008 tour was the most successful international run by a Japanese artist, had performed 250 concerts in more than thirty countries. In 2016, One OK Rock became the first Japanese band to perform at Taipei Arena in Taiwan. They went on to sell out venues including AsiaWorld-Arena in Hong Kong and Mall of Asia Arena in the Philippines, drawing average crowds of twelve thousand people at each show, among the band's biggest performances outside Japan.

  Not every headline-grabbing act of the decade fit the same mold, though. Some of the loudest new names on the circuit were entirely female.

• 8. The All-Female Wave

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  The number of all-female rock bands began to grow through the 2000s, with Zone and Chatmonchy among the first to break through. Zone had originally been planned as an idol group, but one of its producers decided to let the members play instruments instead, and the shift was well received.

  Scandal, a quartet from Osaka, formed in 2006 and sold 52,956 copies of their debut album in 2009. Later albums became top ten bestsellers, and the group's growing fame took them on tours abroad. In 2018 Scandal launched their own label, "her." In August 2023, Guinness World Records recognized Scandal as the longest-running all-female rock band with the same founding members still in place.

  A wave of all-female heavy metal bands gained mainstream attention through the 2010s. Aldious are cited as the movement's initiators after their 2010 debut album, Deep Exceed, topped the Oricon Indies Albums Chart and reached number 15 on the main chart. Cyntia are believed to be the first of the movement signed to a major label, joining Victor Entertainment in 2013.

  In 2014, the self-described "kawaii metal" act Babymetal broke through internationally with the viral YouTube hit "Gimme Chocolate!!" The group opened for five of Lady Gaga's concerts on her ArtRave: The Artpop Ball tour that year. In 2016, Babymetal began a world tour at London's Wembley Arena, becoming the first Japanese act to headline the venue. Their album Metal Resistance reached number 15 on the UK Albums Chart, the highest chart entry ever by a Japanese act. They also made their US television debut, performing "Gimme Chocolate!!" on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

  Band-Maid drew worldwide attention around 2015 by pairing a deliberately "submissive" maid appearance with aggressive music, and began touring internationally the following year, signing to JPU Records. In 2018, Lovebites won the Metal Hammer Golden Gods Award for Best New Band and became the first Japanese all-female heavy metal band to perform at Germany's Wacken Open Air. That performance put a Japanese all-female metal band on one of Europe's biggest metal stages for the first time.