Hard Rock: B'z

As one might deduce from reading the articles on this blog, I like listening to music a lot. I however also love to make music myself. After years of focusing on drums, and some piano, last year I decided to buy an electric guitar. Since I've never really been a fan of learning from books I was looking for alternative methods to learn how to play the guitar. I found what I was looking for, unexpectedly, in a video game called Rocksmith 2014. The game allows you to connect your guitar to a PC and play along with a whole range of songs from pop to metal. It starts out easy, but increases in difficulty if you play well. One of the more challenging songs is Go Further by Tak Matsumoto. It was through this awesome song as well as Ultra Soul that I discovered B'z.

B'z, a Japanese rock band consisting of guitarist Takahiro Matsumoto and vocalist Koshi Inaba, is currently one of the best-selling music artists worldwide. With around 100 million sold units they rank amongst rock legends like Metallica, Bon Jovi and Guns N' Roses.

Although Tak's guitar has always played a large part in the band's songs, their initial style was more synth pop than hard rock. Lady-Go-Round for instance favours the use of synthesizers and samplers. Soon however the band's sound changed into arena rock with songs like Alone and Blowin' (can somebody explain those pants?!) and hard rock, Calling and Liar!Liar!

The band's popularity skyrocketed and since their first #1 single Sun's Komachi Angel the band has scored 46 consecutive #1 singles and 25 #1 albums. Let that sink in for a moment... Thirty years after their debut they are not finished yet either. In November 2017 the band released their latest album Dinosaur and surprise, surprise, it reached #1 again.

Let's hope they will continue putting out great work, it is excellent study material for this aspiring rock star.

Due to their large amount of hits it is almost impossible to list my favourites, but I will try regardless:

I Want to Dance Inside You, Love me I love you, Giri Giri Chop, Yasei no Energy, Compulsion, Splash!, Dive and My Lonely Town

For more videos check out the B'z Official YouTube channel

J-Pop Rock: SEKAI NO OWARI

Often I discover music through association, for instance by looking at related videos when browsing YouTube. Other times it's because artists I know collaborate with artists I don't know yet. This last example was the case with SEKAI NO OWARI who I discovered while doing research for my blog about Clean Bandit. SEKAI NO OWARI, Japanese for 'End of the World', started out in 2010 as an indie-pop band. They released several songs, most of which are decent sounding like Angel and Devil, but they're not really my cup of tea.

Now try to imagine combining an auto-tuned voice, marching music, a choir and classical piano. Sounds interesting right? Well that's exactly what the group did in 2013 for their song RPG. It's a sound that works well and the group continued to use it in songs like Snow Magic Fantasy and The Flame and Forrest Carnival. However the group didn't sit still and started collaborations outside of Japan to diversify their sound. Dragon Night for instance was produced by Dutch DJ Nicky Romero, while Mr.Heartache was produced by Adam Young of Owl City. Nevertheless I like the band best when they do their own crazy Japanese thing with instrument playing animals and folk-dancing wolves in fairytale surroundings (look at Hey Ho and you'll understand what I mean).

SEKAI NO OWARI has announced that they'll release a new album this year and I for one can't wait until it's released. Meanwhile I'll keep listening to my favourite song of theirs, ANTI-HERO, which features one of the fastest piano-parts I've ever heard in a pop song.

Other favourites: Death Disco (gives an idea of their live-show)

                            Tokyo (collaboration with Owl City) 

                            SOS (amazing piano melody)

Listen to more songs on SEKAI NO OWARI's official YouTube channel

J-Rock: Wagakki Band

I can hear you think 'no, please not another Japanese Rock band, don't you have anything else to show us?' but trust me, this one's different.

What separates Wagakki Band from other rock and visual kei bands is described by their name. Wagakki (和楽器) literally means: traditional Japanese musical instruments. So besides the regular rock instruments the band features a shamisen (three-stringed instrument comparable to a banjo), a koto (13-stringed instrument, a bit similar to a harp) a shakuhachi (a bamboo flute) and taiko drums. These traditional instruments accompanied by the unique voice of singer Yuko give the band a very distinct and recognizable 'Japanese' sound.

The band started out in 2013 doing covers of vocaloid songs (songs made using voice synthesizer software) like Roku Chounento Ichiya and Tengaku. Their breakthrough came with the song Senbonzakura which currently has almost 50 million views on YouTube. Their music videos are always highly entertaining and make you feel like you're watching a Japanese action movie. In Ikusa for instance they are battling each other while in Akatsukino Ito they have to defeat a dragon.

Although it took me some time to get used to the singers voice I'm now a huge fan of her sound. Wagakki Band's last album already dates from a year ago so I'm patiently waiting for a new album of traditional Japanese epicness.

Other favourites: Hangekino Yaiba, Hanabi and Strong Fate

Watch more videos on their original and official YouTube channels.