Band Maid and Other Awesome Japanese Bands

So, this article is about Japanese bands. Do you like… music? Music’s pretty good. Me, too. How ’bout rock music? Yeah! Also, me too. Good stuff. So you’ve listened to Led Zeppelin right? Of fucking course you have. How bout Metallica, Nirvana, Guns ‘n Roses and Linkin Park? Yeah, you have.

How ’bout X-Japan? No? Never heard of them? But, when their guitar player died, Japan had a national day of mourning. Also, they look like an 80s hair metal metal band, which apparently also reached the shores of Japan in the mid eighties, where they called it visual kei.

Well, the American music scene is overrun with rappers flexing cash over synth beats and airbrushed butts, but crunchy guitars, wailing vocals and other real instruments are still popular in Japan, you’re missing all of it, and I’m sad for you. So let’s fix it.

This article isn’t about X-Japan. That’s too easy. Too obvious, and they’re a band that was popular in the late 80s and mid 90s that you just heard of 20 years after they passed their prime. Google Japanese rock and it’s the first thing that comes up. No, no, no, we’re going much deeper. Let’s start with the titular band for this article: Band Maid. This is just the start of your weird journey into modern Japanese rock.

Band Maid is a band formed in 2013 by a bunch of cute girls who worked in a maid cafe. They decided their true calling was hard rock. This is some school of rock shit, folks, you can’t make this up. These teen girls dress like actual maids and shred better than your longhaired, pot-smoking roommate in North Hollywood who hasn’t paid rent in six months. Behold:

変だね？ Weird, huh? What’s the word for that mix of weird but genuinely incredible that things like Kanye tweeting about Trump and that Halloween dancing gif inspire?

As amazing as Band Maid is, and they just came out with their second studio-length album, let’s move onto another of my favorite Japanese bands that you didn’t know has been missing from your life. Polkadot Stingray.

This band combines hard rock riffs with the style of a formally trained Japanese jazz lounge act to create something that’s pretty damn refreshing. Their videos are creative, and I defy you to listen to it without feeling better about your entire life.

Next up, let me introduce you to Asian Kung Fu Generation, a popular Japanese band that got even more popular after they made the iconic theme song to the hit anime, Naruto:

This is a band with rough, pop punk sensibilities that’s reminiscent of The Pillows.

What? You haven’t heard of The Pillows either? Jesus Christ, dude, let’s get that taken care of.

What you may not know is that a lot of Japanese rock is influenced by jazz fusion, which became popular in the mid eighties because of a just downright silly Japanese band called Casiopea. Why are they silly? Watch this video and tell me it’s not your new happy place. This might as well be a video of fifty puppies giving each other hugs.

Given the jazz fusion turn of events this article has taken, I’d be just a straight up goddamned fool if I didn’t tell you about Yoko Kanno & The Seatbelts, which composed some of the greatest songs to ever come out of Japan. The quality of the following video is awful. Doesn’t matter. Required reading.

So, what have we all learned here today? Well, I learned that I changed your lives with this introduction to Japanese bands. You just don’t know it yet.

P.S. I know I said X-Japan was too easy, but let’s say I saved the best for last. This is a song called Kurenai. It blew Japan’s mind in 1985 and started all of this: