Only a few years ago, Japanese music was the hype. At South by Southwest, the tony annual music confab, consecutive years saw Cornelius, Number Girl and Ex-Girl wow audiences. Rolling Stone ran a feature on upcoming Japanese bands like The Zoobombs, Takako Minekawa and Buffalo Daughter that heralded the burgeoning Japanese music scene as the next big thing.
Buffalo Daughter is now on another of their seemingly endless sabbaticals; Cornelius has embraced pop art rather than pop music; Takako Minekawa is a mom; Number Girl broke up; and The Zoobombs are on the verge of doing the same, if they haven't already.
And the next generation? Talk to most people with a passing interest in independent Japanese music and they will tell you that 2002 is the year that nothing much happened. Yeah there were good bands to be seen (Mono, Rashinban, Indian Rope, The Stars), but the energy, the sense of there being a distinct scene, had dissipated. Interestingly, this was exactly the same complaint about New York's music scene before The Strokes, The Rapture and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. So keep your fingers crossed, and your ears open.