Music is often characterized over-simplistically as a battle between rock and pop, seriousness and fun, but the two are always in an ever-shifting balance. With this column coming to the end of its six-year run, it feels timely to cast a look back — and perhaps also a hopeful eye forward — over the changing state of music in Japan.
Fashion in both the mainstream and indie music scenes rarely moves in sync, but a common feature of both is that they ebb and flow according to tidal patterns of their own.
The frilly, juvenile pop of the '80s gave way to the more consciously grown-up dance music and album-oriented-rock-influenced J-pop groups of the '90s, which in turn gave way to the R&B-influenced sounds of solo artists such as Hikaru Utada at the turn of the millennium.