X Japan as art

[X-J]

Dear all,

I'm new to this board. I've known X since August ´05 when I was surfing the net on topic of which Japanese artists to look into when I found this band... I'm 27, male. And a great band it is! I have all the main albums (though not as originals  :cry: ) plus a few concerts plus a few dvds. I ordered the Complete II box from China through ebay but it never arrived  :cry: ...  

It is obvious to me that the band, for a representative of popular music, has much more artistic (avant-garde or even postmodern) qualities about it than any other band that I know of (perhaps Marilyn Manson has done something within similar altitude but...). They do not just play; they simultaneously strive to live the music. This, I think, is the big difference between your average Western band and X Japan. Your average Western band pretty much follows "a script" or acts within a specific "boundary" (within which excessive emotions, say, are more or less banned, nor are certain fundamental expectations/conventions rebelled against) while X goes beyond boundaries and "order". Avant-gardism is all about irrationality and disorder, expression of the sublime, and I think you'll find plenty of that with X.

What got me hooked into X is possibly this wider philosophy of theirs; I've called it the philosophy of exhaustion. It is very Japanese but also quite Western since so-called Protestant Work Ethic has always been appreciative to hard work. Add to this the universal theme of love and I think that, seriously, we've got a considerably mature and unique-sounding band... About whose philosophy and artistry considerably more could be written and argued about than is the case of any other band to my knowledge.

Therefore, I wonder why X at least up to now has not yet announced that they'll focus on the West at least as much as e.g. Dir En Grey. It is a completely different age from the early-1990s; with the internet and end of the Cold War cultures interconnect at entire new levels and even slightly confusing performances by X won't be shunned at anymore (at least they won't in Europe). 'sides, the American market has always been (to my knowledge) more conservative than European.

I think their strength has always been uniqueness and diversion from expectations and thus I hold on to the hope that they'll continue along that line. I hope someone will convey these thoughts to Yoshiki or some other member/relevant party (I surely grant permission for that)!  

[Hurley]

Welcome! What part of Finland do you come from? There are many of us Finns here in the board. :wink:

I think you are right on the spot, but I wouldn't really call X more artistic, because music itself is an form of art, but more passionate than many artists, the music comes straight from the songwriters heart, and that is what separates the true artists from the calculating hit-writing songwriters, and just plain musicians ;P

Sorry if I don't make any sense.

[ferret]

Hey, welcome here

Well, I don't really agree with you, sorry :lol: I don't think you have to make the "X vs. Western band" comparison, there are enough avarage bands in Japan, and IMO there are many bands in the U.S. for example, which are more "crative" than X.

and that is what separates the true artists from the calculating hit-writing songwriters

 

Yoshiki is VERY calculating, isn't he? There is like no space for improvisation in many of X's songs because every note IS calculated.

[Hurley]

and that is what separates the true artists from the calculating hit-writing songwriters

 

Yoshiki is VERY calculating, isn't he? There is like no space for improvisation in many of X's songs because every note IS calculated.

Improvisation is mostly quite calculated too, you don't want to be hitting random notes, that will sound awful, but I didn't mean it like that. I meant calculating like what kinds of songs sell the best, what appeals to the crowd etc.

And I don't think it's X vs. The Western world or anything, it's something that makes X stand up from the average band, but it doesn't mean that X is the only band that does that.

[X-J]

Thanks guys/girls  

Welcome! What part of Finland do you come from? There are many of us Finns here in the board. :wink:

I think you are right on the spot, but I wouldn't really call X more artistic, because music itself is an form of art, but more passionate than many artists, the music comes straight from the songwriters heart, and that is what separates the true artists from the calculating hit-writing songwriters, and just plain musicians ;P

Sorry if I don't make any sense.

I live in central Finland but plan on moving to Helsinki area (to complete a Ph.D., the braggart   ).

Of course, all music is artistic and creative per se to an extent. It's just that with X, the "coming-from-the-heart" is made more explicit and, at least in case of Yoshiki and hide, what they put forth in music is not something isolated, compartmentalised in a Procrustean fashion into that "field of outlet". On the contrary, music for them entails a larger philosophy of life (if you've studied philosophy, you might say "ontology", way of being in the world   ). A sceptic might argue that all this is calculation:

Well, I don't really agree with you, sorry  I don't think you have to make the "X vs. Western band" comparison, there are enough avarage bands in Japan, and IMO there are many bands in the U.S. for example, which are more "crative" than X.

I admit I made a stereotype out of "the Western way" of creating music, I'm aware of that. As such stereotypes are necessarily crude and erroneous. Some current US prog bands are creative as well/hell, Godspeed you black emperor is one, the early Dredg another, Riverside, Porcupine tree (if these are all American   )... There are exceptions.

However, I do not feel that it follows that, as acts and what comes to representation of the music, they are as revolutionary "to the standards" as X has been. I'm aware of no US band that borders on the scandalous and makes such non-orthodox performances. Further, it is my impression that Americans en massé do not like "deviations from the norm" taken to such extremes as X did in their temporal context. I here mean the aesthetic side of performing, the non-conventional presentation. I think Freddie Mercury grasped something similar. It is all about making implicit explicit. I've come across no Western band that is as aesthetic in their representation as X.

Yoshiki is VERY calculating, isn't he? There is like no space for improvisation in many of X's songs because every note IS calculated.

I think you are here confusing composing with creativity; to me, creativity doesn't presuppose sloppiness in composition. Further, I do not see that "every note IS calculated" pop-style if you consider the live performance of Art of Life for instance, or the numerous moments when the guys exhibit openly what they feel. I admit that later they repeated certain tricks etc. But my point was a bit more general, namely "the norm vs. the individual".

I don't think Yoshiki is "a calculated commercial product" and this is what separates X from many (successful) Western acts. I'm a "believer" in the genuinity of emotions the guys have felt on-stage and showing this is highly unusual for us in the West. For instance, you can look at some of the comments on Yoshiki's LL drum solo: "Is he praying or something, what is he doing, the drama queen?" In the West, you often have to be "rational", "purposeful", even on stage. Some (rock) listeners even consider emotions effeminate. It has been branded into our culture but once you do some Foucaldian type of genealogy, your awareness of cultural conventions and thereby expectations increases. You become more conscious of different ways of expressing music.

[ferret]

Improvisation is mostly quite calculated too, you don't want to be hitting random notes, that will sound awful, but I didn't mean it like that. I meant calculating like what kinds of songs sell the best, what appeals to the crowd etc.

If it's calculated it's not impro anymore. Of course you have to know every damn skill with your eyes closed and know which chords sound nicely together but if you know this stuff, you can hit "random" notes because they will sound good together. If a beginner who only knows one scale and always has to look on the fretboard tries to improvise it sure as hell will sound awful because he/she doesn't know his/her instrument well enough. I know what you meant :wink: But IMO the word "calculating" fits Yoshiki perfectly, that's what I wanted to point out.

I've come across no Western band that is as aesthetic in their representation as X.

This sentense leads me to 2 conclusions:
1) You don't really know that many Western bands or at least you haven't seen that many live.
2) You have not seen X Film Gigs from '93, that is posing at it's extreme. IMO the worst piece of "live" crap X has ever made.

Yoshiki is VERY calculating, isn't he? There is like no space for improvisation in many of X's songs because every note IS calculated.

I think you are here confusing composing with creativity; to me, creativity doesn't presuppose sloppiness in composition. Further, I do not see that "every note IS calculated" pop-style if you consider the live performance of Art of Life for instance, or the numerous moments when the guys exhibit openly what they feel. I admit that later they repeated certain tricks etc. But my point was a bit more general, namely "the norm vs. the individual".

I don't think Yoshiki is "a calculated commercial product" and this is what separates X from many (successful) Western acts. I'm a "believer" in the genuinity of emotions the guys have felt on-stage and showing this is highly unusual for us in the West. For instance, you can look at some of the comments on Yoshiki's LL drum solo: "Is he praying or something, what is he doing, the drama queen?" In the West, you often have to be "rational", "purposeful", even on stage. Some (rock) listeners even consider emotions effeminate. It has been branded into our culture but once you do some Foucaldian type of genealogy, your awareness of cultural conventions and thereby expectations increases. You become more conscious of different ways of expressing music.

As I said, I didn't mean what Hurley meant, I just wanted to point out that  there is no space for improvisation in X's songs (musically, I don't mean running around on stage, talking to the fans etc.), every millisecond, to say it in an exaggerated way, is stuffed, if one note's different it sounds off. And no, I'm not confusing anything, and impro is certainly not sloppy if well done.
And to make even morefriends: I believe that 98% of Yoshiki's actions on stage are planned/played. Yes, for me he IS a drama queen because it looks so damn fake when he falls on stage from "exhaustion", because you can really tell if someones a bad actor (and Yo is one, for further proof watch the PV's of Week End and Silent Jealousy). One moment that I'm sure of it's authenticity is the hug at Last Live (and all the crying, of course). Yeah, now you can burn me.  

(I realize that most of what I've written sounds quite aggressive but it's not meant that way, I can't help my evil nature :lol: )

[matt brown hides]

To be fair, Yoshiki truly does get that.. exhausted. I mean, seriously. I can drum, and the way he drums is ridiculous.. so much wasted movement. But that just adds to the performance (not to mention I've never heard him make a mistake drumming in my entire life)

I completely agree with how X-Japan is a more emotive, expressive form of music. It's more romantic than their western counterparts, whether we're talking about their power metal, their thrash metal, their progressive metal, their ballads, their folk songs.. it's all much more expressive.

As for Yoshiki being a drama queen on stage though, you can't really tell if that is how he actually acts. I have faith that while yeah, he probably gets into the habit of the same physical gestures during shows, that he isn't bullshitting.

It's all art.

[Anna]

To be fair, Yoshiki truly does get that.. exhausted.

In fact, I also think so. Not that he wasn't a great drama queen anyway (and I don't claim that one hundred percent of his swooning fits were true, also), but really, his drumming must be very exhausting. Also, according to his own words, he has often been sick because of dehydration and sometimes because his head was spinning too much.  

because you can really tell if someones a bad actor (and Yo is one, for further proof watch the PV's of Week End and Silent Jealousy

That's kind of true, I think, though the atmosphere of said PV's (especially the former) does not seem to require more that lying around and looking tragic, which I think Yoshiki does pretty fine.  

[Hurley]

Improvisation is mostly quite calculated too, you don't want to be hitting random notes, that will sound awful, but I didn't mean it like that. I meant calculating like what kinds of songs sell the best, what appeals to the crowd etc.

If it's calculated it's not impro anymore. Of course you have to know every damn skill with your eyes closed and know which chords sound nicely together but if you know this stuff, you can hit "random" notes because they will sound good together. If a beginner who only knows one scale and always has to look on the fretboard tries to improvise it sure as hell will sound awful because he/she doesn't know his/her instrument well enough. I know what you meant :wink: But IMO the word "calculating" fits Yoshiki perfectly, that's what I wanted to point out.

That won't be random anymore then, since you have to know the right intervals, know the strong notes and know the chord progression and through that calculate what you play when you improvise, if you wan't it to sound good. You just don't get instant good playing no matter how much you practice, you have to think a bit ahead, calculate. And you can improvise in X songs, they just don't like to, or don't know how to ;P

[matt brown hides]

The reason it seems hard to improvise over X-Japan songs is because they have constantly changing chord progressions at what is usually a VERY fast tempo. If you took out the leads to, let's say, Rusty Nail, you'd still have to be able to work with the keys changes, the time changes, the tempo changes, and the chord progressions in your improvisation.

Which is why I think hide and Pata were such good guitarists. Obviously not the MOST technically proficient, but they had enough tricks up their sleeves to keep every solo interesting, heart-pulling, and fucking rocking.

[matt brown hides]

So yes, there IS room for improvisation in every X-Japan song, if you take out the leads..

and I don't know why you'd want to do that. Almost every X-Japan solo is perfect.

And when I say perfect, I mean perfect for the song obviously. Which is really all that matters.

[ferret]

That won't be random anymore then, since you have to know the right intervals, know the strong notes and know the chord progression and through that calculate what you play when you improvise, if you wan't it to sound good. You just don't get instant good playing no matter how much you practice, you have to think a bit ahead, calculate. And you can improvise in X songs, they just don't like to, or don't know how to ;P

Thinking about which note you hit in half a second isn't really calculating  
Lol, I guess they would have known how to, but the songs were hard enough to play (speed), why make it any harder?

but they had enough tricks up their sleeves to keep every solo interesting, heart-pulling, and fucking rocking.

That is, IMO, because they always played them the same way, unless they made mistakes or really made major changes (like they later did with Week End).

Almost every X-Japan solo is perfect.

I agree.

[Hurley]

That won't be random anymore then, since you have to know the right intervals, know the strong notes and know the chord progression and through that calculate what you play when you improvise, if you wan't it to sound good. You just don't get instant good playing no matter how much you practice, you have to think a bit ahead, calculate. And you can improvise in X songs, they just don't like to, or don't know how to ;P

Thinking about which note you hit in half a second isn't really calculating  

Nope, but that will end up sounding bad too. It's not about just notes, it's the whole concept, you have to know what you're doing, you have to hear something in your head, not just go "e flat, d, d, f sharp minor arpeggio..." etc.

[ferret]

Nope, but that will end up sounding bad too. It's not about just notes, it's the whole concept, you have to know what you're doing, you have to hear something in your head, not just go "e flat, d, d, f sharp minor arpeggio..." etc.

That's what I'm saying, if you know what you're doing, you hear it in your head and play it, spontaneously, because the techniques/your knowledge happen automatically.

[Hurley]

Nope, but that will end up sounding bad too. It's not about just notes, it's the whole concept, you have to know what you're doing, you have to hear something in your head, not just go "e flat, d, d, f sharp minor arpeggio..." etc.

That's what I'm saying, if you know what you're doing, you hear it in your head and play it, spontaneously, because the techniques/your knowledge happen automatically.

I still say it's calculated, since you still have to make decisions based on the laws of music, and those decisions are concious decisions, not automatic. Or I guess I must really suck at improvising since I do concious decisions while playing.

[X-J]

If it's calculated it's not impro anymore. Of course you have to know every damn skill with your eyes closed and know which chords sound nicely together but if you know this stuff, you can hit "random" notes because they will sound good together.

I think there are relatively few bands in popular music (without mentioning jazz etc.) who do not "calculate" by your definition, i.e. who improvise radically, even in the prog scene that I know. I somewhat agree that X could do more departures, but my theory's that Yoshiki doesn't allow that. Then again, I still say that the attitude of emphasising the emotional is at least unconventional.

For instance, if I thought carefully about my furniture but still wanted to make it all look creative and artful, i.e. I feel at home in surroundings people may consider artistic even though it is my deliberate choice, I don't think it follows that I'm not creative as a personality.

1) You don't really know that many Western bands or at least you haven't seen that many live.

I haven't seen many live, true... But if you can point to me a Western act that makes similar performances, I'm interested.  

2) You have not seen X Film Gigs from '93, that is posing at it's extreme. IMO the worst piece of "live" crap X has ever made.

Granted.

And to make even morefriends: I believe that 98% of Yoshiki's actions on stage are planned/played. Yes, for me he IS a drama queen because it looks so damn fake when he falls on stage from "exhaustion", because you can really tell if someones a bad actor (and Yo is one, for further proof watch the PV's of Week End and Silent Jealousy). One moment that I'm sure of it's authenticity is the hug at Last Live (and all the crying, of course). Yeah, now you can burn me.  

My interpretation is less cynical; I think Yo is by nature (his sign IS Scorpio after all   ) very emotional, determined etc. I don't believe that actors would deliberately hurt themselves permanently. Some people just enjoy drama and "irrational life". I have a brilliant quote from Nietzsche:

And while he aims for the greatest possible freedom from pain, the intuitive man, standing in the midst of a culture, already reaps from his intuition a harvest of continually inflowing illumination, cheer, and redemption--in addition to obtaining a defense against misfortune. To be sure, he suffers more intensely, _when_ he suffers; he even suffers more frequently, since he does not understand how to learn from experience and keeps falling over and over again into the same ditch. He is then just as irrational in sorrow as in happiness: he cries aloud and will not be consoled. How differently the stoical man who learns from experience and governs himself by concepts is affected by the same misfortunes!

Though as an afterthought I submit that Yoshiki does seem to teeter on the brink of commercialising his approach in order to gain US audiences. He's taken a leaf from Within Temptation's book, seems to me.