well..
ok this is what i think:
if he really hated anything besides 'crazy fast and loud' then....
i always thought that he did it because of his love and openness for different types of music.. i would just HATE to think he doesn't like all those beautiful melodies... beautiful orchestrations, his own creations! actually that's what i loved the most about XJapan and if there were only one of those 'fast crazy loud' bands, I doubt they would have gotten this big.
ok how about that NOW they become more crazy fast and loud??? ugh.
So it's Sony who made them the way they are, not him. Good to know. At least i am not living in the illusion anymore.
If it were for Yo.. X would be one of the thousands metal bands.
oh well at the end of the day, music is what really matters.... maybe.
Incase you didn't know X were already one of the biggest metal/rock bands ever in Japan before the Dahlia album, the first rock band ever allowed to play at the Tokyo Dome because they were so huge and succesful, and were selling out every show they had there (not sure if BOWI were bigger or if B'z were around at that time?)
And no X would not have just become one of the many thousands of metal bands barely noticed amongst the numbers, they were already the biggest, most famous heavy metal band at the time, even without the ballads they would still be as popular as Maiden/Sabbath in terms of their influence on the metal scene in Japan and how amazing they are as a band.
Also even if he wouldn't have done the ballads without Sony forcing him, he still put his heart into writing those songs, and Art of Life/Tears are a completely different matter altogether, they had nothing to do with Sony, they were personal stories about Yoshiki's life that he wanted to tell in that way.