NON-VISUAL KEI

Again, visual kei is what most of these points are drawn from, and there’s plenty of JRock that doesn’t fit a lot of the points I’ve made.  Take them as generalizations; as with any generalization, it’s the outliers that stand out.  The songs that break the rules are the ones that make a statement.  Even most of the outliers, though, are clearly influenced by the above points.  One song that always strikes me is “GRAND PAIN” by LAREINE.  The lack of synthesizers is strange to LAREINE’s music, and the almost “garage band” feel of the song surprises me because I love the song so much in spite of the fact that I’d normally write off a song with that sound.  The extremely simple drumming and guitar/bass playing is offset by the bizarre melody, particularly in the chorus.  I challenge you to play it by ear; it’s hard because it’s so weird, and it’s weird because those are the kinds of chords and colorful melodies JRock uses.  The chorus of “Sobakasu,” mentioned above, is almost purely a string of quarter notes, and the verses contain strings of swung eighth notes.  There’s still plenty of syncopation, and there’s plenty of weird melodic stuff going on with the guitars.  The instrumental part of “Hello Another Way” by the brilliant green could pass for an American alternative song if it weren’t for the notably Japanese vocal line.  Similarly, “My Sweet Darlin’” by Hitomi Yaida is much more adventurous in its synthesizer usage (in a way that makes it sound almost like a sister to “Sobakasu” in some places), and I have yet to hear a Western melody like the broad, soaring one she sings in the chorus.

And now that I’m mentioning “Sobakasu” again, it’s been covered in English twice, to my knowledge.  I don’t know if you ever watched Ruroni Kenshin, but it was the opening theme.  It was translated almost directly for the dub… And you can tell how different Japanese lyrics are, stylistically, from English lyrics.  Then DDR wanted a version of it, and the lyrics were almost completely rewritten to make it sound at least slightly more like an American song.  You’ll notice in DDR’s version that the melody is now straight instead of swung, which makes it a lot more natural to sing compared to the direct translation.  Just examples of the changes it can be necessary (or at the very least, preferred) to make when moving between American rock and Japanese rock.

I hope that was helpful.