Best: Rock Series ~ Final roundup
Pause here again to wrap up the brief Best: Rock Series for the themed post selections. I just wanted to put a little disclaimer of sorts in here so that we're all perfectly clear on where things stand.
The Best RS began just on a whim, but I suddenly started getting really serious during my second post (see Best: Rock Series #2). I realized that there were so many bands that I wanted to feature to do the "Best" label justice. For example, I barely skimmed over names like Luna: Sea, even though I feel strongly about them and what they have done for the Japanese music scene. For all of the hardcore fans out there-- sumimasen! Don't call me a hypocrite after the impassioned post I just put up [on choosing which names to feature]. The Best RS is a selection I will return to again and again, because I feel that even though all of the bands I feature are, in my mind, the best, there are still some that stand out as the most important/influential...They will appear! I decided to collapse the series into 3 featured artists and a subject-post because it's really just a sampler. I really like to think of Secret Garden as a Best series all around-- all I do is compile the bands that have impacted me strongly, and they put the best in it. Secret Garden is nothing more than a vessel for their greatness. Keep reading Secret Garden!
Although I swore I wouldn't mention L'arc~En~Ciel in these posts, it really can't be avoided. I covered Abingdon Boys School, one of the awesome up-and-coming bands; and I went over the great portfolio of B'z, THE most historical band; and now I'll cover something that falls somewhere inbetween. Let's hear it for one of the most internationally renowned and loved, one of the most unique and consistent, bands out of Japan: L'Arc~En~Ciel.
Yes, you fan-girls just go crazy and get it out of your systems.
A short synopsis and introduction:
L'Arc~En~Ciel is a 4-man group that sprang up in 1991 out of Osaka, Japan. The stats are thus: they have sold roughly 13 million albums, 16 million singles, and millions of other releases such as videos etc. The band was founded by later band-leader and bassists TETSU, who quickly recruited vocalist hyde along with a drummer and guitarist, both of whom left the band by '92. In '93, "Laruku"* recruited Sakurazawa Yasunori to be their drummer. In '93 the band released their debut album, Dune. They were enjoying mild notoriety in Osaka at this point, and the album hit #1 on ORICON charts, but they didn't start selling millions until the album Heavenly in '96.
Everything seemed to be going smashingly for the young band until '97, when they hit the lowest of the low. Drummer Sakura[zawa] was arrested for illegal drug possession, and when the news went public, all of the band's records were completely cleared from the shelves, not leaving a trace....At this time, the band was also working on a song Fourth Avenue Cafe to appear as the theme for the anime series Rurouni Kenshin. However, this song was immediately cancelled, and replaced by the previous theme, Heart of the Sword. 4th Ave wasn't released until 2006.
For several months following Sakura's arrest, Laruku continued to appear in magazines etc as a trio, and under the name "The Zombies". They functioned as a "cover band", playing their own songs.
They returned from hiatus later that year with the Reincarnation 97 tour, with new drummer Yukihiro, under their original name and image. Their first concert at Tokyo Dome had an attendance of 56,000, which sold out within 4 minutes of being released for sale. It was a record at that time.
Considering the American music scene, especially the big bands from the 60's-80's, along with many country, Jazz, etc musicians, this may seem like a bizarre story to Americans. Most of the great musicians of this age have horrific stories of major drug-addiction and alcohol abuse. Did this do anything to hurt their image? Au contraire, if anything it fuelled peoples' love for them. It was dangerous and scary on a level that appealed strongly. Therefore it may seem strange that the Japanese would basically shut-down a band, trash all CDs, refuse to use their song on an anime, and cause them to be a cover band for their own songs under a different name. Let me shed some light on this.
Let's say you have been caught in possession of drugs. Once-- your mistake, you swear you'll never do it again and you mean it; you haven't touched pot since. Let's say you want to travel to Japan-- you can't. If you have any kind of record, you cannot enter the country. If you are caught with drugs in Japan, you will be told to leave the country. Leaving the realm of hypothosis, enter reality-- several decades ago during the huge soccer boom in Japan. There was a huge international match being held in Japan, and the tickets had sold out like hot-cakes. Everyone was looking forward to it, and the news people were going crazy. Shortly before the day of the match, one of the Visiting team's members got in trouble for drug use....And what did the Japanese government do? They refused to let the soccer player enter the country. The team was outraged, and said that if he couldn't play, the match was off. Rather than sacrifice their moral values, the Japanese government cancelled the match and the whole thing was off.
One news-announcer said that he was very disappointed not to have been able to see the match....But that he strongly agreed with what the gov' had done, saying that it was more important to hold to their beliefs and moral values than to let it slide for the sake of some entertainment.
So now it actually would seem that we can tip our hats to Laruku for having the elsaticity to bounce back after Sakura's unfortunate arrest. When I first encountered this information about the band, I thought it was a rather striking story about Japan's strong morals. Paired with the story about the soccer match, it's quite a window into the culture. Interesting, I think. #
Now that we know Laruku's nitty-gritty, let's talk a little more about this wonderful band itself, and why people are going crazy about them world-wide!
First of all, think about it this way: straight-up, awesome, rock-your-socks-off good punk-pop-rock just the way you want it. Laruku has its own sound-- this may sound ridiculous, after all most bands do, right? Wrong. recently I have been listening to a lot of new, indie, and oshare-kei (the opposite of Visual Kei) groups. I can't really remember their names...there were so many! I listened to so many! And they mostly looked and sounded the same. In the same way that there are several classifications of vocal quality in American rock music, there is the same thing in Japanese rock music. There is Class 1 (most common): slightly nasal, high, teeny-bopperish voice; Class 2 (very common in Visual type bands and heavier rock): very deep, smooth voice-- heavy Klaha/Gackt influences; Class 3 (less common but still prevelant enough to make this list): Typical Visual Kei vocals-- think BLOOD and Girugamesh....
I'm not really sure what this pocket of music was that I found....but it was sort of like a labyrinth of Jpop (mostly Oshare-kei)....where everyone looked and sounded Class 1!!!!! I was amazed/confused/distressed. I spent hours listening through, hoping to find something totally charming and unique. So anyway, there's my rant on that topic.
Enter L'arc~En~Ciel. Extremely unique and characteristic. hyde has this creamy, deep, very, uh, hyde-ish voice that makes all of their music immediately "them". It's happy news! No one has been able to cop their style yet, which is crazy...But I guess it helps having a naturally unique sounding voice very unlike everyone else.
Their music varies a lot in style... their album AWAKE, for example, has a huge range of styles flipping from mellow and relaxing to ambient jazzy piano stuff to heavy with some screamo. I love to listen to the last track, Twinkle Twinkle over and over again, haha! it makes me feel like I'm in a Japanese movie! Another terrific track is Lost Heaven. Follow the links and check them out.
I mentioned hyde's name in my ABS feature on the topic of English lyrics. There was a tip of the hat to his English ability, which I will mention again here. Laruku seems to use more English lyrics than most other Jrock bands-- some songs are entirely in English, and may have strong English decoration and phrases. All pulled off with panache-- go hyde!
To finish off with some perspective on their more recent work, in 2001 the band went on hiatus so that the members could pursue solo careers. Hyde released two solo albums and worked on several film productions (Moon Child and Kagen no Tsuki). They regrouped in 2004 with their North American debut at OTAKON in Baltimore, Maryland with an attendance of 12,000.
Another L'arc~En~Ciel act is their alter-ego, Punk-en-ciel, wherein the members switch roles and play more punkish style music. The role-reversal is this: Hyde (L-vocals)--> guitar, Ken (L-guitar) ---> drums, Yukihiro (L-drums)---> bass, and Tetsu (L-bass)-->vocals. (I truly and fully <3 Punk-en-ciel!)
To close off this feature, I will mention one of my favorite movies: Moon Child. The movie was written by Jrock idol Gackt and hyde-- who happen to be close friends--, and both vocalists appeared as the two main roles. They played a Vampire (hyde) and his close friend/companion (Gackt) in a grunge-futuristic world....Supporting role was played by a notable Taiwanese/American musician Wang Lee-hom.
As always, check out their cool website at www.larc-en-ciel.com....and please support this band by buying their albums! Keep reading Secret Garden! ^__^
*--- The band's name means "Rainbow" in French. It is pronounced "Raruku en shieru" in Japanese, and contracted affectionately to "raruku" by fans.
