J-ROCK~HISTORY

Group Sounds (G.S.) is a genre of Japanese rock music that was popular in the mid to late 1960s. The Tigers was the most popular G.S. band in the era. Later, some of the members of The Tigers, The Tempters and The Spiders formed the first Japanese supergroup Pyg. Homegrown Japanese country rock had developed by the late 1960s. Artists like Happy End are considered to have virtually developed the genre. During the 1970s, it grew more popular. The Okinawan band Champloose, along with Carol, RC Succession and Shinji Harada were especially famous and helped define the genre's sound.

In the 1980s, the Boøwy inspired alternative rock bands like Shonen Knife, Boredoms, The Pillows and Tama & Little Creatures as well as more mainstream bands as Glay. Most influentially, the 1980s spawned Yellow Magic Orchestra, which was inspired by developing electronic music, led by Haruomi Hosono. In 1980, Huruoma and Ry Cooder, an American musician, collaborated on a rock album with Shoukichi Kina, driving force behind the aforementioned Okinawan band Champloose. They were followed by Sandii & the Sunsetz, who further mixed Japanese and Okinawan influences. Also during the 80's, Japanese rock bands gave birth to the movement known as visual kei, represented during its history by bands like Buck-Tick, X Japan, Luna Sea, Malice Mizer and many others, some of which experienced success in the recent years.

In 1990s, rock musicians like B'z and Mr. Children achieved great commercial success, some of them establishing marks in Japanese music history. B'z is the #1 best selling act in Japanese music since Oricon started to count, followed by Mr. Children. Glay, Dir en grey, Janne Da Arc, Luna Sea and L'Arc-en-Ciel, which are often considered visual kei or related to this genre, also achieved great commercial success in the late 1990s. Around 1998, Glay was arguably the most massively popular band. In 1999 the band played for a crowd of 200,000, the most attended single concert ever held in Japan.

The first Fuji Rock Festival opened in 1997. Rising Sun Rock Festival opened in 1999. Summer Sonic Festival and Rock in Japan Festival opened in 2000. Though the rock scene in the 2000s is not as strong, newer bands such as Bump of Chicken, Sambomaster, Orange Range, Remioromen, Uverworld and Radwimps, which are considered rock bands, have achieved success. Orange Range also adopts hip hop. Established bands as Glay, L'Arc-en-Ciel, B'z and Mr. Children, also continue to top charts, though B'z and Mr. Children are the only bands to maintain a high standards of their sales along the years.

Japanese rock has a vibrant underground rock scene, best known internationally for noise rock bands such as Boredoms and Melt Banana, as well as stoner rock bands such as Boris and alternative acts such as Shonen Knife (who were championed in the West by musicians such as Kurt Cobain), Pizzicato Five and The Pillows (who gained massive international attention in 1999 for soundtracking the anime FLCL). More conventional indie rock artists such as Eastern Youth, The Band Apart and Number Girl have found some mainstream success in Japan, but relatively little recognition outside of their home country.