Jap Music Something Worth Being Mocked For?

SCENARIO:

You're driving with some friends and you connect your iPod to your speaker, you press shuffle, and it starts playing your favorite J-Rock song. Your friends are now looking at you like you just ate a used napkin and ask "Can you turn this **** off?"

It's not the genre of the music that's an issue, but the fact that it's in a foreign language.

Now, in my opinion, music is music, regardless of the language. Sure, no one who doesn't speak Japanese can understand what they're saying, but music has the same appeal no matter what language the lyrics are in.

Thoughts?

 

I agree wit you here music is music I love music of all languages myself...Who needs to understand it if it sounds good whats the problem?

 

This happens on a daily basis for me.
Not with J-Rock, but with reggaeton and other latin music and I'm usually the only one who understands it.
My friends tolerate it, especially if they like the beat, but occasionally, I'll hear "Can we listen to something I understand, too?"
I feel like it'd be the same way with Jap music (since I have no ipod or mp3 player to plug in, I haven't been in this scenario, although I have some j pop on my lapotp) or maybe a little worse since they know I don't speak Japanese either. But I'd just say the truth, "I like it."

Besides, I have friends who listen to some hardcore screamo stuff, and I always say "They're screaming in ENglish, but I still can't understand them"

 

Yeah, I'm sort of ashamed to show my friends my ipod, because I know they'd make fun of the fact I have japanese and latin songs on it (aswell as various other potentially embarrassing songs, such as the KHV song :v).

It's a shame really, it's considered embarrassing just like listening to classical with your friends present. :l

 

Sort of the opposite over in other countries where English isn't the language of choice. While most people over here in Brazil like to listen to a lot of things that are Brazilian and Latin, they also love songs in English. A lot of my classmates love to listen to songs that are in English even if they can't understand it that well. I guess it's like Spike said, music is music. I don't know about other languages like Japanese but a lot of people like English. Don't know why...I guess they just like something different.

 

Heh, a few of my friends love latin music :P They even go to learn how to dance latin :P

On the topic now!
It's not that it's because it's Japanese, but because they don't like that kind of music. Like, there thousands of English-speaking singers that many people don't like, and the same would happen if instead of the J-Rock a song of one of those singers ould start playing.
The difference with the Japanese music is though, apart from the language of course :P, that people are not used to it. Japanese music has its own particular style which does not have many common points with the most popular international music.
I would expand more on this subject, but I don't want to make the post too big xD That's the main idea though in my humble opinion.

 

As you said music is music and everyone has the right to have a personal taste. I'm not sure actually if it is a matter of foreign language though. Saying that you listening to J-rock/pop or whatever may seem strange to others and make them feel uncomfortable for various social reasons. For example, someone might not want to be associated with that kind of music and maybe he/she is embarrassed and afraid of the possibility of meeting someone that would mock this.

I don't think that it would be the same if you'd listen to say latin music or Spanish rap (which i really like XD)

Personally i have no problem at all saying to anyone that i like J-rock/pop vis Kei, Latin music, Italian music or even Wrock. As long as you are fine with it you might even convince them listen to it. I have done it ;)

 

Although I do value knowing what I am listening to just because something is in a foreign language does not mean it's "crap".
I must admit I do look up the English lyrics to the Japanese songs on my iPod.
If I know what their saying I can relate to the song.
There are songs in English that I understand, but the meaning and the language is so vulgar and pointless( drugs, sex, etc,) that I don't want to listen to it anymore.
There are songs in Japanese, however, that have valuable meanings and beautiful lyrics. Though I might have to look on the internet to find out what their actually saying.
Overall: To me quality Japanese music is better, then garbage music that is in English.

 

I agree to that music is music. I get told all the time that I'm weird for the type of music I listen to. My sister constantly tells me to turn it off. But it's so great even if I can't understand a words it's saying. More people should listen to foreign music.​

 

I like vocals. I find all lyrics corny and forced. What can I listen to that has vocals, but no lyrics?
Answer: Foreign music. The lack of understanding is an upside, not a downside. Also, Japanese in particular lends itself to rhyme and rhythm so much more than English does.

I used to feel shame, then I watched the mainstream music channel. My conviction of superior taste is firm.

 

Jap music is awesome. Many would disagree since you can't understand it if you can't understand Japanese but it's just catchier then other songs ya know? Also I find it's charm to be very hard to resest. I like it for videos and just to listen too so it's definitely worth getting mocked over.

 

Bullshit. While not understanding the lyrics by no means ruins a song, understanding the lyrics will give proper understanding of the songwriter's intent.

However, at the same time, there are times where the lyrics mean literally nothing. There are times where the band just wants to use the vocalist's singer as another instrument (See Queen). Other times, the band's audience is so drugged up that they try to find hidden meanings in everything, so the band will either deliberately try to confuse them to get them to stop (See The Beatles) or take advantage of it so they don't have to bother trying to fit meaning into the lyrics (See Yes). Still, there are also times when the lyricist is too stupid to even know how to put meaning into their lyrics (See DragonForce and Fall Out Boy).

My point is that an understanding or lack thereof of the lyrics can be an upside, a downside or even neither.

Entirely because of English's connections to German as a Germanic language. Japanese, Spanish, French and Italian in particular are very poetic languages.

That said, how poetic a language is can lend itself to different genres differently. English is a very common language in all genres for two reasons, the first being that it is the most popular language in the world, the other being that it is a middle ground between Latin-rooted Romance languages like Italian and other Germanic languages like, well, German.

The language can lend itself to the feel of a song. For example, take Rammstein. Their lyrics are in German and they deliberately ignore that they are most popular in English speaking languages for the sole reason that the harsh and sometimes angry sound of the German language is a perfect fit for their brand of industrial metal. Contrast this to a band like Versailles, who has Japanese lyrics instead of the more common English lyrics that many Japanese metal bands go with because the language lends itself to the elegant and aristocratic sound of their form of power metal far better than English would.

Ah, and here we have the problem. The mainstream accounts for almost nothing of what's out there. Watching mainstream music channels like BET, Fuse or MTV (assuming they're even playing music) tend to stick to top 40 pop and hip hop for the sole reason of the sheeple masses bleeting their way to Wal-Mart to buy the latest Justin Bieber or Soulja Boy album: Its what sells.

The mainstream record labels aren't interested in talent, skill, originality or, most importantly, heart. They are only interested in what is marketable and what will make them the most money. Cashing in on the lowest common denominator that is the mainstream is the easiest way of doing this as most people don't really care about actual quality, they only care about what the record companies tell them to care about.

Its a sad state of affairs, but hey, that's capitalism for you. All we can do is try to bring an interest in originality to the mainstream.

How catchy a song is is a completely subjective element that has absolutely nothing to do with the vocalist in the first place, let alone the language of the lyrics. I happen to find quite a bit of complex progressive metal catchy, while a lot of people I know find it confusing and disorienting and instead, simpler music will stick in their heads.

 

I'm open to suggestions. Fire away.

 

I do enjoy singing along to songs sometimes, so lyrics in a language I understand is a plus for me. But it's not a requirement for me to like the song.

 

I am not really embarrassed by Japanese songs on my burned CD or iPod, But I find it more embarrassing if they find my guilty pleasure songs... like Gasolina xD

I think people can mock any kind of music they want to, Like how we do it with Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers, Justin Bieber and countless other musicians. So what can stop them from mocking Japanese music and JPop?

 

Sound is one element to music but lyrics matter to people also and understanding them usually can help.

I had no care for English music ages ago but like nowadays I adore english music but love a sneaky cheeky Ayumi Hamasaki song playing on my headphones. To me Lyrics can add to a song because the lyricist and composer aren't always the same person or there's more people involved with one than the other and like...lyrics usually represent who the singer is for that song and how they feel when they play it and want you to interpret that meaning and the music composition alone might say a different story [example would be like with a band the singer writes the music but typically the rest of the band composes the music so it's not the singers compositions of music]

It's not like your friends gave you the wtf switch this off face for a english band they know of but had no clue their first album was an indie rock/punk record that rocks but they don't appreciate a rock track when a black woman is singing apparently and prefer her singing soul and pop [it's the noisettes I'm referencing btw] that was embarrassing for me badly.

 

Eh, to be perfectly honest most Japanese music isn't all that good. It's great that they experiment a lot but most of the experimental stuff falls flat on it's face, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIT-gVasdh0 go to 6:53, you will see what I mean) and standard J-Pop is mostly bad. The best Japanese bands often take most their influences from the west, at least in my opinion.

To people unfamiliar with Japanese music, it's going to sound weird to them. If you were in that situation you would prefer to go for something more familiar than what seem like jibberish. Oddly enough my friends don't mind if I play Maximum the Hormone. It's not something they would listen to normally, but they find it a laugh with the poppy music mixed with the metal. Even better when I sneaked in one of their albums when we played some laser tag. So awesome.

It's all subjective. Most my friends aren't that heavily into music so most their tastes come from what is generally played a lot.

Japanese is poetic in the sense that sentences tend to end in verbs and all verbs follow a pattern so it's easier to rhyme.

It's not helped that Japan is seen as a bit crazy and some of the most popular Japanese bands in the west are odd. Dir en Grey are obscenely strange, Maximum the Hormone while being f***ing brilliant and being very western influenced are weird with their hybrid of genres. Japan X....are relatively normal but they have a niche.

 

Let's face it, the only truly straightforward Japanese band that's popular outside of Japan is Loudness and its only because they more or less copied the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

EDIT: Well, there's also Galneryus and Versailles. Galneryus fits with Loudness in that they initially copied a western style (ironically, a relatively niche style to begin with) and stuck to the formula and Versailles is, like X Japan, pretty niche.

 

Anyone who thinks Japanese music sucks is lazy.

That's the root of it. Every single, every single, I mean every single time someone tells me they don't like Japanese music, it's because they can't understand/sing along with it; I tell them I get along just fine because I look up the lyrics and translations, and they tell me they wouldn't bother. That's their own damn fault. They shouldn't blame it on the music.

The only other reason people dislike it is because it's all fruity and everyone dresses like girls. Which is a far more understandable complaint, as the prevalence of fruits in Japan is pretty clear. My answer to that is to play the whole of Maximum the Hormone's Buiikikaesu; that'll shut 'em up right quick.

 

I get this a lot from my family. My Jap music comes from a lot of anime themes, or songs that most anime fans know. So, I'll listen to it for a while and they'll tell me to turn it off. I do think music is music, and if it is catchy (and in my opinion, has meaningful translated lyrics) then I'll listen to it. However, since it isn't english or spanish, they don't want to here it. Period.