Is Prog "Big In Japan"?

A question for my friends from Japan and those who live or have lived there:

Edited by avestin - October 29 2007 at 09:48

If the two-night concert series that spawned Steve Hackett's The Tokyo Tapes (both DVD and audio CD in 1996) are any indication, then I would give a resounding 'YES!'

Nice question Assaf, I would like to say something about it although I am not Japanese and I haven't lived there and neither I do at this moment

To me it seems that there is a very enthousiastic kind of underground scene concerning progressive rock, almost on a religious level because the Japanese progheads really admire the Classic Prog. Some examples.

In the early Nineties I got in touch with Angel Romero, a known Spanish proghead. He had pulbished an add in a Spanish progrock magazine entitled Sirius. Because of his increasing dust-allergy he had to sale his huge collection of progrock LP's, including very rare ones from Italy. I was one of the first who reacted, I succeeded to get my beloved Prog Andaluz. A week later I discovered the many rare Italian prog LP's but meanwhile a small group of Japanese progheads had bought almost his entire LP collection, hundreds of albums and for very good prices Angel told me later

Edited by erik neuteboom - October 29 2007 at 08:06

I lived in Japan for eleven years, and I still visit regularly, since my wife is Japanese.

As far as I can tell, Japanese popular music is dominated by (a) manufactured stars and (b) a thriving "indie" scene, but very few people are interested in prog these days.

However, the Japanese have subcultures for everything (there are people who do yodelling, others who go tapdancing, still others who build their own harpsichords etc.) so you can be sure that, with a well-to-do population of 120 million, many thousands of people are interested in prog as well.

Big bands from abroad still sell out large auditoriums. Yes, PFM and King Crimson are very popular. In any large Japanese bookshop (i.e. the local equivalents of Borders or Waterstone's) you can buy beautifully illustrated "listener's guides" featuring "the top 200 hundred prog recordings". Last time I looked, there was one volume about British prog, one about World prog and a separate one about Japanese prog! Many of the recommended albums are available in large record stores - especially non-Japanese albums.

A few years ago one 22-year old keyboard player from Osaka started a new band, Shinsekai, which is strongly influenced by Yes, Crimson, Zappa, Focus and the Canterbury Scene. A little too strongly, maybe. I wonder if they'll find their own voice!

On the other hand, for about 20 years KENSO have been playing the most gorgeous instrumental music, in the tradition of Bruford and Brand X. They're simply one of my favourite bands - check out the reviews on Prog Archives!

Edited by fuxi - October 29 2007 at 09:23

MONO

million of listenings scrobbled on LastFM

Quite popular I guess

 

I think Dream theater hit the top of the charts a couple of times, but I have no idea.

magnus wrote: http://www.last.fm/place/japan/+charts king crimson are at 180, which is quite high, at least compared to Norway, where they're not on the top 500 list at all. Other than that, it's hard to interpret much out from these lists, I would guess most users are quite young people.

Shakespeare wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: Lot's of live prog shows taped or video'd there. You mean "filmed" or "recorded"?

Both.  Wasn't recorded actually taped, at least in the good old days?  Of course what is video'd these days used to be strictly filmed....
Now, why do we park in a driveway and drive on a parkway?



Edited by Slartibartfast - October 29 2007 at 19:01

Everything is big in Japan... have you seen the size of those people???!