The worst of JRock in the 2000's awards!

With so many websites and blogs looking into the best of the decades creative output I thought I would do something a little different and instead look at the worst.

This is "The worst of JRock in the 2000's" awards!

Worst Song

This turned out to be difficult to call, given that there has been so much trash released over the past ten years. If you, the reader, feel obliged to divulge a given song for this accolade then be sure to add it as a comment to this post. My choice however was in the end chosen due to my internal moral inclination threatening me with sleepless nights should I overlook it.

Lord save us all...

Clever sleazoid – Dir en Grey.

I can honestly say with little reservation that this song has wrongfully stole the best part of three minutes of my life which I would go to great ends to get back. I’ve even considered suing both the band and their record label for creating and publishing it on the grounds that it has undoubtedly made my life worse.

Laced with unintelligible screams of criminal miss-use of the English language one would more closely associate with a b-grade S&M feature film Clever Sleazoid has few, if any redeeming features or practical uses. While perhaps an adequate measure of torture for mass-murderers I would almost feel sorry for their pain, having to be subjected to such auditory faecal matter. Surely only one crime can deserve such a punishment, that being committed by those who are responsible for this songs conception, production and release.

For those who have not heard this song, save yourself the pain and mental anguish of listening to it. And for those who want to know what it feels like to listen to it, perhaps sodomising yourself with a machete whilst having a pair of pneumatic drills rip into your ears will bring you close, but even then you’re getting off lightly in comparison.

Most annoying artist

Sugary and gimmick-laden pop rock at its worst, that's right, you got it.

They make me physically ill

An Café are an example of why the Visual Kei scene in Japan is so often maligned both inside and outside of Asia. They truely are a solid example of image being paramount over, you know, actual substance - and that just sickens me to the pit of my stomach.

This afterall is the music industry, and as such shouldn't music always come first? Sure in this day and age we like our musicians to have a public face we can recognise as a brand, it makes the product easier to sell, but An Café were just top heavy in image and predictable, generic and uninspiring in the aspects that really matter. Bands like An Café seemingly pop up and disband every 5 minutes in the present Visual Kei scene, and that's quite fine by me. Perhaps I'm being a little cruel to An Café in particular when there were and are many other clone groups akin to them which this award could have been easily bestowed upon, and as such I think An Café should be kind and share this accolade with them, as despite being probably the biggest Oshare Kei band of their kind their sins alone do not account for all that is wrong in the scene.

But yeah, they’ve called it a day now. Good riddance.

Most overrated artist

Come on Kyo, smile, you can do it!

It looks like the 2000’s have been a successful year for Dir en Grey, picking up 2 accolades from our worst of the decade awards! Despite having these two awards from the wrong end of the honours I would like to take this time to remind readers that it’s the taking part that counts, right?

Dir en Grey have managed to secure an ever expanding world fan base, and as such are quite possibly the most popular Japanese music export ever – and to me that just feels… unfair.

Let’s think about this for a minute; what have this band done to be so successful? Is it down to hard work? Maybe, but I can think of countless other Japanese bands who put in a great deal more effort with little or no return. Is it down to their musical ability and collective virtuosity? I don’t even need to answer that, while their members are all clearly musically proficient I think it would take a very wild imagination to label them as being particularly special. Is it down to their originality and creative endeavour? Again, I don't think they stand out as being so radically different from other post-hardcore bands, if not a little more melodic at times.

And as such I just don't understand their success, they are quite simply not that great.

And as such I think Dir en Grey almost deserve their own award category, “The Dir en Grey award for being in the right place at the right time”.

Biggest scandal

Why so gloomy, Tetsuya?

Everyone loves a scandal, right? Good old Tetsuya Komuro got caught with his pants down in 2008 in high profile scandal which gripped much of the Japanese public. Clearly still financially reeling after his previous divorce had taken him to the cleaners the Globe and former TM Network superstar with over 170 million record sales to his name decided that he would play foul to bring in some money by trying to sell the rights to his songs for a substantial cash sum having already sold the rights previously.

Many expected he would be imprisoned for his actions, but having pleaded guilty to fraud he was spared jail and instead given a three year suspended sentence.

As this is purely for Japanese music I am unable to give the award to Canto Pop star Edison Chen for his 2008 antics, although I can’t help but give him an honourable mention.

Biggest JRock Fail

This one is a three-way tie!

S.K.I.N

S.K.I.N. You know, that band with all those Visual Kei big-guns that played one show at an anime convention and haven’t been heard of since? Stirring up crazed enthusiasm on both sides of the pacific were S.K.I.N, the 2007 super group of Yoshiki, Gackt, Sugizo and Miyavi. As is often with projects involving Yoshiki in recent days, it promised much but has delivered very little, nothing, in fact, since their sole concert at Long Beach California. While many fans still wait with hope/delusion of something to come from this project and Yoshiki, Gackt, Sugizo and Miyavi all pursue different endeavours the majority stopped caring a long time ago. With the three year anniversary of S.K.I.N’s sole outing coming up in a couple of months it’s not unreasonable at all to assume that in three more the situation will be any different.

As a side note, I only found out what S.K.I.N stood for the other day, apparently it means the “Status Kaput Imitation Narcissists”. Who’d have thought, eh?

X Japan’s (2008, I mean 2009, ugh never mind) World Tour.

Neck injuries, tendonitis, venue problems, management problems, internal disharmony, endless side projects, intercostal neuralgia, constant contradiction, missed deadlines and no real focus at all. I don’t think anyone really expects anything anymore from X Japan, it could be years before anything actually happens – and that’s if it even does, or anyone actually wants to see them anymore.

Violet UK

Back in 2003 thousands of South Korean X Japan fans co-ordinated amongst themselves and bombarded Yoshiki with letters begging him to bring X Japan back out of oblivion and perform a concert in South Korea. With Toshi looking unlikely to retract his self imposed retirement from rock music and the death of Hide still fresh in Yoshiki’s mind, he instead organised a “Film Gig” in Seoul and chose to use the opportunity to launch his latest project, Violet UK, a project he claimed he had been secretly building for the last ten years of his life. With an album release date penned in for September 22nd, 2005, things all seemed to be falling into shape – only for it all to, quite typically of Yoshiki, fall apart. Instead of an album we got a single, and not even a finished version at that. Since 2005 there have been a few songs released here and there usually attached to B-Grade Hollywood movies, as well as a couple of brief and bizarre live performances (if you can call them that) bundled into a few of X Japan’s performances post reunion. Some people draw comparisons to the much delayed “Chinese Democracy” of Guns ‘N Roses, the main differences of course being that Axl Rose has eventually made good and released his effort, Yoshiki on the other hand doesn’t look like he ever will at this rate.

Therefore, having been the mastermind behind the three biggest fails in JRock over the last decade, this award can really only be taken home by one man.

You got it.

Yoshiki proudly wearing his award

And thus it begins...

I always wanted to start blogging with a thought provoking quote from some great philosopher or an historic figure of relevance by which I could set an inspiring tone for my future postings, but as I have found out by trying to write this post - in actuality it turned out to be not quite as easy as I had expected it to be.

Maybe the best place to start would be to quote one of the great human minds, maybe a traditional Greek philosopher or a near-prehistoric theologian would be the right direction to proceed in. Maybe the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu would suffice with the subtle and obvious:“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

Or perhaps with less pretension in mind I could quote from an antique proverb: “From small beginnings come great things.”, although perhaps teetering towards wishful thinking as opposed to being a profound statement of intent.

By this point I was almost desperate, scanning my brain rapidly and unintelligibly for quotes which even when applied in their most strewn-out contexts could be used to open my blogging on a contented high. How about: "The fate of destruction is the joy of rebirth", I posed to myself, only before figuratively slapping myself in the face due to the fact that it doesn't really make sense at all, quite like a lot of Evangelion, the Anime from which it is borrowed.

In the end, though, averting a minor brain haemorrhage in the process, perhaps simplicity truely is the key to most things. And as such allow me to finish with the famous words of Tim Berners-Lee:

"Hello World"