X Japan Filming in Hollywood

As you may or may not know, X Japan are due to record 4 music videos in Hollywood tomorrow night with many fans having signed up to participate in the event. There is still a great deal of mystery surrounding the event and nobody is entirely sure what the nature of these music videos are. All we have to go on is the news that several streets in Hollywood will be closed for "filming purposes" between the night of the 9th and the early morning of the 10th and this website which invited fans to sign up to 'participate'

Here's some possibilities which have crossed my mind as to the nature of these videos that X Japan are recording, let's see if they come to pass:

A music video for Jade

We’ve known about Jade since Yoshiki mentioned he had written a new song inspired by his visit to Hide’s grave in 2008. A first glimpse of it appeared in a brief YouTube clip from a Japanese TV show depicting Yoshiki working in his studio on an unknown song. Following the publishing of a public poll on the X Japan official website asking the public which songs they would like to hear at the two Tokyo Dome shows a particularly interesting option was “New tune”, which seemingly proved a popular choice, given that Jade was officially unveiled and performed on both days. Floating around YouTube is also recording of the “studio demo” of Jade, featuring auto-tuned Toshi vocals, MIDI Drum programming and synthesised strings. In short, Jade is the obvious choice to film a music video for – in that it’s actually new material.

Possibly two music videos for Without You (Yoshiki stated in 2007 there would be both an English and Japanese version of the song)

We’ve known about Without You for a decade. In the aftermath of Hide’s death Yoshiki released an instrumental of the aforementioned song in a video clip depicting him performing on the piano in an ambiently-lit recording studio live room. The song was then re-recorded and released on Yoshiki’s 2002 sophomore solo album “Eternal Melody II” and played over the PA at the end of the 2003 Korean Film Gig along with lyrics displayed on a giant screen. With the 2007 announcement of the re-union, Yoshiki stated that the band would release both an English and Japanese version of the song, either has yet to surface but the band has performed more than one version of the song at different concerts since they returned to the stage in 2008. Behind Jade surely this song is a fore-running candidate for X Japan’s filming purposes, with possibly more than one video in the pipeline, supposing Yoshiki still intends to release more than one version – although it’s not exactly easy to tell.

A music video for the mystery new song, which Yoshiki mentioned having finished in a recent Ustream blog

There’s not much to say about this other than the fact that Yoshiki has said the band had finished recording a brand new song and as such we can surely assume there is at least one un-heard song in the pipeline.

A music video for an older song

It seems like a really dumb idea but this, after all is a 'best of' album, and of course involves Yoshiki, so it would be outright stupid to assume this isn’t something he’d try to pull off. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Yoshiki has become so creatively-dry he is considering taking this course of action.

An unrelated project, perhaps not a PV in the sense we immediately expect. Perhaps promotional material for another project.

Filming 4 music videos in just a few Hollywood streets comes across as being a very strange move, even by Yoshiki’s standards. I can easily imagine there being numerous costume changes for each session of filming, but having 4 distinct sets for filming or shooting 4 videos in the same setting both seem to be quite bizarre courses of action. Perhaps things are not as they seem, and these 4 videos are to serve a different promotional purpose, perhaps adverts ala Yoshiki’s Violet UK 7-11 tie-ins could be on the cards.

Whatever happens, it sounds a very gruelling filming schedule and I’m quite excited as to what comes of it. I’m just hoping that, you know, Yoshiki doesn’t let us down… again. Maybe it’s my own fault for expecting anything anymore.

Anyone else got any ideas or conjecture as to X Japan’s plans? I will try to keep people up-to-date with what is going on in LA as I have a number of friends attending the event.