J-rock

Japanese rock (Japanese: 日本のロック, Hepburn: Nihon no Rokku^?), sometimes abbreviated to J-rock (ジェイ・ロック, Jei Rokku), is rock music from Japan. Influenced by American and British rock of the 1960s, the first rock bands in Japan performed what is called Group Sounds, with lyrics almost exclusively in English. Folk rock band Happy End in the early 1970s are credited as the first to sing rock music in the Japanese language. Punk rock band the Blue Hearts and heavy metal group X Japan, led Japanese rock bands in the late 1980s and early 1990s by achieving major mainstream success. Japanese rock music has become a cult worldwide, being widely known in Asia and has survived through decades competing with its contemporary derivative local style J-pop.

In the 1960s, many Japanese rock bands were influenced by Western rock musicians such as the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones, along with other Appalachian folk music, psychedelic rock, mod and similar genres: a phenomenon that was called Group Sounds (G.S.). John Lennon of the Beatles later became one of the most popular Western musicians in Japan.Group Sounds is a style of Japanese rock music that was popular in the mid to late 1960s. After the boom of Group Sounds, there were several influential singer-songwriters. Nobuyasu Okabayashi was the first who became widely recognized.Wataru Takada, inspired by Woody Guthrie, also became popular.. They both were influenced by American folk music but wrote Japanese lyrics. Takada used modern Japanese poetry as lyrics, while Kazuki Tomokawa made an album using Chuya Nakahara's poems. Tomobe Masato, inspired by Bob Dylan, wrote critically acclaimed lyrics.The Tigers were the most popular Group Sounds band in the era. Later, some of the members of the Tigers, the Tempters, and the Spiders formed the first Japanese supergroup, Pyg.

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