Spotlight: X Japan.

I accidentally stumbled onto this video of this guy drumming and my gosh, his drumming is breathtaking, literally. I have never in my whole life seen drumming of this level of skill. Hence, my curiosity to find out about this guy was aroused and i went to do some research.

This person's name is Yoshiki and he is the co-founder and drummer of X Japan. Now X Japan is a band that i heard of, though i have never listened to their music before. After all, they are from a time past. I always classified them under "Oldies".

X Japan achieved an incredible level of fame that Backstreet Boys and Westlife could hope to rival. In japan, they are a household name and millions, if not the whole of japan, worshipped them. Plenty of famous bands, such as Nightmare and Janna Da Arc, cited X Japan as the influence for their music and their decision to join the Jrock scene.

Part of the founding movement, if not the founding father, of the current Visual Kei scene, they generated waves, scratch that, they generated TSUNAMIS across the globe. My professer at Thailand, knew about them. Heck, even my own mother knew about them and she's, well, she ain't a rocker or anything. She's an ABBA fan.

I heard from a friend of mine that Yoshiki is hailed as the "God of Drums" just as his bandmate, Hide, was hailed as the "God of Guitar". Sadly, Regrettably, Hide commited suicide in 1998 at the age of 33.

It's such a pity. I've heard one song of theirs and i think they're awesome. The emotions generated by that song alone breaks my heart (figuratively). Well, it inspires me enough to blog and that's good enough, isn't it?

Anyway, yeah, I find it strange that bands of old are better than current bands - in terms of music and instrumental skill. I'll award the point for style to the current bands though. X Japan's Visual Kei look are a bit terrifying.

A friend of mine explained that it may be because producers are producing the albums for bands without considering the real talents. He might have a point. And it boils down to one thing: Capitalism.

Still, that such a great band has broken up and the loss of a talented guitarist. History mourns them deeply. The loss is a great one.

P.S: Hide's death caused 3 fans to die in copycat suicides. *shakes head*