B'z = owns you
OK, since this is the rant section, I figure I'll do a little semi-ranting. B'z is easily the most popular/famous band in all of Asia. They've sold over 75,000,000 physical albums in Japan alone. While other bands around the world boast more cumulative record sales, you have to consider that there are only around 127,000,000 people living in Japan. The group is made up of two guys. Tak Matsumoto writes all the music and plays the guitars (he's also considered by many to be the best guitarist in Japan) and Koshi Inaba writes the lyrics. Their sound changes on every album but can still easily be recognized as them. Musically, their songs range from jazz to rock to metal to blues to techno to whatever else they feel like. Steve Vai himself recommended that they be the first asian music artists to have their names and handprints put on Hollywood's Rock Walk. These guys right now have the most consecutive #1 hits of anyone I've ever heard of with their record standing (at the moment) at 40 starting in 1990 and going to now. As of the moment, they have 15 studio albums with another on the way this year. 13 (I think, may be 12) have hit #1 on the Oricon charts. Now, why they're less known here in America as compared to say, Malice Mizer or X Japan, I don't know other than you have a lot of fan girls who are obsessed with the now defunct Visual Kei scene. To further prove my point that B'z > everyone here are some videos. If anyone's interested, I'll post up an album or two for download. They're one of the few asian bands that I will say it's worth paying the ungodly import prices for. Real Thing Shakes - http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vz0HgSvc_t0 Calling - http://youtube.com/watch?v=HGyn96C_43k Love Phantom - http://youtube.com/watch?v=oW11vB-QL7g Brotherhood - http://youtube.com/watch?v=N6C_RIwb8C0 Ultra Soul - http://youtube.com/watch?v=5zigY7nExws Ocean - http://youtube.com/watch?v=9RHYtldDUsQ Lady Navigation - http://youtube.com/watch?v=aTBeubkCM8M Negai - http://youtube.com/watch?v=pwxn-mvvAdo I'm slightly obsessed. >.>
OK, since this is the rant section, I figure I'll do a little semi-ranting. B'z is easily the most popular/famous band in all of Asia. They've sold over 75,000,000 physical albums in Japan alone. While other bands around the world boast more cumulative record sales, you have to consider that there are only around 127,000,000 people living in Japan. The group is made up of two guys. Tak Matsumoto writes all the music and plays the guitars (he's also considered by many to be the best guitarist in Japan) and Koshi Inaba writes the lyrics. Their sound changes on every album but can still easily be recognized as them. Musically, their songs range from jazz to rock to metal to blues to techno to whatever else they feel like. Steve Vai himself recommended that they be the first asian music artists to have their names and handprints put on Hollywood's Rock Walk. These guys right now have the most consecutive #1 hits of anyone I've ever heard of with their record standing (at the moment) at 40 starting in 1990 and going to now. As of the moment, they have 15 studio albums with another on the way this year. 13 (I think, may be 12) have hit #1 on the Oricon charts. Now, why they're less known here in America as compared to say, Malice Mizer or X Japan, I don't know other than you have a lot of fan girls who are obsessed with the now defunct Visual Kei scene. To further prove my point that B'z > everyone here are some videos. If anyone's interested, I'll post up an album or two for download. They're one of the few asian bands that I will say it's worth paying the ungodly import prices for. Real Thing Shakes - http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vz0HgSvc_t0 Calling - http://youtube.com/watch?v=HGyn96C_43k Love Phantom - http://youtube.com/watch?v=oW11vB-QL7g Brotherhood - http://youtube.com/watch?v=N6C_RIwb8C0 Ultra Soul - http://youtube.com/watch?v=5zigY7nExws Ocean - http://youtube.com/watch?v=9RHYtldDUsQ Lady Navigation - http://youtube.com/watch?v=aTBeubkCM8M Negai - http://youtube.com/watch?v=pwxn-mvvAdo I'm slightly obsessed. >.>