Music is often characterized over-simplistically as a battle between rock and pop, seriousness and fun, but the two are always in an ever-shifting balance. With this column coming to the end of its six-year run, it feels timely to cast a look back ¡ª and perhaps also a hopeful eye forward ¡ª over the changing state of music in Japan.
Fashion in both the mainstream and indie music scenes rarely moves in sync, but a common feature of both is that they ebb and flow according to tidal patterns of their own.
The frilly, juvenile pop of the ¡®80s gave way to the more consciously grown-up dance music and album-oriented-rock-influenced J-pop groups of the ¡®90s, which in turn gave way to the R&B-influenced sounds of solo artists such as Hikaru Utada at the turn of the millennium.
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