What have occurred to Japanese music scene from the mid-1990s to now.

The mid-1990s was the era when Japanese pop music was so mellow. The business category called "CD shop" was generalized nation-wide, enormous past masterpiece catalogs which had been difficult to get as analog records were reprinted together in the form of CD, and you could get them so easily. Moreover masterpieces of all times and places were arranged in enormous counters which had been difficult to imagine before. You can't imagine it now, but it was a kind of spectacle.

Mike Mills, who is the directer of "Thumbsucker (2005)" and the graphic designer engaging in the production of artworks of Grand Royal, said to me in the mid-1990s "Tower record is The Museum of Modern Art for our generation"―― yes, that's right. Perhaps Sibuya Udagawa town ―― now it's replaced by Amoeba Music in San Francisco ―― was the place where every genre of used records were gathered and heads all over the world visited in force and bought back a mountain of records . Anyway, the mid-1990s was the happy era when people were addicted to the joy of discovering new music for themselves with blood in his eyes.

Now I talk about 1998 generation. Setting Spitz which can be called the first Japanese alternative band as the root and discovery of Nakamura Kazuyoshi as an opportunity, the sense of 1998 generation actualized gradually. It was 1998 when series of artists such as Utada Hikaru, Shiina Ringo, Dragon Ash, Quruli, Number Girl, Supercar got to be active. It was also this time Thee Michelle Gun Elephant got to be awake apparently. You can add Wino and Pre-school to these bands. And adding Nanao Tabito to end of the line, you can see a generation outlook. I remember I was so excited when I found quotations from John Coltrane and Marvin Gaye in the first album of Nanao Tabito who was a teenager at that time. What a wonderful era! Japanese pop music will be more exciting from now! ―― their existence was enough to induce such a expectation and a premonition in us though before then there had been Fishmans, Sunny Day Service, Bloodthirsty Butchers and bands around Air Jam such as Hi-Standard above all. Anyway, The mid-1990s was the time when Japanese original pop music came one after another and grew into a flowering extensively.

They had common attitudes to refer to past music aggressively. Thinking about using the phrase "A present progressive form reasonating with Western rock......" as an introduction when you talked about bands around Flipper's Guitar before then, there was a gap. And compared with the musical reference point of Shibuya-kei artists before them was based on a rare groovy sense of value of which they dug out soul music in 1970s, A&M pop and works being out of date, they were much greedier than artists before. You can tell they were gross eaters. They didn't concern about whether works were out of date or not, whether works were so famous or not that everybody knew, and what these ages and sounds were. Every music was good as long as it taught them something new.

In belief, this generation referred to not feed traies in used record shops but enormous back catalogs which were choked up in enormous sites of large-scale retail stores such as Tower record and HMV. And their reference points were perfectly different from each other. There was no common point but they reasonated with "alternative" , a movement going on in the West, which was circulated barely as a meaningful word at that time. You can tell they were post-modern. And that was the era when it seemed the strange wall of this island country own such as Western music/Japanese music disappeared once. The era come in you don't need to use the obscure word "Western music/Japanese music" which doesn't exist in the world but Japan! The extra wall disappears! One step closer to world peace! ―― there were some optimistic foolish people who were pleased like that ―― it was me.

Anyway, that's the story in the era when people believed innocently it was just joyful talents and products moved freely across the borders. Battle in Seattle occurred in 1999. In belief, that's the story in the era people didn't recognize various bad effects caused by globalization especially in Japan. You can tell ten years after the Berlin wall falled in 1989 was the happy era at least for Japanese pop music though it didn't last longer.

So, what had changed for twenty years since then? Speaking frankly, as the same as other pop culture such as film and novel, all music had got to be introverted and not to look back the past. They only referred to what had occurred in this island country for the past few years ―― things had got be like that and the tendency was conspicuous especially in the world of J-Rock of the mainstream. Some people called it "national isolated rock" ironically (it was me), but most of people thought it oppositely and some people even said "Finally Japanese rock has been released from Western music complex!" with their Western music complex exposed. After then compared with 1998 generation, acts who referred to past and foreign music aggressively had increased extremely until the end of 2000s the word "Galapagos Syndrome of Japanese pop music " was used here and there.

The saying goes "Division begins after people step into all of frontiers". For example, political world. It was the very division which came after the worldwide colonial period and the American western frontier period. At the same time absurd gap between rich and poor was born. And really similar things occurred in Japanese pop scene of 2000s. As the business category such as Amazon increased the force and the existence such as Youtube was generalized, large-scale CD retail stores which had been MOMA before drove enormous back catalogs into the end of the store. They still switched axis of their business to How much new-released records they sold in a week after the release. Though a few rare records had continued to be dug and reprinted, but it's like the specification of only a few popular records had been changed and re-released again and again. Anyway, both of them were positioned as a solid niche business for enthusiasts and there was no longer MOMA everybody could step into without constraint.

All of such environmental changes exercised a great influence on music new generation made. Most of new bands got to refer to only a few works they could get easily at nearby large-scale retail stores, TUTAYA, Book-off. And they only referred to what had occurred in this island country for the past few years. Division began after people stepped into all of frontiers. Everybody made really similar things, bit small pies each other and as an inevitable result of that, those who had economic force occupied all of pies and the gap between rich and poor impossible to correct got wider ―― everybody got to join this useless competition.

Speaking so frankly, that is what had occurred from the mid-2000s to 2010s. But I have no intention to say we have to make music considering Western market and advance there quickly like K-pop did. It's a story like this. It's impossible for one person to watch all films. It's impossible to listen to all music. It's impossible to recognize even the existence of all books. In belief, there is infinite frontiers and it doesn't mean people step into all frontiers.Yet why don't they see the world outside? why don't they see the past? No, is it really necessary to discriminate between inside and outside, the present and the past? Isn't culture born from the collision between different things in the first place? ―― I want to tell the story. there must have been a person who felt anger against it just two years before ―― it was surely me.

However, the era is like a pendulum. Now you can find Japanese indie music scene is so active. Quite exciting. You can tell it surpasses 1998 generation easily in quality and quantity. Giving actual examples, those are indie bands after cero and track makers after tofubeats. One of my old friends, Nikola Tesla wrote like that when he listened to the first album of Mori ha Ikiteiru."Fight alone of Quruli for the past ten years must be rewarded at last" Actually it gets be like that in quality, but their existence still doesn't get be famous around the country like 1998 generation. Why? Speaking frankly, it's because we lost the common base where artists and listeners see what pop music is, I mean, a MOMA-tic place for pop music where past and different cultural masterpieces were arranged before like large-scale CD retail stores.

You can tell these artists of new generation mainly owe their creative stimulus to new platforms on internet such as used record shops managed privately which are increasing the presence in a few years or soundcloud and bandcamp. They know there are enormous old and new musical veins and dig it day and night. They are a kind of new generation who discover primitive frontiers there. But it doesn't mean most of listeners get new stimulus from there as easily as people stepped into large-scale retail stores before. Of course, many music lovers run together with these artists, but it's apparent it still doesn't get to exist clearly as a matter of the number. It's probably because many music medias on internet abandoned informativeness, analysis and persuasion in the text of introducing music by laying axis of their business on the promotion of viralization of information. Anyway, it's certain each listener is on the situation he needs a kind of aggressiveness. Music is much more blessed than troubled situation you can't watch films you should watch and you can't read books you should read. So blessed. You can listen to all kinds of music much more easily than before if only you try to listen. Yet everybody listens to the same music. Everybody listens to music viralized by the architecture of internet and they almost believe they choose them by themselves.Therefore I should say it in other words like that. People only listen to music they want to listen.