Your opinion on Western music?

[untitledforayu]

I love threads like this, where people post thought-provoking opinions rather than dumbly fan-personing ayu/their favourite artist.

I think J-Pop, and more generally 'Asian music,' appealed to me for the same reason as most people on this forum. During my mid-teens I started losing interest in mainstream chart pop (maybe because it started declining in quality, maybe I just wanted to be different) and a friend introduced me to Ayu. Looking back, I think her music was appealing because it had the accessibility of mainstream western pop music, but approaches 'pop' in a different, more exciting way for a western kid.

I became obsesssssed with J-Pop, based on how amazing I found Ayumi's songs and albums to be (the idea of interludes was insane back then haha) and was always trying to find more j-pop artists to fall in love with. Hikki became a favourite and I loved Namie Amuro and Ai Otsuka... but the more j/k/c/m/BLAH-pop I listened to, the more I realised that the J-Pop really isn't any better than western pop and that the depth, inventiveness and quality of Ayu and Hikki's music was really an exception to the rule. To me, (early) Ayu and Hikki aren't at all representative of the quality of asian music- they're way above the standard. I started hating this forum because it over-rated so many artists I found to be really mediocre and plain bad. So sorry, AHS.

So eventually I became interested in alternative and "indie" western music once i over-played ayu and stuff and I have to say that it's without a doubt the most brilliantly creative, forward-thinking and diverse area of music I've heard.

That being said, the western mainstream is great too, provided you listen to the 'right' stuff. I mean Lady Gaga's stuff is so much fun (minus Born This Way, perhaps) and right now, I think Rihanna's definitely ruling the scene.

I don't want to make unfair generalisations, but I think that people who listen to Ayu/Hikki/Namie/Kuu/K-Pop groups/etc. listen to a very small selection of western artists. Just look at the last.fm profiles of people who mainly listen to asian music or at the very active 'general music' threads here on ahs and it becomes pretty apparent that most j-pop fans listen almost exclusively to chart-topping pop divas like xtina and britney and gaga.

What I'm trying to say is that western music is really good and fun to listen to if you keep your taste diverse. It's easy to think that it all sounds the same or that the lyrics are bad, but dig around a bit and there's plenty to love. (Actually I kind of prefer it when pop songs don't have very meaningful lyrics haha because they're usually not written by the singer and the end product sounds insincere and cheesy).

Eurgh, loooong post. Sorry!