Japanese Rock - Part 1

Welcome to the first part in a collection of posts about my Japanese rock recommendations. I’m not sure how many of these posts there’ll be, but hey - Lets Rock!

The Blue Hearts

Where to start.... this band, which was around from the 80s until 90s, is my favourite Japanese punk band and probably one of my favourite bands in general. They wrote catchy punk songs and were known for their, at the time, controversial antics.

Their most famous song has to be Linda Linda. This song is so famous in Japan there’s even a movie which uses it as the basis of a plot, Linda Linda Linda, documenting a high school band’s highs and lows as they try to practice the said song for a school festival. It’s a good movie so if you have a chance, I recommend watching it. There is another, more personal, reason I love this song - it’s the first Japanese song that I could sing in Karaoke without my Japanese friends saying “That’s not Japanese!”




That said, the Blue Hearts were not a “one hit wonder” they have a lot of great songs and I’ve yet to find a Blue Hearts song that I didn’t like.