Rant: X Japan Hype

While watching a new video presented by the always truthful Hinakun, I realized a lot of things she said was true about one of the legendary founders of visual kei in the Japanese rock industry. When I got introduced into the jrock fandom, I never really noticed the hype on X Japan and that was the first jrock band I heard. I don't think it's a requirement to like them or any other iconic jrock band, but it's nice to know the foundation sometimes.

I never became a hardcore X fan, just a mere admirer of their impact, diversity, and style. I ended up liking hide's solo work more than X and I know a lot of new jrock fans claim to like them a lot even though they only know a few basic songs, only got into them because of hide but barely know anything else about the band, or they claim to like them because they were a major influence to Dir en grey. Otherwise, no one really cares about them except older fans and fans that like older jrock music.

Hearing Hinakun's words of Yoshiki putting so much hype into X Japan is sadly true and amusing. X Japan is no longer a big deal to the jrock fandom. Only wannabes claim the X fandom nowadays (and maybe a few old jrock music lovers) and it just seems that Yoshiki wants attention because he's a big time musician and producer that starts up exciting music projects and never delivers. X will never be the same because hide has been dead and gone for more than a decade and mainstream jrock has changed.

I kinda want to believe that Yoshiki just wants people to inflate his ego because of his musical history and that his biggest musical success is slowly fading into the background due to the new jrock fan generation. Honestly, I think he should stick to producing bands and focus more on making his projects come to life instead of building all this hype for nothing like he's done with nearly every X Japan revival world tour and his "super visual kei" band S.K.I.N. Let hide's legacy rest, let Toshi move on with his new life since the divorce, and stop pretending X will be the big thing because you have Sugizo as your new guitarist. It'll never be the same~