Have you ever seen Double-X, the video-clip series based on the famous Clamp manga ? If yes, you probably noticed the stunning soundtrack, a series of great hard-rock and romantic songs composed by one of the greatest Japanese rock bands, X Japan...

Formed in 1982 by Yoshiki Hayashi, the composer, drummer and pianist, who uses to dress himself as a woman, and Toshimitsu Deyama, a cool singer with a nice hoarse voice, X makes its debut on some heavy-metal compilation albums in 1985 and 1987. Later, Yoshiki will create their own indie record label, Extasy Records, and X will release their first album, Vanishing Vision, extremely hard-rock oriented but with some nice slow tunes too (Alive, Un-finished). At this moment, the band consists of five members : vocalist Toshi, all-purpose member and leader Yoshiki, guitarists hide (Hideto Matsumoto) and Pata (Tomoaki Ishizuka), and bassist Taiji (Taiji Sawada).

In march 1989, exactly one year after Vanishing Vision, X will make their official debut in a major company, Sony Records, with a fabulous album called Blue Blood. It shows their real talent and sincerity, with a special mention to a 11' song, Rose of Pain, climax of the album, a perfect fusion of rock and romantic music.

Later in 1991, they release another very good album, Jealousy, with a very impressive title song, Silent Jealousy, and some cool alternative tracks like Love Replica by our god hide. By the way, never write his name Hide, he wouldn't like it ^^;... Now, the members live a large part of their time in Los Angeles, but they will never manage to break into the US market, probably because of their (funny ?) gothic look.

From this date, health problems from all of the members will slow down the production rhythm of the band, and they will only release a Single CD (29 minutes anyway !) in 1993, Art of Life. In my honest opinion, it's the best album they ever made, because it mixes again perfectly their various styles of music. In the meantime, the great bassist Taiji had to leave the band (in early 1992), and he was replaced by Heath (Hiroshi Morie), who's probably not as talented as Taiji, but a good bassist anyway. The band also changed his name to X Japan, because of the similarities with another band named X in the States...

In 1994 and 1995, they only released some (very good) Singles, and we've had to wait until August 1996 to finally be able to hear their latest album, Dahlia, a good compilation of all these singles, with some impressive bonus tracks like Scars and White Poem I. But we are left with the impression that they are not renewing their style of music too much... Are they sleeping or what ? Why did they make us wait so long for such a... normal album ?

Nevertheless, we are hopeful when it's about the solo carreers of every member. Toshi released three pop albums, Yoshiki participated in many projects with other bands, hide released two great alternative rock albums, a cool mini-album and worked with Luna Sea (my favorite rock band) on some other projects, Heath makes some Singles as well, and Pata released two solo albums too. No news from Taiji, sadly...

This page features transcriptions of the lyrics for all of their albums. I'll hope you'll enjoy them, since it's quite cool to be able to sing along with Toshi and the others on those great songs !

-- René-Gilles Deberdt, with the help of Jérôme Gottrand.

Regular albums
Other albums
Solo albums

The X-Japan and J-Rock Mailing Lists...

Dedicated to discussions about X Japan, its members and Japanese rock (J-Rock) in general, these mailing-lists are international and you may use English on it. To subscribe, just send a mail to majordomo@cohprog.com, leave the subject blank, and write in the body : subscribe xjapan or subscribe j-rock to subscribe, or unsubscribe xjapan or unsubscribe j-rock to... unsubscribe. Then, you can post your messages to xjapan@cohprog.com or j-rock@cohprog.com...

Other links...

YaK Online: one of the best fan sites about X Japan, with many audio samples available.
Govern's Visual Shock: one of the best sites... You will also find some videos there !
Midi files: a very nice collection of X Japan songs and other bands...
X Heath: yes, he has his own official site ! And it's made by his own brother...
X hide: hide was jealous, so he opened his own official site too...
Rockin' Heaven: a fabulous site dedicated to other Visual J-Rock bands (L'Arc-en-ciel...)
Luna Sea (Rockin' Heaven): a very complete page about my favorite J-Rock band.

Cyber Namida was created and designed by René-Gilles Deberdt. All rights reserved.