Japanese music

I've been two times in Japan, and I'm very impressed about the quality of japanese music in general. They have a huge music industry and a lots of tremendous bands that people have never heard of in west. I think that japanese bands might be even better than bands in europe or usa. At least I'm little bit bored with western music and Japanese music is good alternative.

http://www.hearjapan.com

Do you have any experiences with Japanese music and if you have, what do you think.

...by the way, I'm from Finland and they seemed to like alot of finnish music in Japan

i've been to japan and i'm minoring in japanese, but i can't say i really like much japanese music. one band i like is The Pillows and i guess i like some of Polysics stuff, but not much beyond those two bands.

I've been in Kyoto, Osaka, Okayama and of course in Tokyo and every place I've visited I've had great music experiences. I might say that I have never experienced as intensive gigs anywhere else than I have in Japan. Somehow japanese music just blows my mind ... Maybe I'm just confused because I have found a new world?

I'm sure Japan has many good bands, but unfortunately the kind of pop-sounding crap that American anime fans listen to is the only kind of Japanese music I've really ever heard. Stuff like Tank! and The Pillows is sort of okay I guess (at least they're listenable), but I don't listen to American television show themes, so why would I want to listen to Japanese television show themes?

And I'm just really picky about music in general I guess, so it's extra hard for me to find anything good no matter what language it's in.