ABSTRACT
Japanese musicians will continue looking outside to both frame and better understand who they are within, but Japanese music increasingly has been moving outwards from Japan as well. Now, of course, Hatsune Miku has become a household name, well, at least in houses that watch David Letterman. And shortly after Miku's surreal appearance, on October 11, 2014, longtime rock band X-Japan sold out Madison Square Garden with an audience of 15,000, an accomplishment inconceivable to me certainly fifteen, ten and perhaps even five years ago. If we accept that Japanese musicians are now able to fashion an identity couched within the historical trajectory of Japanese popular music alone, then "Megitsune" is entirely Japanese with its use of young female idols, who appear as much as fashion models as musicians in the official video of the song.
