Babymetal Stereotypes

1585 Words4 Pages

All the way back to the first existence of music, there has always been bands that were liked or disliked and Babymetal is no different. Babymetal is an all-girls Japanese heavy metal band formed in 2010. Not only are they unique for their willingness to play heavy metal in Japan, but also around the globe because of their gender. As women, their musical style, focus and dance, both fall outside of the normal boundaries of Japanese music for women. Stereotypically, when thinking of Japanese music, one thinks of the oriental riff, as seen in “Kung Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas in 1974. While it is the stereotypical way to represent the idea of the East Asian music style, it is also a Western invention. Western civilizations have created this concept of what Asian music should sound like, or resemble, and turn away from anything that doesn’t seem to fit into the normal stereotype. In addition to the oriental riff, stereotypical Japanese music consists mostly of percussion, strings and wind instruments. Not …show more content…

This song really brought the band to the front lines for a lot of their audience. In the music video recorded for the song, the visual appearance that goes with the music does not seem like the typical music one would expect from a Japanese pop and heavy metal band, but seems expected from these three young women in Babymetal. The way their music transitions from head-banging music to idealistic pop style music is intriguing at the least. They have an ability to draw in multiple audiences. The biggest question that seems to arise from all of the work that Babymetal does, is why they play the music they do. Throughout the research, there seemed to be a lack of criticism, but a large array of people who voiced opinions about why they did like the band, and most people claimed it was because of the way they sung, the music they played, and the amount of energy they put into every

Open Document