Japrocksampler

Julian Cope, visionary rock musician and musicologist, hip archaeologist and one-time frontman of The Teardrop Explodes, brings you JAPROCKSAMPLER. Until now, the language barrier has made post-war Japanese music an enigma to the West. Julian felt duty-bound to provide the key to that unfairly locked door.

This is the history of Western music’s arrival on Japanese shores after World War Two, and the delicious mayhem that ensued. From chromatic instrumental pop covers of The Shadows’ songs to the resurrection of Dylan-inspired Rokyoku folk storytelling, nowhere has the continual metamorphosis of rock’n’roll been more fascinating or original than in Japan.

JAPROCKSAMPLER is an exploration of the clash between traditional, conservative Japanese values and the wild rock’n’roll renegades of the 1960s and ’70s. It tells the tale of key artists in Japanese post-war culture, from itinerant art-house poets to violent refusenik rock groups with a penchant for plane hijacking, and rounds up the seminal japrock albums.

Julian guarantees that this book will have you rethinking your attitudes to music, art, time — and even life itself.