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The saying "Music knows no boundaries" is still true to me, but more and more I've been thinking that exceptions may apply. Sometimes you do have to know the cultural references to really get the music of a band or what they are doing.
Take 筋肉少女帯 (KING-SHOW) for an example, Westerners may think they're an okay rock band with a glam metal guitarist, but the concept of the band is to showcase the subcultures of Japanese young social outcasts. My wife said "If you get KING-SHOW, you comprehend modern Japan."
I agree with her, esp if you know the language (though my Japanese has gotten really rusty due to longtime disuse). Taiwanese people, esp those who grew up in the 1990s, probably had the easiest access to modern Japanese culture due to geographic proximity & historical reasons.
Remember, the internet during the 1990s was nothing like today's. No BitTorrent, no YouTube. Back then Westerners didn't have such an easy access to Japanese culture thanks to the internet. Taiwan, on the other hand, was flush with Japanese cultural exports.
Lastly, even today Westerners still view Japan thru a lens of exoticism, and let's admit it -- there is still a sense of cultural superiority in many Westerners. They have a set of values they consider universal, but sometimes East Asian societies simply don't work that way.
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