Asian Rock

Asian rock is the collective term for rock music created across East, South and Southeast Asia, encompassing national scenes that developed in parallel from the 1960s onward as imported Anglo-American records were localised. Japanese groups such as *Happy End* established rock sung in the domestic language, *Cui Jian* carried the form into post-reform China, and Hong Kong's *Beyond*, South Korea's *Seo Taiji and Boys*, Indonesia's *God Bless* and Pakistan's *Junoon* each became mass phenomena at home. The umbrella is geographic rather than stylistic, but its scenes share a defining negotiation between Western band formats and local language, instrumentation and identity.