Beat Rock

Beat rock is a Japanese rock style of the 1980s band boom, named for its driving beat and built from British beat and punk influences filtered through domestic group sounds. Its sound centres on compact guitar bands playing short, fast, melodic songs with shouted or earnestly sung choruses, minimal studio gloss and an emphasis on live energy. Acts such as *BOØWY*, *The Blue Hearts* and *Jun Sky Walker(s)* brought the style from club circuits to stadiums and television, making beat rock the mainstream face of Japanese rock at the end of the decade before the market fragmented into visual kei, J-pop hybrids and alternative rock in the 1990s.