Ayabie

The hugely popular visual kei band Ayabie were one of the first acts to practice the style that was later to become known as oshare kei ("fashionable type"). With cute, garishly colored outfits and cheerful, summery lyrical themes, their music ranged through an extremely wide variety of styles, from pop to metal and jazz. Ayabie (the name is not a real word, and is written with Japanese characters which confusingly do not say "Ayabie" but rather "Irodori Hieru," which translates roughly as "cool coloration") were formed in Tokyo in May 2004 by three former members of the band...