Well, there are a lot of exceptions. But Japan's the kind of country that can embrace things like John Lennon's Double Fantasy in a way America could never. They can completely look past any cheese, probably partially because of the language barrier...
They certainly can look past cheese but the most popular acts there at the moment are total prepackaged pop idols.
That's not saying there isn't a lot of
great stuff going on below that that's
pretty popular.