Music like GLAY

GLAY is a Japanese rock band, formed in Hakodate in 1988. Glay primarily composes songs in the rock and pop genres, but they have also arranged songs using elements from a wide variety of genres, including progressive rock, punk, electronic, R&B, folk, reggae, and ska. Originally a visual kei band, the group slowly shifted to less dramatic attire through the years. As of 2008, Glay had sold an estimated 51 million records; 28 million singles and 23 million albums, making them one of the top ten best-selling artists of all time in Japan.

Glay formed in 1988 as a high school band when Takuro asked Teru, a schoolmate, to play the drums. They found a bassist but had difficulty finding a vocalist. When Teru made a tape of his singing and gave it to Takuro he was immediately recruited for the part, leaving the drums part to be filled by another person. On the search for a second guitarist, Hisashi was asked to join but declined the offer, as he was already part of a locally well-known heavy punk/rock band called Ari, which better suited his taste in music. Hisashi eventually accepted Takuro's offer and became Glay's lead guitarist after Ari disbanded. Officially, the name "Glay" is a deliberate misspelling of the word "gray" and represents the style of music they wanted to play: a mixture between rock (black) and pop (white). Friday magazine ran an article quoting a former classmate of a band member as saying the "glay" spelling was a simple spelling mistake rather than a deliberate decision. Confusing the R and L is a very common mistake amongst Japanese speakers of English, because the Japanese language does not distinguish between the retroflex ("r") and lateral ("l")