TOKYO (AP) -- Cancel those plans to slam-dance to Japan's national anthem.
A record company is scrapping a punk rock version of the hymn that has long been renounced by pacifists as reminiscent of militarism.
Polydor has refused to release a new album by the group Little Screaming Revue because it included ``Kimigayo.''
``Kimigayo'' was so controversial it was only recognized as the national anthem last week, when a law passed in Parliament giving official recognition to the song, along with the Rising Sun flag.
``We did not want to give the impression we were taking sides on an issue that has so divided national opinion,'' Polydor spokesman Kenji Goto said Tuesday.
Kiyoshiro Imawano, the band's leader, saw the cancellation of the album as an infringement of his artistic freedom and is trying to release the seven-song ``A Cross in Winter'' through another record company.
``The song has no political ideology, and it is not a parody,'' said agent Satoru Koyama, while acknowledging that conservative Japanese may be shocked by Imawano's rendition. ``It is a conceptual suggestion from a musician.''
Imawano, 48, kept the melody and lyrics intact but sings the lyrics to a punk rock arrangement that includes frenzied drumming and bass. Guitarist Shinji Miyake plays solos that revoke Hendrix's famous Woodstock performance of ``The Star Spangled Banner,'' Koyama said.
The Japanese flag -- a red disc on a white field -- and the ``Kimigayo'' homage to the emperor have long served as de facto national symbols.
But they have not been legally sanctioned as such since World War II because, to many Japanese and other Asians, the symbols represent Japan's military aggression in the 1930s and 40s.
© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press
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