Oricon - Weekly International Album Chart (1/8)

Weekly International Album Chart (Japan) - 1 August 2011

1. Lady Gaga / Born This Way
2. Che'Nelle / Love Songs
3. V.A. / DJ Kaori's Party Mix2
4. Beyoncé / 4
5. LMFAO / Sorry For Party Rocking
6. Def Leppard / Mirrorball
7. Lady Gaga / The Monster
8. 2Cellos / 2Cellos
9. SHOW / Only For You Japan Edition
10. Simple Plan / Get Your Heart On!

Source: http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/wa/w/

You would already notice the charts I have posted here in the past were not Japan total album chart (domestic + international), but International album chart (international only). Domestic music accounts for around 80% of the whole Japanese popular music market. What I expect when you have a look the total chart is this: there are too many internationally-unknown names in the total charts so that you really can't get anything out of it. That's why I decided to stick to International charts when I started this blog. But you may want to have a look? Here it is for you:

Japan Total Album Chart - 1 August 2011

1. Juju / You
2. Lady Gaga / Born This Way
3. Tube / Re-Creation
4. Arashi / Beautiful World
5. Girls' Generation / Girls' Generation
6. Nishino Kana / Thank You, Love
7. Che'Nelle / Love Songs
8. Aoki Ryuji / Lien
9. 40mP feat. Hatsune Miku / Chisana Jibun to Okina Sekai
10. Superfly / Mind Travel

Source: http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/ja/w/2011-08-01/

So...there are just two international acts (in red) within Top 10 (Girls' Generation is actually a South Korean girls group but the album is released from a Japanese record company so that it's categorised as a domestic album). Is that unique? For comparison, here is more album charts from randomly-selected countries - US, UK, France and Sweden (international acts of each chart below are in red):

US Album Chart (Billboard 200) - 6 August 2011

1. Adele / 21
2. Kidz Bop Kids / Kidz Bop 20
3. 3 Doors Down / Time Of My Life
4. Beyonce / 4
5. DJ Khaled / We The Best Forever
6. Blake Shelton / Red River Blue
7. 311 / Universal Pulse
8. Jason Aldean / My Kinda Party
9. Amy Winehouse / Back To Black
10. Selena Gomez & The Scene / When The Sun Goes Down

Source: http://www.billboard.com/charts/billboard-200#/charts/billboard-200

UK Album Chart - 30 July 2011

1. Adele / 21
2. Beyonce / 4
3. Adele / 19
4. Caro Emerald / Deleted Scenes From The Cutting Room
5. Lady Gaga / Born This Way
6. Bruno Mars / Doo-Wips & Hooligans
7. Rihanna / Loud
8. LMFAO / Sorry For Party Rocking
9. Chase & Status / No More Idols
10. Foo Fighters / Wasting Light

Source: http://www.theofficialcharts.com/albums-chart/

France Album Chart - 24 July 2011

1. Adele / 21
2. Les Marins Diroise / Les Marins Diroise
3. The Black Eyed Peas / The beginning
4. Zaz / Zaz
5. Colonel Reyel / Au Rapport
6. Les Pretres / Gloria
7. Nolwenn Leroy / Bretonne
8. Keen V / Carpe Diem
9. Jean-Louis Aubert / Roc Eclair
10. Shakira / Sale El Sol

Source: http://www.disqueenfrance.com/fr/page-256595.xml

Swedish Album Chart - 29 July 2011

1. Benny Anderssons / OrkesterO Klang Och Jubeltid
2. Eric Saade / Saade Vol.1
3. Lasse Stefanz / Cuba Libre
4. Veronica Maggio / Satan I Gatan
5. Christer Sjögren / Kramgoa Låtar 2011
6. Adele / 21
7. Malena Ernman / Opera Di Fiori
8. Rolandz / Halleluja Mamma
9. Electric Light Orchestra / All Over The World
10. Thorleifs / Goldensax: Love Songs

Source: http://www.sverigetopplistan.se/index.html

The majority of albums in Japan, US, France and Sweden chart are domestic. However, interestingly there are only 3 domestic albums out of UK Top 10. This is just about chart positions. Market share of international music in each country is a different matter from it. But those charts above would remind you of a very important fact - each country has an unique music scene consisted of many domestic pop stars.

Lady Gaga's Youtube account suspended - so what is behind the story?

I remember I enjoyed reading The Guardian's series of articles on the Japanese music scene called "Turning Japanese". Some of them showed somehow misunderstanding of the scene but the others were so interesting. One of these great articles is entitled "Turning Japanese: The seedy underworld of music moguls". It discussed a dark side of a massive boy-group-only management company "Johnny's Jimusho"(means Johnny's office) and its CEO Johnny Kitagawa, and how the Japanese society deals with a hugely controversial "idol market". The article is worth reading it.

Why am I talking about this? Well, it's because I just heard Lady Gaga's official youtube account was suspended. This news made me (and I hope many Japanese people) reacknowledge irresistible power of Johnny's Jimusho.

"Lady Gaga's YouTube Account Suspended for Copyright Violation" - Billboard.com (14/7/2011)

Lady Gaga hosted a footage of her TV performance from a weekly Japanese TV show "SMAP x SMAP". However, soon its broadcaster Fuji TV made a claim on copyright infringement and youtube's "cyber police" Media Interactive, Inc. took down the account for a while.

If you have alrady read the Gardian's article above, you will notice that "SMAP x SMAP"'s host is the most successful Japanese boy band SMAP, who belong to Johnny's Jimusho. It's the most powerful and money-making company in the Japanese entertainment world. Nobody can resist it. It should be the same for Fuji TV. Even if Lady Gaga's the world biggest pop star of today, SMAP I guess should be much more important for Fuji TV no matter what people in the world say. Johnny's Jimusho is known its intolerance of copyright infringement so it's natural that Fuji TV made a claim to protect SMAP from "the infringement by Lady Gaga" (and protect themselves for their own business with Johnny's).

That's a bit story behind the news as far as I can tell. There should be different interpretations on this issue but I believe my interpretation is not too far from the reality...

Oricon - Weekly International Album Chart (11/7)

Weekly International Album Chart (Japan) - 11 July 2011

1. Lady Gaga / Born This Way
2. Beyoncé / 4
3. V.A. / DJ Kaori's Party Mix2
4. Kim Hyun Joong / Break Down
5. Limp Bizkit / Gold Cobra
6. Lady Gaga / The Monster
7. Simple Plan / Get Your Heart On!
8. V.A. / Songs For Japan
9. Lady Gaga / The Fame
10. Pitbull / Planet Pit

Source: http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/wa/w/

Lady Gaga again. In this chart week she sold over 54,000 copies, whereas she had sold just about 35,000 copies a week before. You can see a massive increase in sales. Total sales of the album is now expected over 300,000. She also enjoyed other albums of hers re-climbing the chart as you can see.

She stayed in 11 days in Japan in the end of the last month. She was everywhere during her stay. In particular, TV appearance was strong enough to get everybody from kids to elders keep her in mind. This clearly resulted in the sales as I explained above.

You may know "Born This Way" has been seen it underperforming. In its first chart week, impressively one million copies were sold in the states only. It got no.1 title in multiple countries. Yes, it looks brilliant. Nevertheless, this possitive news was soon overshadowed by the following sharp fall in sales and Adele winning back no.1 position in US after just two weeks of "Born This Way" release. Similar thing happened in the UK as you may know. It looks like Gaga wasn't able to respond to expectations by people from the music industry to the media to the masses.

In the meantime, in Japan, the album has never fall down from no.1 spot of the international album chart since its release. Additionally, the 82% drop wasn't interestingly a big news here (I think the Japanese don't like to report something bad and things that they don't want to know). Therefore "Born This Way" looks it's been doing very well here and is "looked" like it's been doing very well worldwide. I think Japan can be one of the countries that sold the album most physically if the trend continues. Every country has a different music market, doesn't it?

How about in your country? If you are from non-US/UK country, I'm strongly interested to know about that...!

Oricon - Weekly International Album Chart (4/7)

 

 Weekly International Album Chart (Japan) - 4 July 2011

1. Lady Gaga / Born This Way
2. V.A. / DJ Kaori's Party Mix2
3. Simple Plan / Get Your Heart On!
4. Shade / Ultimate Collection
5. In Flames / Sounds Of A Playground Fading
6. Paul McCartney (deluxe edition) / Paul McCartney
7. McCartney 2 (deluxe edition) / Paul McCartney
8. Lady Gaga / The Monster
9. Bad Meets Evil / Hell: The Sequel
10. Il Divo / Love Songs - Inspired By The Film Andalucia

Source: http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/wa/w/

Lady Gaga's "The Monster" came back to Top 10 this chart week. You can easily guess Gaga's trip in Japan seemed to make the album leap to #8.

Paul McCartney's two reissues were to celebrate 45th anniversary of The Beatles first performance in Japan. They're both remastered and have special editions along with standard ver. Even though they're just reissues, both of Sir. Paul's remastered albums secured Top 10 for their first chart week. Paul McCartney is still Paul McCartney. He's big.

Oricon - Weekly International Album Chart (27/6)

Weekly International Album Chart (Japan) - 27 June 201

1. Lady Gaga / Born This Way
2. Il Divo / Love Songs - Inspired By The Film Andalucia
3. Arctic Monkeys / Suck It and See
4. V.A. / Songs For Japan
5. Owl City / Bright & Beautiful
6. Jennifer Lopez / Love?
7. Aaron / The Next Me
8. Avril Lavigne / Goodbye Lullaby
9. Kim HyunJoong / Break Down
10. Jessie J / Who Are You

Source: http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/wa/w/

Lady Gaga in Japan right now!She came to play for MTV charity live (thanks Gaga!).

Would you say this Japan trip purely coincided the album release or had been planned for promo first and MTV made the offer after the earthquake? I totally appreciate that she bravely came to Japan for the earthquake relief, whereas most of the international acts hesitate to do because of the disastrous nuclear accident. However, from the label point of view, the timing of her Japan trip was the best to promote her album. It just came out last month and has been at #1 until now. It's rare that any of such a big artist come just before/after album release.

Oricon will publish the latest chart this evening. See what will happen with Gaga.