Oricon - Weekly International Album Chart (1/11)

Weekly International Album Chart (Japan) - 1 November 2010

1. The Beatles / The Beatles 1967-1970
2. The Beatles / The Beatles 1962-1966
3. David Foster / David Foster Presents Love Again
4. The Beatles / The Beatles 1962-1970
5. JYJ / The Begining
6. VA/ DJ KAORI'S INMIX VI
7. Linkin Park / A Thousand Suns
8. Maroon 5 / Hands All Over
9. Eric Clapton / Clapton
10. Bruno Mars / Doo Wops & Hooligans

source: http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/wa/w/
also check the last week's chart here

The Beatles take over the chart (as widely expected). Nothing exciting in Top 10 but Top 30. Kings Of Leon's long-awaited 5th album "Come Around Sundown" positioned at #17, which is pretty amazing to me. You'd think "What?! It's amazing?! That's the no.1 album in the UK!!". Yes, you're right. But here is the fact: they are far less popular in Japan for some reasons. I have to tell you that they're known amongst the Japanese rock fans that they are big in many countries *except* Japan. I won't name other bands of which this time but there are a lot of that sort of cases. Another point I'd like to make is that I don't think the album has been well promoted here. They appeared on the cover of an indie rock/club music magazine Snoozer, which was nice. Apart from that, however, their Japan label seems less passionate about promoting the album. At least less than about the Hurts' debut album, which got a tie-up with a TV drama and a lot of TV spots. Bearing these things in mind, #17 is still a good position for them as far as I can tell.

*edit (30/10): Japanese version of "Come Around Sundown" is actually set to release on 24 November. It means only sales of imported CDs were reflected to this week's chart. I assume their Japanese label delibrately sets the release date one month behind its original release date. Think this way: the album released one month earlier in the US and the UK and it's easy to assume that it would go straight to the #1 (2 or 3) in the album charts of these two countries. Then the Japanese label would release PR (as they already did: ro69.jp/news/detail/42308), which raises the band's profile and makes bigger buzz in Japan ahead of the Japanese release date. Let me see what will happen when it goes on sale.

International acts coming to play in Japan in Jan/Feb 2011

January and February are always the best season to enjoy international acts live in Japan. Many international acts aim to come and play in Japan in either months. The season is always good for most of the international acts who play at Australia's music celebration "Big Day Out"taken place in January. Also there are many smaller festivals and bands' own Australia tour around the time. They go to Australia anyway so it's more convenient and cost-effective for them to stop by Japan before/after the festival.

There are tiny but great Japanese promoters for international acts. However, these two biggest promoters are always the most influencial: Smash and Creativeman. They organise Fuji Rock Festival and Summer Sonic respectively. The bands coming to Japan in the winter tend to play at either of the festivals as well. Offers for these bands seem to be a bundle of their own Japan tour in Jan or Feb (or possible in Spring) plus a festival slot. The theory doesn't apply to all cases but to the fair number of the case.

So, who are actually coming to Japan in the next Jan/Feb? As far as I know, this looks like this:

<Smash>
January: Digitalism, Donavon Frankenreite, Local Natives, Mice Parade,
February: Foals(special guest: Holy Fuck), Mae, Moe, No Age, Scissor Sisters,
Info: smash-jpn.com/index.php (Japanese only)

<Creativeman>
January: Klaxons, Hurts, Crystal Castle, Jamaica, Sleigh Bells, Firewild,
February: M.I.A., Taylor Swift, Two Door Cinema Club, MGMT, Halloween, Nas / Damian “Jr Gong” Marley, Bring Me The Horizon, Skillet, I'll Be Your Mirror (curated by ATP!!!yay! Lineup is to be announced)
Info: www.creativeman.co.jp/english/

<Others>
January: 4AD evening (Deerhunter, Blonde Redhead, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti) (info: Contrarede)
February: Mogwai (details are to be announced)

Gosh! Too many bands to come! Please note that each of the gigs are so expensive. The price range will be Iguess approximately 5,000-8,000 JPY (50-80 US dollers/ 40-65 pounds). Therefore Japanese international music fans are now all contemplating which gig they should go with their own limited budget. Regarding that, I would say coming to Japan in Spring can be possibly better than coming to the winter so that your fans can afford to buy their own tickets and go to your gig.. But touring in Spring might cost bands more. It's like a hell in heaven and we never can get away from that.

Oricon - Weekly International Album Chart (25/10)

Weekly International Album Chart (Japan) - 25 October 2010

   1. Linkin Park / A Thousand Suns
   2. VA/ DJ KAORI'S INMIX VI
   3. Maroon 5 / Hands All Over
   4. Eric Clapton / Clapton
   5. David Foster / David Foster Presents Love Again
   6. Santana / Guitar Heaven -Greatest Rock Classics-
   7. Olivia Newton-John / Olivia Newton-John: 40th Anniversary Collection
   8. Bruno Mars / Doo Wops & Hooligans
   9. Super Junior / Bonamana
  10. John Lennon / The Hits - Power To The People

source: http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/wa/w/
also check the last week's chart here

Linkin Park have sold amazingly more than 10k copies of "A Thousand Suns" by now. One of my co-worker said to me that maybe their Japanese record label (Warner Music Japan) might not be happy with the outcome as their target might be higher than 10k considering the grade of the band's success around the world including Japan. It's still great to me though.

Looking at the entries out of top 10, Belle & Sebastian's new album "Write About Love", that was at #15 for its first week, is now at #13. Antony & The Johnsons' "Swanlights" follows it at #16. I didn't expect that the album would reach that high spot in the chart considering their popularity and recent tendencies of the chart. However, they made it, which was great.

Oricon - Weekly International Album Chart (18/10)

Weekly International Album Chart (Japan) - 18 October 2010

   1. Linkin Park / A Thousand Suns
   2. VA/ DJ KAORI'S INMIX VI
   3. Maroon 5 / Hands All Over
   4. Eric Clapton / Clapton
   5. David Foster / David Foster Presents Love Again
   6. John Lennon / John Lennon Box
   7. Santana / Guitar Heaven -Greatest Rock Classics-
   8. John Lennon / The Hits - Power To The People
   9. Underworld / BarkingKaty
  10. Ash / A-Z Vol.2

source: http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/wa/w/
also check the last week's chart here

Just a quick update of the latest chart here. You might be surprised that the Northern Irish veteran Ash is one of the most popular indie rock band in Japan. They constantly come and play in Japan, which might be a key to their success in the Japanese international music scene. Or they can come to Japan that constantly as they're popular enough to do so!!

Unspoken agreement, unknown facts: displays at record shops

I always wonder if being secretive creates anything good and worth. In general, Japanese people tend to keep anything bad secret to keep the society work peacefully. Whatever happens behind - even if it's very ugly - if it looks great on the surface then it's fine. You don't want to know what is happening behind that. It's unspoken agreement. It's everywhere in the Japanese society. The Guardian's "Turning Japanese"(www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/feb/11/turning-japanese-music-moguls) describes it "As is often unfortunately the case in Japanese society, people will simply find it easier to turn a blind eye" - yes, that's true.

The other day, I found on twitter that a record shop guy criticising that labels provide financial support to big record shop chains. You might not get what I am talking about. There are big record shop chains in Japan such as Tower Records, HMV and Tsutaya. Unlike record shops in the UK, there are a lot of POPs, recommendation notes and listening spots in these record shops in Japan as you can see below:

 
At the first glance, it looks really DIY made by staff members of the record shop. However, in some cases, record labels pay for obtaining display spaces like the one above. Or record chains offer "a package" of such (e.g. a set of display spaces + listening spots). Please note this isn't applied to all cases. This sort of display can often be done without any money when a record buyer of a shop really want to recommend and sell a certain record. In particular, no money seems to be involved in the process of selecting records for general listening spots as far as I'm concerned. It simply depends on what records buyers want to put on.

Back to the story of the man on twitter, some told me that the fact that record labels pay for such thing isn't necessarily known by general music fans. It's like "Why the man tweeted about that?". I would say "maybe no it isn't necessarily". However, to me there are also no reason why the people shouldn't be informed about it apart from the speculation that labels and shops want these displays look like very DIY and no "bad things(=money)" involved in.

This blog-wise, I'll try to write about and thing of what I know about the music biz in Japan as much as I could. There are too many unknown facts about it. I believe the Japanese music industry goes to nowhere unless people are well informed about how the industry works. It was the primary aim of starting the blog. I've already got a Japanese music business blog (Green Sound from Glasgow: anno69.blog16.fc2.com/) for the Japanese so this blog is for people overseas.

I'll keep you posted.

Oricon - Weekly International Album Chart (11/10)

Weekly International Album Chart (Japan) - 11 October 2010

   1. Linkin Park / A Thousand Suns
   2. VA/ DJ KAORI'S INMIX VI
   3. Maroon 5 / Hands All Over
   4. Eric Clapton / Clapton
   5. Santana / Guitar Heaven -Greatest Rock Classics-
   6. David Foster / David Foster Presents Love Again
   7. John Legend & The Roots / Wake Up!
   8. Underworld / Barking
   9. Katy Perry / Teenage Dream
  10. Bad Religion / The Dissent of Man

source: http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/wa/w/
also check the last week's chart here

Only one new entry for this week's International album chart (Bad Religion is the one). However, if you check out other albums in the Top 30, you'll see (if you can read Japanese) more new entries - "Invented" by Jimmy Eat World at #16 and Metallica's three reissues at #22, #25 and #29. Metallica's reissues are all SHM-CDs (=Super High Material CDs) in cardboard sleeves. This format features enhanced audio quality. SHM-CDs are compatible with standard audio players but are only adopted and distributed in Japan. These reissues' release coincided with the band's Japan tour that took place a couple of weeks ago. It is said in Japan that metal music fans would buy anything their favourite bands release. They buy anything from "cardboard sleeve" to "Blu-spec" to "deluxe edition". Regarding that, it can be said that the band's Japanese label Universal International releases these reissues at the best time. Nothing new happened with there reissues. It's just a typical strategy.

Snoop Dogg: who could know about that?

Snoop Dogg was supposed to come to Japan at this weekend and do several live performances across the country. However, now it's cancelled due to performance fee unpaid. Snoop explains in the video beneath that all payment to him should be done before all the Japan dates but the promoter Positive Production didn't make it.

So here is the brilliant video:


It seems that his Japanese DJ friend @dj2high put Japanese subtitles on and uploaded the video to youtube on behalf of Snoop (great work!).

This thing is brilliant. In this sort of case, how a promoter explains the reason of an artist's cancellation is "due to unforeseen circumstance...". This is what Positive Production did as you can read here. However, the video was uploaded and the real reason was revealed. What happened to Snoop and what he has then brilliantly done should be openly discussed as it's a rare that such matter is revealed. Nevertheless, the most of the Japanese music media and music journalists haven't mentioned it as the promoter hasn't revealed it. They just don't want to get in trouble. Japanese music journalism is dying really. So I hope music fans who watched the video all understand it's a business matter and when a promoter says "due to unforeseen circumstance", it means something.

From a label point of view, the video is also nice as he explains that it's a promoter - booking agency matter. Mechanism of booking an artist for a gig is unique here in Japan (I'll explain if I have a chance to do so). Partly because of that I think many Japanese music fans believe that artist's record label in Japan is heavily involved in a concert deal but it's not. That's why his Japanese label EMI surprisingly put the youtube link on Snoop's feature webpage here, which no music online media did! To me it feels like EMI gets angry about the promoter's failure so that put the link...


I hope Snoop will find a better promoter and come to Japan in the near future.

*edit (10/10)
Here is a response from Positive Production:

Source: www.positiveproduction.com/cansel.html
Well, it seems a problem between the promoter and Snoop's agent. Is it going to court? Nobody knows...

Oricon - Weekly International Album Chart (4/10)

Weekly International Album Chart (Japan) - 4 October 2010

   1. Linkin Park / A Thousand Suns
   2. Maroon 5 / Hands All Over
   3. VA/ DJ KAORI'S INMIX VI
   4. Eric Clapton / Clapton
   5. Santana / Guitar Heaven -Greatest Rock Classics-
   6. ZE:A / ZE:A!
   7. David Foster / David Foster Presents Love Again
   8. Underworld / Barking
   9. John Legend & The Roots / Wake Up!
  10. Katy Perry / Teenage Dream

source: http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/wa/w/
also check the last week's chart here

Another K-Pop group ZE:A hit the chart this week. As too many K-Pop artists break Japan this year, I really can't memorise every single group's name...!! I should look into this K-Pop movement at some point in the near future.

DJ Kaori at #3 is a Japanese female DJ and so popular here in Japan. She is Japanese and this album is released from Universal's label USM JAPAN. However, the album in the international chart means she is registered not as a Japanese artist but an international artist thus here she is. It's quite complicated, isn't it?

Turning Japanese (from guardian.co.uk)

A number of goers came to see Jonsi at Summer Sonic 2010.

Have you ever read a string of articles called "Turning Japanese" on a British broadsheet The Guardian's website? It finished a year ago but it's still available on the website. Here is the link to: www.guardian.co.uk/music/series/turningjapanese

Some of the articles cut into the heart of problems that the Japanese music scene faces. However, as far as I read, the author of this Alex Hoban seemed to slightly misunderstand what the music scene is like and what people there think about...

Anyway,  the beneath is my favourite one from the Turning Japanese series:

 - Turning Japanese: The dark side of touring - The Guardian (21/1/2010)

All bands, who I worked with, seemed to enjoy their stay in Japan really but Late of the Pier reportedly was not the case. Tight schedule and strict time keeping. Unfortunate accident happened. Tiredness from a long-lasting world tour. Oh, poor them...

With contributions from people who are involved in the Japanese live music scene, this article sums up the things that people who want to tour in Japan have to go through:

• High cost of touring in Japan (currency rate + bands are charged high fees by venues)
• difficulties in booking (booking managers are not interested in overseas bands who don't speak Japanese. I think they don't need them as the Japanese live scene thrives enough without international acts)
• Cultural differences

They're all true as far as I'm concerned. Although I'd disagree with some opinions mentioned in the string of articles, Turning Japanese is a good introduction of the Japanese music industry (but just an introduction)..

I will look at the live music a bit more deeper next time.