Like labels in the US and Australia do, Japanese record labels manufacture a Japanese version of an album under the exclusive license from the original label. Both original and Japanese versions of the album are in stores.
Why do the Japanese labels manufacture Japanese versions? I will discuss it perhaps next month. I'm now working on this thing to make a presentation at my old school in Glasgow while I am there in the end of next month. I still half way through preparation of it so I'd like to keep further discussion on hold until I finish the presentation. But what does a Japanese version look like? Here is a comparison of an original version and Japanese version:
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| L: UK version R: Japanese version |
It's Blur's classic "The Great Escape". The Japanese version is on the right. General and popular spec for Japanese editions is:
- bonus tracks (B-sides, remixies, demos, acoustic version of songs, unreleased tunes etc.)
- liner note
- lyrics translation (+ original lyrics)
- belly band (as you can see in the picture)
Japanese editions are usually more expensive than imports (I will work out this thing next time.) In this Blur's case, retail price of the Japanese version is 2,500JPY (approx 25 dollars/20 pounds). Imported CDs are always sold at open price. However, if they are in stores now then I would say they should be cheaper than 2,000JPY (approx 20 dollars/ 14 pounds). The gap in price is relatively big anyway. Bonuses for a Japanese edition should be that worth an extra money added to it. What addition can be the most attractive then? I would say bonus tracks can be. Adding bonus tracks is vastly vastly important to differentiate a Japanese edition from its original edition.
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| Above: UK version - 15 songs on Under: Japanese version - original 15 songs + 2 bonus tracks |
So, looking at the Blur's album again. 2 bonus tracks added as you can see in the picture above. Therefore back sleeves are slightly different.
Finally, this Japanese version of the Blur album has one more extra: purchasers have a chance to win and get original goods. It's one of the popular marketing strategies on bigger releases in Japan. However, I think UK versions and US versions merely have that sort of bonus...Would you agree?
to jump the store. The launch was delayed again and again and nobody really knew when it officially got launched. So this week's launch felt like a bit sudden thing. The interesting thing was...well, I was apparently one of the people who tweeted the news on twitter very early and my tweet got a lot of RTs. Most of them were very positive and everybody was like "Finally it's launched! Finally we can buy DRM-free digital music!!" To tell the truth, I didn't expect that that many people waited for the launch so it was good to know.
