London's dubstepper James Blake at #19 is quite impressive. His Japan edition is not yet released, which means he reached that position with only imported CDs. In Japan, dubstep hasn't been as popular as it is in the UK. However, is his success by now in Japan a sign that dubstep will finally make a big step forward here in Japan? Will he hit the International music scene here when the Japan edition goes on sale?
Tokio Hotel is this week's pick up artist!! They I thought was not popular in Japan compared to in Germany and Europe. Their first stay in Japan and showcase scheduled in 2007 were even cancelled at the last minute. However, I understand their Japanese label Universal Japan has done a big promotion campaign for their new album "Darkside of the Sun". It I believe led the band to a #10 spot in this album chart.
Although I'm not a fan of them, I've been interested in what the band and Universal Japan have been doing in Japan for promo for two reasons. Firstly, they set up a Japanese fan group on Facebook. I think few international artists have their own Japanese fan group page as the SNS is seen it's not big enough in Japan to run a fan group in Japanese for Japanese fans. However, I guess Universal Japan understands many of their target audience members are on Facebook so that can make use of the website as a place of communicating with them. Now the fan group has 12,229 members. I don't think all of them are Japanese but the figure is still quite impressive.
Another reason why the campaign caught my attention was it was a part of the 150th Aniversary of Germany Japan Diplomatic Friendship. I always like popular music as a tool of cultural exchange. Both parties have substantial merit of running such type of the campaign. An embassy has a chance to draw more people in its nation's culture. In the meantime, an artist from the country and its record label can have more promo opportunities and reach potential fans who they really don't in normal ways of promo. Addicionally they possibly can receive financial support from the embassy. Why not using such opportunities, ambassadors in Japan and you guys from Japanese record labels?
I'm ending this blog entry by introducing this video beneath - Tokio Hotel visiting German Embassy and having a press conference with Germany ambassador:
If you are reading this from the states, you may know about Charice, who jumped up to #2 from #8 from the last week. She was not even on Top 10 just before that. Her pedigree of singing career is just amazing. She was born to a poor family in Philippines. Her mum loves singing and told her how. Charice started joining singing competitions and blew away every time she sung there. After performing for one of the most popular S.Korean TV programme, that invited her to sing for, its video on youtube hit people around the world and brought her to the states. She was then featured by famous American talk shows such as The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Oprah Winfrey Show. Her specutacular performance again stormed people there and the rest is her history.
I am writing about this moving story behind her success to explain why her first album "Charice", that released in July last year, suddenly went up to #2 in this week's chart. As far as I understand, for the last two chart weeks, she appeared on two big music programmes on national and commercial TV stations: Songs (NHK) and The Best House 123 (CX TV) respectively. After googling, I found both of the TV programmes focused on how she from a poor Philippino family made her American dream reality. I guess it touched the TV audience and brought her album to #2.
I am now thinking how influence TV is, despite the fact the internet is taking over it. It may depend on what type of music you play. If you are a pop singer and target a mainstream market, then TV appearance can be a must to get. If you are in an indie band, then it might not the case.
Finally, here is Charice making people there speachless and opening up the door to success.
