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.
I've been away for a while. I missed updating international album charts for the last couple of weeks. However, I'm back here and will update Oricon chart every week from now on!
Apart from Rihanna at #1 spot, this week's Top 10 chart doesn't look that different from the last chart of the last year.
Looking at Top 30, Adele's second album "21" was released one week earlier in Japan and only reached #17. If you live in the UK, you would know the album is currently storming the UK chart. Its mid-week sales surpasses sales of the other Top 10 albums' sales combined. Adele is not a small artist in Japan. Her first album sold well here. But I think generally UK pop artists always get less attention than the US artists do. Adele is just one of the UK artists in my opinion. As I always mention, someone who is big in your country is not necessarily big in other countries.
A Happy New Year 2011! Although only one week of the 2011 went by by now, I have got some very exciting news about innovative music projects. Let me briefly introduce one of them.
You might know an Academy Award-winning Japanese composer/pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto. He is also a member of Japanese electro-pop band Yellow Magic Orchestra and said one of the most influencial musicians here in Japan. His pedigree shows he's been a great musician who seek the ways of releasing/showing/enjoying his own music in a very innovative manner.
So, "skmtSocial Project"(skmtsocial.com) is what I'd like to talk about today. Sakamoto is playing a double-header concert in Seoul, Korea named "Ryuichi Sakamoto Playing the Piano from Seoul/Korea 2011" at 4pm and 8pm, 9th January (Japan time). The main event of the project is to stream the two concerts live from his Ustream channel (www.ustream.tv/channel/skmts). He have already ustreamed his North American dates last year, which was hugely successful. But now he is about to take a step forward. For this time, his fans are encouraged to hold a public viewing (PV) of the Seoul concerts! You are expected to "tick" many check points in advance. Here is some of them:
find a reasonable place for PV
clarify your PV is non-profitable
apply for PV approval from a Japanese copyright collection society JASRAC.
invite your friends or people who want to share the PV experience with you via twitter or other ways.
There are also various live streaming programmes on Ustream including streaming reheasal sessions, sound check and some "backstage stories" things.
This is so interactive and innovative. Here is one of the good examples - the other day a staff member was ustreaming and testing how streaming pictures of different quality can be seen by viewsers. Viewers were responding via twitter to him about how the pictures were like and he was adjusting the setting of his video camera in real time, that I expected would be used for the live streaming. This example clearly shows the project team effectively use the social media such as Twitter and Ustream to communicate participating fans. Fans are required a bit of work to get themselves involved in. However, once they jump in the project, it feels like you are really participating in and making an very exciting project together.
Above: "Moriage goods" - a blog part showing where on the map PVs take place in Japan.
The main event takes place tomorrow. However, skmtSocial Project already proves people are still up for things that get you so excited even though you need a bit of work beforehand. Sakamoto obviously succeeded in increasing your fans' engagement in the project *and* the musician through the project.
Most of the PVs take place in Japan but there are some PVs overseas including in the US and Europe. Please check the map on skmtsocial.com or you can watch live streaming at www.ustream.tv/channel/skmts. Hashtag on twitter for the event is #skmts
