Quote:
Originally Posted by asaqe
KPOP has been taking the asian community by storm and Japan has failed to build proper shelters for the Korean wave. One problem they are facing is that KPOP is aiming to improve the sex appeal of their artists. Especially with girl groups, compare something froom After School's comeback album to anything from AKB48 and notice the difference in qualty of the sex appeal.
So I brg to ask this question, does Japan understand what sex appeal is anymore because this part of the rise KPOP's popularity
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Sex appeal has nothing to do with Japan's music industry woes...
Besides, Japan has a weird understanding of sex appeal.
case in point: AKB48, young cute girls in high school uniforms. . .
See, the Japanese managers and agents
Don't Care about other markets. They just care about the Japanese market. . .and that's a big problem. They don't take what's working and try to work that into what they're doing in Japan. Thing is, POP music in Japan is going through a rough patch at the moment, mostly it has a lot to do with distribution. They don't take much advantage of online sales as much as the west does. That and they market the POP stars to very niche audiences you get the young boy for the 12-16 year old girl crowd, and the sexy Koda Kumi types for women of all ages under 26 or so pretty much. Thing is, there really isn't much talent, or rather incentve to produce a lot of talent. A lot of the creativity goes into creating quick hits that can garner some popularity, and zero in on their demographics. They like things to be safe and will do the same formula ad naseum , ad infinitum. It's a lot worse than in the states. . .also a lot of the producers who make tracks for/with artists are just told to produce the same, corny boring stuff. . . JPOP's success has nothing to do with sex appeal or not, because there have been groups that had sex appeal, but their music ...sucked. AKB is barely tolerable(to Japanese people. . .I can't stand their songs) because they're all really cute, and they have the momentum behind them. . .
Not many new artists have really come up. So you get K-POP which has a great scene due to the fact that Koreans are really critical about the music they listen to, they get into it and hate the kind of junk that JPOP execs tell their producers to put out.
I know a few Japanese EDM producers who produce songs for the big labels on the side and pretty much use a pen name so that they won't be associated with the stuff they've worked on.
Right now, JPOP is a a rough spot and is not getting better
My Sources: Me living in Tokyo for Five years and getting into the music industry there. . .getting to know various A&R's at some of the large record companies there. . . I've been to MANY "new talent" showcases, and the talent/songwriting there is atrocious. It's pretty much the result of execs trying to "play it safe" (a trademark of Japan pretty much) and not change anything. . .taking the "if it isn't broke don't fix it" way too far. to the point where "it's broken but I still don't want to fix it" mentality.
The issues with JPOP in Japan is a lot deeper than "Sex appeal"
Also, the financial crisis has hit Japan harder than people realize. . .making the execs try to keep things "safe"
The music industry in Japan is frankly about 10-15 years behind the rest of the world in pretty much all areas.(lets not get me started on JRock. . .yeah it's THAT bad right now.)
Imagine a whole industry of Kyary Pom Pom type music. . .with really bad rock mixed in here and there. . .
Oh and. . .Koda Kumi. . .I mentioned her for a reason. . .youtube her
