If international consumers don't know about an artist's music they're not going to pay to import a CD. Furthermore reports have shown that streaming accessibility is actually more conducive to buying an album after checking it out on streaming, so still no honestly.
Japan is the second largest music industry in the world, with around 90% CD sales, mostly domestic sales (they don't need foreigners importing their CD, the Japanese market is large enough). Clearly whatever they're doing works for them. Just let Japan be, goodness. The New York Times posted an article about this and most people actually praised the fact that Japan still values CD format, so clearly there are people out there that don't see it from your perspective.
I personally enjoy both digital and CD format, and while I do agree that Japanese music should be made more available internationally, it's really not my right to tell the Japanese what they should do.
Why does the JPOP thread flop compared to the KPOP one?
J-Pop used to be It in the mid 2000s re: International fandom because their music industry had been a well oiled machine for decades and was pumping out bops and quality. Around 2007 K-Pop began to embrace quality, social media and the international audience, while J-pop became increasingly conservative and insular and began focusing on cutesy samey 48-type groups over artistry. That's very niche and not as easy to get into while K-pop has widespread appeal these days.
J-Pop used to be It in the mid 2000s re: International fandom because their music industry had been a well oiled machine for decades and was pumping out bops and quality. Around 2007 K-Pop began to embrace quality, social media and the international audience, while J-pop became increasingly conservative and insular and began focusing on cutesy samey 48-type groups over artistry. That's very niche and not as easy to get into while K-pop has widespread appeal these days.
Yes but Japan is rolling on USD$2.6 billion dollars from music sales, so the Japanese don't care.
Japan is the second largest music industry in the world, with around 90% CD sales, mostly domestic sales (they don't need foreigners importing their CD, the Japanese market is large enough). Clearly whatever they're doing works for them. Just let Japan be, goodness. The New York Times posted an article about this and most people actually praised the fact that Japan still values CD format, so clearly there are people out there that don't see it from your perspective.
I personally enjoy both digital and CD format, and while I do agree that Japanese music should be made more available internationally, it's really not my right to tell the Japanese what they should do.
The point isn't whether their current model works, and I frankly don't care what other people's opinions are when my argument is that this would simply generate more revenue at little short-term cost. It's entirely factual. This isn't so much "telling the Japanese what they should do" so much as making common sense business observations.
Since I'm not even advocating they promote to US listeners at all, it really comes down to a very simple question. Make music available to more casual international fans via streaming (cost: $0) or completely miss out on a potentially significant revenue stream? "They don't need foreigners to import their CDs" but I'm sure they'd love the extra cash.
You know, all this aside from actually respecting and valuing international fans who make up like, the vast majority of this thread, since that's just out of the question.
Yes but it's still a tragedy to see the International J-pop fandom turn into dust
It is sad but I've accepted it to be honest, I mean, you have to understand it from their perspective, it's great for them to stay in their own country to make music, in their own language, and they only have to really do it all in Tokyo. Why bother appealing to overseas when they already have it good at their home?
Make music available to more casual international fans via streaming (cost: $0) or completely miss out on a potentially significant revenue stream?
It all boils down to copyright laws. The Japanese simply don't want to have foreigners, especially foreign companies, to have rights to their own music material, and streaming is detrimental to that. Spotify has been trying to get Japanese music labels access to Japanese music, but they don't want to have a foreign company control over their own material.
The Japanese music executives are intent on keeping CD as supreme in the Japanese music industry, they don't want streaming, at all. For them, the CD cost more, therefore, they create higher revenue and profit. It's also cultural, Japanese people are more inclined to buy merchandise.
Streaming would effectively damage their CD culture. If anything, really, streaming might be a reality for Japanese music, if it was under a Japanese company.
Foreign interest in Japanese music is too negligible for it to be worth expanding our access to it. We can already buy most of it on iTunes. You can find full videos on YouTube more often these days. Plus foreign fans import the singles and albums at insane prices.
It would be nice for us, but Japanese labels really have little to gain, and a lot to lose. Adding more options in the west could definitely affect their domestic market.
It all boils down to copyright laws. The Japanese simply don't want to have foreigners, especially foreign companies, to have rights to their own music material, and streaming is detrimental to that. Spotify has been trying to get Japanese music labels access to Japanese music, but they don't want to have a foreign company control over their own material.
The Japanese music executives are intent on keeping CD as supreme in the Japanese music industry, they don't want streaming, at all. For them, the CD cost more, therefore, they create higher revenue and profit. It's also cultural, Japanese people are more inclined to buy merchandise.
Streaming would effectively damage their CD culture. If anything, really, streaming might be a reality for Japanese music, if it was under a Japanese company.
Making the music available in other countries for streaming has literally nothing to do with Japan's own industry - at all - and being stingy about who has the rights to distribute said streams is literally just being paranoid. US labels got over that like, almost a decade ago.
There's no valid reason at all. I know it's cultural, I know it's because labels like Avex literally don't give a crap about us and are fearful and greedy when it comes to their idea of success, but it's completely unjustifiable.
Foreign interest in Japanese music is too negligible for it to be worth expanding our access to it. We can already buy most of it on iTunes. You can find full videos on YouTube more often these days. Plus foreign fans import the singles and albums at insane prices.
It would be nice for us, but Japanese labels really have little to gain, and a lot to lose. Adding more options in the west could definitely affect their domestic market.
If imports and foreign interest are negligible - as multiple people have noted - then what harm does it do to provide access in these countries? That part really makes little sense to me, it just doesn't compute somewhere.
Why does the JPOP thread flop compared to the KPOP one?
K-Pop is mostly idol music. Usually with Idol culture fans are a lot more invested on their acts,
K-pop acts are known for their fanservice, non-stop promo, private activities, rumours, scandals, etc
there's a lot more "material" to talk about besides music.
Japanese acts at least the ones that are the most popular here have very long breaks and don't promote nonstop or have "rumours" or "drama" to be following them around.
The Japanese music community is big but it's super fragmented. If we were to be a "Japanese Music General Thread" that would talk about doujin/j-rock/anime/j-pop/visual kei/j-rap sub genres our thread would be much more active but since it's ATRL obviously pop would be the bias (and female artists).
_
Namie is #2 on IChunes
The NEW GAME! OP is #3 poor Shirobako.
If imports and foreign interest are negligible - as multiple people have noted - then what harm does it do to provide access in these countries? That part really makes little sense to me, it just doesn't compute somewhere.
It takes time and money to broker these deals with new outlets in the first place, and to manage the music that ends up on it.
It's possible, likely even, that making the music available on streaming abroad would not increase revenue enough to offset the loss in sales like it did in the west.
Japanese people could use proxies to stream from a foreign location, hurting domestic sales.
They might be less inclined to pay $30 for an album if they know that outside Japan you can listen to it for "free".
There are a lot of unknowns, and for what? I'm sure they've done the market research. If there was money to be made, J-Pop would be all over Spotify, Apple Music, etc. already. In the end that's all they look at when they make their decisions.
It takes time and money to broker these deals with new outlets in the first place, and to manage the music that ends up on it.
It's possible, likely even, that making the music available on streaming abroad would not increase revenue enough to offset the loss in sales like it did in the west.
Japanese people could use proxies to stream from a foreign location, hurting domestic sales.
They might be less inclined to pay $30 for an album if they know that outside Japan you can listen to it for "free".
There are a lot of unknowns, and for what? I'm sure they've done the market research. If there was money to be made, J-Pop would be all over Spotify, Apple Music, etc. already. In the end that's all they look at when they make their decisions.
I can concede some of your points, though I believe there are solutions to the proxy loophole which is perhaps the most important part. But Avex Group doing market research? They probably just walked through the portal to hell they keep in Ayu's dressing room and asked Satan what he would do.
They probably just walked through the portal to hell they keep in Ayu's dressing room and asked Satan what he would do.
kiii
Kworb makes some very good points, it definitely matters what the outcome will ultimately look like. Greater access to the industry for foreign fans is great, but will it be enough to prevent a dip in profits from the money that will be needed to expand.
However, I do think it's hyper-simplistic to insinuate that they are only looking at profits to calculate their next moves. There is clearly a large cultural component that has made Japan uniquely insular when other countries are more than willing to take the financial risk to expand their industry abroad. StarlightShimmers has the tea.
But I will also counter Starlight's claims of "they have a multi-billion dollar industry, leave them alone, they're fine". That's a foolish reason to leave things alone. Japan's stock market has been at net zero for like 20(25?) years now. Just one of many potential red flags that their economy could turn into a mess. Business as usual is how things become outmoded and left behind in the past. It's already sad seeing J-pop fall into the background in the past 10 years. Lord knows what will happen in the next 10 at this rate.
The best thing we can do is to support the J-Pop that does make it on Spotify. Suiyoubi no Campanella have been there for weeks now and their plays are absolutely tragic. Let's remedy this
