Back in the 90s and early years of the new millennium, J-Pop was sitting on top of the world as the most sought-out music originating from the East Asian market. A lot of their popularity had to do with its association with Japanese animation, better known as anime. Along with the Japanese gaming industry, many songs from J-Pop artists became popular among a large cult following especially in North America and Europe. It is even safe to say certain J-Pop artists themselves became popular, not just their music. The J-pop girl group Perfume has been prominent since their debut back in 2000. Utada Hikaru is a soloist known for her featured songs in video games like Kingdom Hearts and anime like Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo.
Sadly, J-Pop has lost a lot of its luster after 2002 and a lot of its failure has to do with the fact that Japan does a lot of their business internally, not internationally. What this means is they will always cater to their small local preferences over the much larger international scene. In this case, it is the Otakus – people, primarily Japanese, with obsessive interests in anime, manga, video games, and J-pop and often have a say in its direction – who are at fault.
As a result, J-Pop suffered because it mostly attained attraction through both the anime and video game industries in which the songs themselves have an emotional connection with said media. J-Pop on its own is very hard for the Japanese to market internationally because they do not take popularity queues from the most popular musical markets are five years to a decade behind the times. Also, they too follow the same “slow killing” trend of not appealing to international markets. That is why K-pop, which takes it queues from the American and European music markets and often promotes to them as well as internationally, has become so popular.
Still, there is one J-Pop act that is dominating despite the situation the J-Pop industry is in now. This act is known as BABYMETAL and they are extremely popular. The question is why is the hybrid J-Pop and metal girl group the most popular J-Pop act internationally?
For those who do not know, BABYMETAL is technically a risky concept imagined by Japanese music label Toy’s Factory. Prior to BABYMETAL coming to existence, they were better known for being one of the many labels to have Sakura Gakuin signed to them. Sakura Gakuin is well-known in J-Pop as a “high school” group. What that means is members constantly change through being “enrolled” or “graduating.” They also stick to the traditional bubble gum J-Pop often associated with “high school” concepts.
Eventually, the labels in charge of Sakura Gakuin wanted to create a subunit of the group. Most likely utilizing music industry techniques that made K-pop such a force, the sub-unit utilized the popular international musical queues of metal music, repackaged it with idol music styles, and started to promote the songs not just to the Japanese, but to a wider audience. It also helped that the three members of the group – Suzuka Nakamoto (Su-metal), Yui Mizuno (Yuimetal), and Moa Kikuchi (Moametal) – were willing to learn and adapt to metal music, a genre they were previously unfamiliar with.
BABYMETAL was born and to initiate their presence in the J-pop music industry, they released their debut song titled “Doki Doki Morning” back in April of 2011. They then uploaded a live music video on YouTube back in October of 2011. Since then, they were able to attract 1 million views by the end of 2012.
For the next three years, BABYMETAL would keep doing their thing, creating original music that did not follow the rest of the J-Pop music industry and promoting internationally. By 2014, the year they signed on to a major label, they had such a following that the release of their first official studio album not only received praise from critics, but sold over 37,000 copies in Japan alone. Online sales, however, were huge as it reached No. 4 on Oricon and No. 2 on Billboard Japan. It also topped iTunes Metal charts in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Their highest achievement was entering the U.S. Billboard 200 at 187. Take note that it is extremely rare for any Japanese musical act to even make it on such a chart.
At this point, one probably understands why BABYMETAL is the most-popular J-Pop group internationally. BABYMETAL and the labels that take care of them are following a formula that the K-Pop music industry has utilized, almost guaranteed to create musical superstars. Its success-to-failure rate is so favorable that other East Asian countries’ music industries, especially China and the Philippines, are utilizing it as best as they could too.
As for BABYMETAL, they recently released their second studio album titled Metal Resistance on March 29 of this year. BABYMETAL will also go on their second world tour too in which numerous concerts in the United States are scheduled for both May and June.
[Photo by Danny E. Martindale/Getty Images]
BABYMETAL: Why Is The Hybrid Metal And Idol Group The Most Popular J-Pop Act Internationally? is an article from: The Inquisitr News