Quote:
Originally Posted by js_surrealism
All of this, so much.
For a market with so much potential and talent, it's really appalling how backward the Japanese pop music industry is in so many aspects.
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What's sad is how RIGHT the Japanese music industry got music. Release singles BEFORE the album? Unheard of in the US. And it reflected in massive sales for Ayu, Namie, Utada, etc. The fact that Japan, even today, has a fraction of the population of the US or many European countries, but that Japanese artists still chart in the top 10 weekly global sales for all music is a testament to how smart businessmen were when commercializing music in Japan in the 80s.
It makes me sad because even as recent as 6 years ago, it was worth checking the charts every day to see how Ayu was doing. Today, for all we know A ONE sold 500,000 copies between all the digital, international, and physical sales. All I know is that Seiko, at a relative time in her career, was still selling 300,000 or more per record. If the industry would restructure and make music more valuable than a cheap can of air freshener, we would see more interest from consumers. But when I can spend the same amount of money on Ayu that I spend buying a single roll of toilet paper at the store, that's not supporting Ayu at all.