Quote:
Originally Posted by visionfactory
Biased much? In that case Yamapi is also a has-been, his popularity is nothing like it used to be...
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Not biased at all, just in all honesty he really isn't popular anymore, nor at the time of the collaboration.
There are plenty of artists that can hold concerts in Arenas that aren't mainstream popular anymore. Respected, but not really relevant at this time.
YamaPi IS mainstream popular; everyone including young people know him, watch him on variety shows, watch his dramas etc. He has had a major resurgence in popularity the last few years. Music hasn't been much of a focus for him, but he has become extremely popular in other areas. And actually, his collab with Namie was probably done at his lowest point of popularity but his name still held more sway than any artist she had collaborated with up until that point.
You bring up Ai, and yes, she has gotten more popular as the years went on, but we should be thinking about whether she was popular or not at the time the collabs were done, which she was not. She had a strong underground following, much like Anna Tsuchiya.
I think it's often confused among foreign fans about the artists who are well known to us, and those that are actually well known to people in Japan because tastes tend to differ from foreigners v. the japanese.