Music Station aired on 03-04-2011.
Is that…? Why, I think it is. Avril Lavigne recently made an appearance on Music Station to promote her new album. Such appearances on popular Japanese music shows are pretty commonplace and not out of the ordinary in the slightest. Other notable acts I’ve seen appearing on this particular show include Lady Gaga, The Backstreet Boys, Oasis, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
A lot of American musicians are very popular in Japan. As an example, Avril Lavigne’s newest album managed to debut at the #2 spot on Oricon‘s weekly chart. Had it gotten another 3k in sales, it would have easily taken the #1 spot. Even top acts from South Korea are having no difficulties breaking into the Japanese market, something I believe has been facilitated by how open Japan is to foreign music. America and Japan are two of the biggest music markets in the world. Unfortunately, it is a one way street. You will NEVER see Japanese acts, even the most renowned and world class ones, getting any sort of mention or publicity in the media here, let alone some radio time. That last part may be a little false owing to the fact that Z100 radio station actually has a segment sometimes where they actually air parts of top songs from countries around the world. I recall being very excited to hear parts of one of ikimono-gakari‘s song and Tohoshinki‘s “Toki wo Tomete” being played on such a huge radio station. Too bad they thought ikimono was the Justin Beiber of Japan.
Similarly, the publicity aspect changed ever so little when Japan’s very own bona fide and foremost guitar hero managed to take home a Grammy for Best Instrumental Pop Album very recently. Even then, I believe that was only because he collaborated with a legendary American jazz guitarist. Had it been his own album, no chance. You see American artists taking home awards from the Japanese equivalent of the MTV Video Music Awards every year. You don’t see any foreigners (and by foreign I mean a language other than English) winning awards in America though. Instead, you have asinine publicity stunts to get attention and obnoxious-ass rappers storming the winner’s stage and telling people how he thinks another person deserved the award.
I digress. All of this just goes to illustrate how different the views are between the Japanese mainstream and the ethnocentric mainstream of America. Music really should have no boundaries and I’d really like to see a change in how people view music from other places such as Japan. There really is not much difference between the kind of genres that predominate or even the quality.
Nippon Gaijin 