Stuck In A Pagoda With Motoko Aoyama

We interrupt my attempts to succeed at NaNoWriMo for the second year in a row to bring you a public service announcement…

Radicalpatriot’s recent blog postings on wanting to see Morning Musume and Hello! Project on United States soil resonated with rather loud familiarity. Last year around this time, I wrote a piece where I, at length, argued for the case of bringing MoMusu and H!P to America. Unfortunately, that article, which was posted on MotokoAoyama.com v1.0 and on a slightly modified form at Ikimasshoi! during my all-too-brief tenure there, no longer exists (Ikimasshoi! did another remodeling job and bounced every non-news poster in December of 2006, not long after I posted the article there; Loyal readers of this blog already know what an arrogant hair-metal drummer and sometime web service owner did to MotokoAoyama.com v1.0, while a link to that horror story lies elsewhere on this blog for you newcomers). My belief that Morning Musume and Hello! Project would make a considerable positive impression on mainstream America still does exist.

Let’s step away from the trees and look at the whole forest, shall we?

How much has changed since I first wrote and published that long lost article? Not much, but quite a bit. Morning Musume released four great singles in a row this past year – “Egao YES Nude”, “Kawashimi Twilight”, “Onna Ni Sachi Are”, and the newly-released “Mikan”, and one great album, Sexy 8 Beat. Berryz Koubou, C-ute, GAM, and Aya Matsuura were no slouches either. (This little black duck is still undecided on Gyaruru, and I don’t think everyone is on the same page as to whether or not to call Koharu Kusumi’s Mitsuboshi album a proper solo release given its tie in to the anime Kirarin Revolution).

And most importantly, for whatever reason, a random selection of several H!P recordings started showing up on US iTunes:

Morning Musume’s ALL SINGLES COMPLETE anthology
MoMusu 10nen’s second single “Ito Shi Kitomoe”
C-ute’s new single.”Tokaikko Jyunjyo”
Aya Matsuura’s Double Rainbow, X3, T.W.O. and First Kiss albums, plus two singles.
Yuki Maeda’s new single “Ai Ai Daiko”
Koharu Kusumi’s “Chance!” single
The second Kirarin Revolution soundtrack album
Viyuden’s “Jaja Uma Paradise” single
Ongaku Gatas’ single “Narihajimi Koi No Bell”
Yuko Nakazawa’s new single “Danna Sama”
Natsumi Abe’s new single “Iki Wo Kasa Ne Masyou”
Maki Goto’s How To Use Sexy and 3rd Station albums
Melon Kinenbi’s current single “Onegai Miwaku No Target”

And I might be missing one or two… by the time you read this, MoMusu’s new single “Mikan” and Biyuden’s second album may be up there as well.

Now, I’m not sure if these titles went up by accident when they were added to Japan iTunes, or if Up-Front Works, who owns the master rights to the Hello! Project lexicon (I’ll get to Sony’s role, or lack thereof, in a moment), started slipping random titles onto US iTunes and then followed up by putting newer releases up for digital sale in this country simultaneous to their homeland release to gauge reactions from the non-Japanese cult audience, but the fact remains that they’re there. They’re available for sale. And people are buying them.

The argument went up again, in the wake of Radicalpatriot’s recent writings, from so-called “fans”, that Morning Musume would never succeed on any level in this country for a variety of reasons – all of which are superficial bullshit.

But for the purposes of clarity, I’ll blow away the three most common ones:

“MoMusu are on a decline.” Bullshit. Aren’t they Japan’s biggest selling girl group? Haven’t they been around for ten years going on eleven? Morning Musume are an institution in their native land. They’re not fucking disappearing any time soon.

“No one in this country is going to watch a bunch of under-18’s singing on TV.” These same people probably rush to the TV every time Hannah fucking Montana or High School Musical is on. Earth to wiseguys: just because Miley Cyrus is biologically capable of growing cunt hair doesn’t mean she’s an adult. Don’t even make me bring up some of the other Disney Channel actors who are being groomed to be pop stars… or how young Britney Spears was when she had her first hit single… or how young Debbie Gibson and Tiffany were when they put out their first releases back when I was closer to Reina Tanaka’s age.

And then, there’s my favorite easy-to-debunk fallacy of all: “No one in this country is going to buy a pop single or pop album by an artist that sings in a language other than English.”

Without mentioning the obvious – a lot of you reading this don’t understand most of what is being sung by your favorite J-Pop artists without a translation Googled for (or unless it’s a Puffy AmiYumi track that Ms. Okura and Ms. Yoshimura sang in English). It’s obviously not stopping you (it definitely doesn’t stop me) – I’d like to offer up some other examples:

Sepultura, anyone? Didn’t their first pre-Arise efforts sell well enough for the then-independent Roadrunner label in this country even though the lyrics were done in Portuguese? (Alternative Tentacles, Jello Biafra’s fine label, aren’t doing so bad with Ratos De Poraos either.)

Opera, anyone? For all intents and purposes, Placido Domingo and the late great Luciano Pavarotti are pop stars, too. How many of their songs were recorded in English?

Shakira, anyone? Wasn’t her follow-up to Laundry Service, the first volume of Oral Fixation, done entirely in Spanish? And didn’t that album spawn a hit single in “La Tortura”? (And before Laundry Service, didn’t her previous two albums, including her MTV Unplugged album, none of which had English-language lyrics, sell in increasingly large numbers?)

Does anyone besides me remember how Ricky Martin’s back catalog flew off of store shelves after his performance of the original Spanish-language version of “The Cup Of Life” on the Grammy Awards – months before he recorded his first English language album and dominated store shelves with “Living La Vida Loca”?

I know what some of you are going to say: “Ceej, that’s different. Spanish is the second biggest language in the United States (whether the racist pricks associated with the Minutemen Project like it or not) – of course Shakira and Ricky Martin are going to sell huge numbers.”

Take it from someone who currently lives in the current Latino immigrant “hotbed” of America, Hazleton, Pennsylvania – there aren’t enough Latinos in this country to put most of their top Spanish-language artists as high up on the charts as Shakira and Ricky Martin have gotten (and as far as Selena was expected to go before she was assassinated).

Don’t even make me bring up “La Bamba” – either Ritchie Valens’ original hit recording, or Los Lobos’ faithful cover version – and how well that song did both times.

Still don’t think that a Japanese-language song could ever hit the top of the charts in these United States? I give you Exhibit A:

That was “Sukiyaki”, a song by one Kyu Sakamoto. That song topped the American charts in 1963, the same time utter dreck like “Hey Paula” and “Rhythm of the Rain” was ubiquitous on radio in those post-Elvis, pre-Beatles days. Despite the time it was recorded in, it’s a rather timeless song - so timeless that A Taste Of Honey would have a hit cover with the song in 1979, Slick Rick would borrow part of the melody for “La Di Da Di”, and Selena would later do a Spanish-language cover of it. Sadly, Kyu did not live to see The Peanuts or Pink Lady appear on American television, or see how his spiritual successors, like many of the J-Pop artists we know and love, are building an increasingly growing cult following in this country – he died in a plane crash in the late 60’s.

Look at Reina Tanaka’s playlists for her radio show so far and see how many English-language songs (Madonna, Paramore, Diana Ross, and a certain British girl group that I don’t wish to mention without using the C-word again in this article) she’s played on her show. Do you think anyone in Japan gives a shit what language their favorite songs are in? Reina herself obviously doesn’t.

I still hold that “Egao YES Nude” could be a massive hit in this country, given exposure on the right radio stations (terrestrial and satellite). With the right promotion and the right label behind them, Morning Musume could easily be a best-selling group in this country. They don’t have to sell TLC numbers (six to ten million copies an album – although stranger things have happened). Some people – many of whom claim to be fans – will claim that such a feat is impossible out of hand. These people are not fans at all – they’re elitist assholes who want to keep their little musical discoveries to themselves rather than share them with the world. Twenty years ago, they would have been bitching about Husker Du signing to Warner Bros. or Slayer signing with Def Jam.

When Husker Du signed with Warner Bros. and released Candy Apple Grey in 1986, I wanted to turn on mainstream radio and hear “Don’t Want To Know If You Are Lonely” or “Sorry Somehow” being played in the same rotation as whatever else was on the Billboard charts that year. Unfortunately, even though Husker Du’s two releases for Warner Bros. made their money back for both band and artist and have remained in print ever since, they didn’t get those well-deserved radio hits.

Nothing has changed. I would love to turn on mainstream radio and hear “Egao YES Nude” or “Kanashimi Twilight” playing. Anyone that calls themselves a Morning Musume fan that doesn’t want to see that happen shouldn’t call themselves a Morning Musume fan. Period.

One other thing related to Radicalpatriot’s posts. A couple of other bloggers have pointed similar blame, but since Radicalpatriot does it on the regular I’ll give him the dubious honor here. Sony keeps getting blamed for Morning Musume’s not having appeared on American media yet (outside of the occasional anime magazine blurb, and not counting the blogosphere). It’s a false blame. Sony Music Japan does not own the masters to Morning Musume releases (or those of other Hello! Project artists released on Zetima) – Up-Front Works does. It probably doesn’t help that Sony Music Japan is, for whatever reason, a wholly different entity from the Sony-BMG empire that exists in the rest of the world – they weren’t part of the merger between BMG and Sony in 2004, even though Sony Japan still releases Western Sony-BMG releases. Sony’s only role is to press and distribute CDs for Up-Front Works – this is why, when Tofu existed, they weren’t able to license MoMusu tracks as easily as they were able to get Tommy February6, TM Revolution, and Puffy. The other labels that Up-Front licenses some of their artists to – Piccolo Town, which is distributed by King Records, and Hachama, which is an imprint of Pony Canyon – are both Japanese-owned labels with no American tie-ins. In short, Up-Front Works are practically an independent label – they are simply handing Sony, King, and Pony Canyon finished masters and artwork.

That having been said, let’s rewind back to the existence of some H!P music on US iTunes. Surely, Up-Front are aware of the growing interest in their artists. Could those US iTunes releases be their way of testing the non-Hawaiian US market to see if any of the American fans that have been paying an average of $30 a pop for imported H!P albums and $15 for singles would gladly pay a domestic price for the artists they already love? If that’s true, I hope UFW is paying attention.

It’s very possible. I would not be surprised to see Up-Front Works go further into this country. And I hope they do.