Comments on: MORNING MUSUME IN AMERICA: Part 1 – First Things First…

By: Amir Thompson

Amir Thompson — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 04:15:06 +0000

That tune is really brilliant. I really enjoy listening to it!

By: ItsudemoAibon

ItsudemoAibon — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:37:20 +0000

It’s quite fun to read this article and the responses to it a year after the fact………..especially now that Morning Musume IS going to play in LA in a little over a month from now.

Of course, at this juncture, it’s just a one-shot but it does seem like they’re trying to stretch their horizons……….

By: CJ Marsicano

CJ Marsicano — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 04:12:48 +0000

@Charmy: The language issues I’ll address in a future installment.

Cool website of yours, BTW. Just signed up for it.

By: Charmy Renai

Charmy Renai — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 14:28:05 +0000

Personally, I would love to see Morning Musume in the States. The primary thing I wonder about is the language barrier. When I attempt to introduce Morning Musume or another H!P group/soloist to one of my English-speaking friends, they seem to lose interest when they don’t understand the lyrics. I’ve had an occasional convert, but many other attempts were unsuccessful. I think the Beatles were successful because they also spoke English.

I think that before J-pop could be successful here, the American mindset needs to be altered. Instead of thrusting it on American music fans, it may take a gradual process, perhaps several years. Eventually, once they learn to accept music in foreign languages, Morning Musume could be more successful.

I’ll admit I may be wrong about all this. In fact, I hope I am. I’m not an expert on music. There is much I don’t know. And I’m not very good at writing down what I think, so there’s probably many holes in my argument.

Love, Charmy

By: CJ Marsicano

CJ Marsicano — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:12:46 +0000

@Kd: No, Radicalquisling did.

By: Kd

Kd — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:02:37 +0000

CJ, did you break IntlWota? :p

By: Craig

Craig — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 08:03:47 +0000

I read somewhere that japanese business likes to perfect their home game before going abroad.

and i’ve even heard that they used to annoy other countries ‘cos they were earning big bucks away from home but the same couldn’t be said for other countries in japan.

By: jim

jim — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:33:33 +0000

I still think it’s all up to them and they haven’t shown the interest. They should have done it years ago. It seems like they are just noticing overseas attention and still not taking it very seriously. It all comes down to that and the rest is detail. But it’s worth thinking about anyway.

Thanks for pointing out their current label situation. I always see it stated that Zetima is an imprint of Sony when there’s no evidence of this. I’m sure they would behave a lot different if they were and despite their odd behavior in marketing (or lack of in this case) their model is a good one. The closest American version is Matador and their relationship with Columbia tho it’s changed over the years. I think it would have to Matador or someone like that who is small enough to take weird chances but also has money to throw around.

Tofu did kinda suck with their American versions and lack of effort. I could get that stuff in my local shop but that might say more about my local shop. It was still a surprise (before I read blogs) to find a major release by a major band like Puffy tho. There needs to be attention to targeting new audience. Puffy is put out there as the band with the kids cartoon/theme song, that makes no sense. It’s like pushing the Beatles on the strength of their movies.

By: langdon alger

langdon alger — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:48:04 +0000

“I’ve had it with that bitch.”

HA!

By: Amber

Amber — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:46:15 +0000

As someone who hasn’t taken a strong stance on the issue, I found this to be really interesting. I’m looking forward to the rest of the parts of your series, and am leaning towards Morning Musume being able to debut in America.