On Monday, in the midst of my busy schedule, I received a call from Yokichi Oori of amuse.
Shinichi Iwahashi and Mr. and Mrs. Yokichi Osato of Amuse have been in contact over the years. Every New Year, Shinichi Iwahashi goes to Mr. Yokichi's house to pay New Year greetings. If he receives an invitation from Mr. Yokichi, he will happily attend the appointment.
When preparing for the music festival, I received strong support from Yokichi Osato. Later, when I produced Band Heaven, I received great help from amuse. With such a solid cooperation in advance, Yokichi Osato is very easy to get along with, so naturally, I kept working with him.
Yangji’s good friendship.
Of course, Shinichi Iwahashi always maintained sufficient respect for Yokichi Ohri.
After all, the founder of Amuse Firm was a person who could become a capable person under Susumu Watanabe, get support from Ikuo Suho to start his own business, and then break up with the Burning Department peacefully - such a person.
The biggest contributor to amuse's success is Nantian Qunxing. The firm started with bands and was deeply involved in Band Paradise. It has several well-known bands under its umbrella. It is also a relatively well-known firm in the industry and has expertise in band management.
.
Yokichi Ohato's ambition to run a band is not even limited to discovering local bands.
The phone was connected and after a brief exchange of greetings, Ohato Yokichi and Iwahashi Shinichi talked about the arrangements for Fukuyama Masaharu. According to the plan, in the second half of this year, Fukuyama Masaharu will hold his first tour since his debut.
For singers produced by Genzo, the work plan has always been formulated by the record company. But Masaharu Fukuyama is different. His work plan is formulated by Amuse.
For the tour in the second half of the year, Masaharu Fukuyama is scheduled to perform at several livehouses run by Shinichi Iwahashi.
Nowadays, livehouses have opened branches in big cities, and singers who do not have high requirements for "touring" can already perform on tour as long as they perform in these stores.
Masaharu Fukuyama is now somewhat popular and famous, so he naturally chooses a small venue when he wants to go on tour. On the one hand, a venue with a lot of people cannot support it, but on the other hand, a small venue can shorten the distance between the audience and it is a powerful tool for attracting fans.
Yokichi Osato discussed with Shinichi Iwahashi whether Iwahashi could be a guest on Masaharu Fukuyama's radio show after the tour begins.
Although he rarely appears on TV, Shinichi Iwahashi has participated in radio programs quite frequently. When Yokichi Ozato opened his mouth, Shinichi Iwahashi would naturally want to sell this favor. Besides, Masaharu Fukuyama is the singer of Genzo after all.
However, there are several other singers under Genzo who have their own sponsored broadcasts, and Shinichi Iwahashi has never been a guest.
Iwahashi Shinichi had an idea in his mind. After making this idea, he might as well start a random surprise appearance on the radio program of his singers in the future, so as to surprise the audience and scare the singers anytime and anywhere - that would be fine.
Not to the point.
After all, Shinichi Iwahashi is a kind boss, not a dean who likes to observe in secret.
…
After receiving a definite answer from Shinichi Iwahashi, Yokichi Ohato smiled heartily and said some polite words before ending the topic, "Our Fukuyama, I will also thank you for your continued care."
Shinichi Iwahashi responded politely and remained silent for a while, waiting for Yokichi Ohri on the other end of the phone to speak - whether it was to hang up the phone or discuss other matters.
Ohato Yokichi understood, and without any more polite words, he asked, "Iwahashi-kun, do you still remember a band from Xiangjiang called Beyond?"
"beyond?"
Shinichi Iwahashi reacted, "Previously, Osato-san recommended this band to participate in the music festival, right?"
Osato Yokichi raised his voice a little, "Exactly!" He smiled, "Everything is well organized in Iwahashi-kun's mind."
Shinichi Iwahashi smiled politely, thinking that he would remember this band not just because Yokichi Ohri recommended the band to participate in the music festival.
This year, the music festival went ahead as planned. Initially, the organizing committee was established with the goal of making the music festival an annual event. Since then, large-scale music festivals and women-only rock festivals have been held at the end of each summer.
music festival.
When amuse established a subsidiary in Hong Kong, they brought Beyond to Japan, recommended it to Shinichi Iwahashi, and performed at the music festival that year.
Listening to Ohato Yokichi's introduction on the phone, at the end of last year, Amuse officially confirmed that it would be responsible for beyond's management affairs in Japan, and at the beginning of the new year, it officially signed a contract with the band.
At the same time, the band's recording contract in Japan was finally placed with Warner Bros. under the coordination of its contacts in Hong Kong.
Warner, the world's largest, has been responsible for the album promotion of many singers from Hong Kong and Taiwan. I chose Warner because it has rich experience in dealing with singers from Hong Kong and Taiwan.
While Yokichi Osato was explaining, Shinichi Iwahashi was thinking that Amuse was responsible for beyond's management affairs in Japan, which naturally included formulating the band's work plan in Japan.
In other words, the famous accident that led to Huang Jiaju's death was also a job taken by amuse.
Thinking of this incident, Iwahashi Shinichi did not have any thoughts of amusing himself or making a mistake, or anything like that. To look at this incident, we can only say that the reasons are very complicated.
It is a well-known fact that Japan’s variety shows have no lower limit. But after the bubble burst, this situation became more and more serious, and the content of variety shows became more and more exaggerated.
When TV stations are short of funds, they will not only cut off expensive programs, but also cut back on program settings, props, and other places. The effectiveness of variety shows will also be concentrated on the performance of guests. Participate in the program
People need to work hard to achieve results, and artists have to work hard.
In other words, when the stage becomes valuable, people will become worthless.
In the past few years, TV stations had a rich variety of music programs that ran all day long. But as the idol era came to an end, record companies also realized that frequently featuring songs on TV would affect sales. At the same time, TV stations felt the pressure, and all parties
Due to various factors combined, music programs have been drastically reduced, and those that remain today are ordinary unknown people who are not eligible to participate.
For the bands that came all the way from Hong Kong, no matter how brilliant they were in their own territory, when they arrived in Japan, everything was still zero. Even, in a certain sense, it was a "negative number".
If Japanese singers want to break into the United States, they will face failure if they wait there. As the center of global pop culture, how can the audience there think that singers from Japan will bring any good works worth paying attention to?
Singers from Xiangjiang are also naturally repelled by Japanese audiences when they arrive in Japan.
If an idol group comes to develop, that might be a different story. The audience can watch the excitement like a bonsai from an exotic country. But the band is different. The band needs to output something. If it cannot be
If what you want to convey is conveyed correctly to the audience, then what is on the stage is not a band.
For foreign singers, the language issue is certainly important, but the language issue is only a basic issue.
Japanese singers want to enter the United States, which is a hellish situation. When foreign singers come to Japan, the situation is not much better. In fact, even if American singers come to Japan, as long as they are foreigners, they will just be watching something new in the end.
Just a bonsai.
Yokichi Ohri longed for internationalization as early as the Watanabe production period. Later, he opened subsidiaries all over the world, and even won the performance agent of Broadway plays in Japan. Even his artists were collectively called "Artists".
Instead of using "actor" or "singer" to distinguish them like ordinary firms. Such amuse naturally has an ambition to go international. However, the more they start working hard to achieve it, the more they realize that they have to achieve something.
How difficult.
After the contract was signed, beyond officially moved its base to Tokyo and began music production. On the other hand, amuse also began to arrange corresponding work plans for the band.
But it doesn’t need to be said by Yokichi Osato, Shinichi Iwahashi can also imagine that the band can at most cosplay as a wooden stick man in a program sent by Amuse through the relationship of the TV station, convey the host’s polite words through an interpreter, and be regarded as a puppet by the guests and the audience.
It's the monkeys who come to watch.
In fact, from a certain perspective, watching celebrities from foreign countries struggling to adapt to their own country's programs and trying to keep a smile and understanding will bring a bit of superiority and vanity to those in front of the TV.
Yokichi Osato was quite humorous. He joked and showed off to Shinichi Iwahashi, "After the staff hung up the posters for the band's performance, there were actually tourists from Hong Kong who came to support me."
Iwahashi Shinichi heard this and replied in cooperation, "It seems that Amuse has signed a super band from Hong Kong."
"I have never doubted this," Oori Yokichi said.
"It's very difficult to promote overseas bands." He said in a candid tone to Shinichi Iwahashi, "Even such a successful band has to face various difficulties when it comes to Japan... Of course.
, this is a situation that I had already foreseen when I decided to sign the band. However, I am still willing to give it a try."
No matter how sincere or false these words of Ohori Yokichi are, one thing is certain, amuse will not give up on promoting Beyond easily. However, Yokichi Osato is so concerned about Beyond and has offered them more time.
The reason for this attitude probably comes from the fact that he wants to collect relevant experience by promoting this band.
Promoting a band that has had major success in their market...
An idea came to Shinichi Iwahashi's mind, he thought, maybe, the more successful a band is in its own territory, the harder it will be for it to succeed in an unfamiliar new market.
Because being able to succeed in their own territory means that this band has characteristics that are deeply loved by people in this place. On the other hand, it is more likely to make audiences in unfamiliar new markets feel "difficult to swallow"
”.
Listening to what Ohato Yokichi said, Iwahashi Shinichi felt that if he were to sell it, he would choose a blank piece of paper and make it from scratch.
