Yokichi Osato described the situation of Beyond and some of his ideas on how to promote singers from overseas. Shinichi Iwahashi listened, but an idea came to his mind.
If you want to introduce new people from overseas to Japan, perhaps the quickest and most effective way is to create a new person who looks like a bonsai.
Choose a blank sheet of paper, but a newcomer who can fit the Japanese audience's stereotype of foreigners from this place. There is no need for the singer himself to output anything, or even to overcome language problems. Even poor Japanese can become a piece of the puzzle.
As part of the selling point, all packaging is done to show a bonsai-like beauty and satisfy the audience's temporary interest.
It is certain that such a newcomer cannot become popular. However, as long as a certain selling point is grasped and used on such a newcomer, it can at least set off a temporary wave and make the record company make a fortune.
The Japanese nation can never truly accept a foreigner, whether the foreigner is from Europe, America or Southeast Asia.
During the peak period of the bubble, young labor force became a resource that was being competed for. However, there were still large companies that shut out Koreans and Chinese. If they wanted to successfully join the company, they had to conceal their foreign origin.
In comparison, the entertainment industry is already a relatively tolerant place. However, the harder foreigners try to learn to be Japanese, the more they are despised by the Japanese: How can a foreigner become Japanese? However, if you remain
The "natural nature" of foreigners can either become a bonsai to be watched, or a monkey to be watched.
Even for European and American superstars, their records can sell like hotcakes in Japan, and when they tour Japan, their tickets are sold at sky-high prices. But they are superstars from the world's pop center, and when Japanese audiences pursue them, they are chasing "the world's best"
Today’s most fashionable trend”.
These superstars have never "developed" in Japan.
To be honest, a popular European and American singer must not regard the Japanese market as his sales base. Once the Japanese find out that this European and American singer is not the most popular nowadays, they will quickly lose interest in him.
And if you don't use tourist bonsai - such an opportunistic method, if you want to seriously manage an overseas singer, there is only one way: start from scratch, be down-to-earth, and create in Japanese. Only in this way can you have the opportunity to accumulate a group of talents.
Loyal fan.
Non-singer-songwriters have a chance to follow this path, and there are indeed successful precedents. Learn Japanese well, prepare a production team that is all Japanese, and then invite well-known Japanese songwriters to sing songs.
But if you have to be responsible for your own creation, this road will be a difficult and lonely one, with huge investment but may not be rewarded. To take this road, not only the singer must be determined, but the agency and record company must also be willing to accompany them.
This is the only way to go.
However, in order to achieve this, a company must have an ideal that ranks first.
Amuse certainly has the ambition to manage overseas singers, but it is hard to say whether Yokichi Ohri has such an ideal.
Beyond signed with an agency or a major record company, many things will become out of your control, even if you are arranged to participate in a variety show, and listen to the jokes of the host around you with a smile - even if you don't understand, even if you are asked in person
There will be no response to sarcasm, and inevitably, you will become a monkey being watched.
Not only that, as the bubble bursts, the social atmosphere that once believed that hard work can change destiny will also disappear.
In the past, it was an era when the Japanese believed that hard work would lead to success, that an inch-and-a-half-inch long insect could kill a big snake, and change their fate against the odds. However, the bursting of the bubble will shatter this myth. Nowadays, we are constantly absorbing words such as "powerful"
"Japan is helping the United States" and other junk messages, the more tightly they cling to these empty words at the moment, the more they will be frustrated by the invincibility of fate in the future.
Once a society falls into such an atmosphere, it will become more conservative, and it will be harder for foreigners to succeed. Because, for a foreigner to succeed in Japan, in the eyes of the audience, it is a victory over fate.
Narrative.
Before hanging up the phone, Yokichi Osato made another invitation, "Since Iwahashi-kun still remembers Beyond, would you like to go see them again the next time the band performs?"
As if to dispel Shinichi Iwahashi's concerns, Ohri Yokichi added, "Of course, it's a personal invitation from me."
Shinichi Iwahashi took it into consideration and politely agreed, "It's an invitation from Osato-san, so of course I have to attend the appointment." In other words, if the invitation was not from Yokichi Osato personally, but had a clear purpose, Shinichi Iwahashi would have
Will decline.
Beyond's record contract was signed with Warner. This alone meant that Shinichi Iwahashi would not be deeply involved in matters related to this band.
Shinichi Iwahashi is currently in a position where the only singer that allows him to collaborate across companies as a producer is a singer of the level of Akina Nakamori. To put it bluntly, if he were to serve as a singer for a non-genzo faction,
Producers can only have this kind of human-like cooperation with big things.
Ohato Yokichi knew this, so he said it in advance, saying that it was a personal invitation from him. And it was also out of this consideration that he invited Shinichi Iwahashi to watch the band's performance.
The best place to meet singers who are not from your own clique is backstage at a show.
Of course, after watching the performance, whether Osato Yokichi would trick him and chat with him is another matter. However, even if Osato Yokichi really wanted to ask something, Iwahashi Shinichi could only say:
Don't let the band participate in variety shows.
Even if it is just out of basic common sense, we should try our best to avoid a band becoming a monkey on the show, performing juggling for a bored audience. That kind of show will not be of any use in increasing popularity.
To run a band, you have to make the band look like a band.
Even if you can't become famous and gain popularity, you can't live a life without principles.
…
At Amuse, I don’t know when the tickets for Beyond’s performance will be delivered to the record company. Before that, on the night of the first Saturday after the Golden Week holiday, Shinichi Iwahashi went to his live house in Tokyo to watch
A performance.
This is a performance that Mineshima highly recommends, and Iwahashi Shinichi must go see it in person.
Based on Mineshima's consistent standard, a band that can get his approval must have something special. Even without meeting the band, Shinichi Iwahashi felt in his heart that even if he just agreed to sign it, he would not sign it.
A band below the line.
Of course, if you haven’t seen the band with your own eyes, you won’t know what kind of performance it can bring. Before going to see it with your own eyes, another thing that impressed Iwahashi Shinichi was that this band is composed entirely of women, and the members
A band where we can make our own songs.
If so, this is a very rare band.
In the band craze in recent years, women have indeed shone brightly. However, there are not many bands that are composed entirely of women and whose members can afford the creative work.
If we really want to talk about it, if a girl has outstanding creative ability, plays a core role in the band, and is somewhat pretty, the record company will advise her to get rid of her "useless" teammates and make a solo debut.
Because of this, when Mineshima introduced such a band to Shinichi Iwahashi, he was particularly interested and went to see it as soon as possible.
Nowadays, the record company is full of various arrangements, and Shinichi Iwahashi rarely comes to the livehouse to watch performances in person. Instead, the company's talent scouts and producers will appear in the audience from time to time.
In itself, the work of discovering new talents is to be distributed to talent scouts and producers. It is impossible to see them with just your own eyes. Similarly, if you only rely on your own eyes, the styles you select will all be similar.
.
According to Mineshima, the members of this band were classmates in the same high school. They formed a band in high school and continued to be active in college. Today, the members have become members of society and started working, but outside of work, they also
Still continue to form a team.
Some time ago, this band came to audition and was chosen by Mineshima, who was in charge of the audition. Tonight was their first performance in the store.
Mineshima couldn't wait and invited Shinichi Iwahashi to watch this first scene, which made Shinichi Iwahashi's expectations involuntarily high.
The name of the band is, see-saw?
…
It's a seesaw, not see and its past tense.
In high school, Yuki Kajiura formed a band with several like-minded friends. When there were more members, there were five people, and then four people. And now, she and her high school classmate Yukiko Nishioka, and their little sister
——The younger sister of a member who was in a band together in high school, Tomaki Ishikawa, who is four years younger than the two of them.
Several years have passed since they started playing in the light music club in high school. After graduation, the three of them worked separately, but they still get together and work together as a band.
On weekdays, she is an ordinary office girl, and on holidays, she works in the underground music industry.
Wearing two hats is like two sides of a coin, and it's like being on a seesaw, going up this moment and down again at that moment.
When the first Naon Yaon was held, Yuki Kajiura and Yukiko Nishioka were college students. At that time, they also had classmates and applied for temporary staff positions at the music festival, and brought back information about the music festival.
School.
Some classmates who knew that the two of them were forming a band even teased them, "Maybe I can see your band at the music festival next time."
The three girls once went to a music festival together, and indeed, they had a daydream of performing in front of tens of thousands of people.
But when they woke up from the dream, they still got together based on their interests. They were like a small band in a secret base and rarely even performed in public. However, they were not frustrated because they were far away from the content in the dream. On the contrary, they still
Have a state of mind that enjoys performing alone.
Such a free and easy attitude is not only related to their origins, but also related to the fact that when they were students, they did not really regard music as a life choice that could be considered.
The reality after waking up from the dream is that the three of them got their own jobs after graduation, and got together during the holidays to exchange music and guard their secret base.
However, the longer these days go by, the more they realize that "music" is slowly disappearing from their lives, changing from a possibility they once imagined to a hobby in their spare time.
Maybe in another year, the band will be like the sports events of the sports clubs that we participated in when we were students. After leaving school, we will no longer have interest and opportunities to continue.
When they realized that they had reached the intersection of choice, the three girls, although they did not say it out loud, in their hearts, more or less, felt a certain sense of urgency that they had to make a decision.
During this Golden Week holiday, the three girls went on short trips to different places with their friends from the company. After the holiday, they got together again to prepare for tonight's performance.
Colleagues in the company don’t know that they each have another identity. As office workers, the key is to clearly distinguish between work and non-work identities. Of course, even if a colleague accidentally discovers their secret, what will happen later?
I will also pretend not to know.
If you don't experience the workplace, you won't know how interesting the workplace is.
During tonight's performance, there might be colleagues in the company or classmates from their school days standing in the audience.
On the way to the livehouse, the three girls imagined this in their minds.
In fact, this is their first time to perform publicly in front of so many people. It is also their first time to really perform on a live house stage - not just in a friend's shop like in the past.
Performance.
Mineshima-san, the person in charge of the livehouse, chose them, a band with no performance experience. But conversely, it can also be said that it was the three of them who chose this livehouse, which is backed by Genzo's Iwahashi-san.
In their distant school days, they had already seen the music festival that Iwahashi-san worked hard for.
Tonight, three people came to the backstage of Livehoue early for the upcoming performance.
Of course, a band making its debut is not qualified to hold a special show. Tonight's performance was with several other bands. Their band was the second to appear. Mineshima-san gave them twenty minutes to perform.
.
After the performance, when they returned backstage, they could receive tonight's performance salary - 5,000 yen.
It was enough for them to find a small shop to have something to eat after the performance. They used the performance fees they earned from live performances for the first time in their lives.
In the underground music world, there are no wealthy musicians.
Even if you can hold special concerts, share the box office with livehoue, and print singles and sell them yourself, the income will be very meager, and you need to rely on part-time work to make a living. The best result is to get a job as a touring musician, which can not only have a stable income, but also
You can hone your skills, and at the same time, you have the opportunity to get in touch with the recording industry.
Of course, such a life is far away from the three girls and only exists in hearsay.