In 1995, Guy De Launey’s article ‘Not-so-big in Japan: Western pop music in the Japanese market’ was published. It sought to explain some of the reasons why the overwhelming majority of Western (by which that article implicitly and this paper more explicitly takes to mean those acts from North America, Europe and Australasia that release songs in the English language) do not enjoy great success – in terms of sales of CDs especially – in Japan. Although over 25 years have passed since the publication of De Launey’s article, there has been little, if any, additional academic study on this subject, with studies about pop music in Japan focussing on Japanese acts.
On the face of it, the reason why Western acts would want to crack the Japanese market is obvious – at the time (De Launey’s study and this one focus on the 1980s and early 1990s due to the focus on physical sales), it was the second largest market in the world. Yet, the data shows that other than some exceptions – primarily big stars from the USA – most acts did not manage to sell huge quantities of albums and the share of Western music continue to shrink during this period (to about 24% of total sales).
So why was it that Western acts not only released albums in Japan, but many offered special versions of the CD or additional remix versions? What does this teach us about the nature of the music market and its fans in Japan? What was the relationship between the acts and Japan? How and why did some Japanese people follow certain Western acts? These are some of the questions that this paper addresses.
Additionally, this paper considered the reasons why the Japanese release of Western acts’ CDs have been collector’s items, looking at issues ranging from rarity through to the importance of nostalgia as these CDs continue to sell at prices many times higher than their original retail price.
To do all of this, the paper focusses upon the case of Frankie Goes To Hollywood.
The paper ‘Japan Says “Western Pop”?: No Thanks, Don’t Do It’ was published in the BATJ Journal, ISSN 2398-953X, 24, 2023, pp.41-51. It is based on a presentation that I gave at the British Association for Teachers of Japanese (BATJ) annual conference in Cardiff. The work ties into the book, Frankie Fans Say: Welcome to our World, that I am writing (and which I am planning on completing in 2024, a few years behind schedule).
The paper can be accessed here and here.
See also:
- Cardiff Japanese Lecture: Consenting and Transgressing: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Love Songs through a Gender Criticism Approach
- The Power of Frankie and Going to Liverpool
- Blast from the Past – But Better
- Holly Johnson in Concert – Holly Says Relax
- British/European/American Music in Japan
- ‘Two Tribes, United by Music: Western Pop in Japan’
- ‘Western Pop Acts in Japan: Putting the Cult into Culture’
- 1980s Japanese Pop Magazines – First Impressions
- ‘Natural Symbols’ and ‘Learned Symbols’ – how Frankie helped get me interested in symbolism
- Nostalgia and Computer Games – includes discussion on the Frankie Goes To Hollywood computer game
- Frankie Say WHAT? A final chat (for now) with ChatGPT/OpenAI
- Frankie Say Chat with Bing
- Chatting with Google Bard about FGTH
Christopher P. Hood 