Vote Vote Vote for B'z and Koshi Inaba!!

[Lebon14]

Here in Canada, JPop/JRock is like... unknown.  People that actually like listening to JPop and/or JRock habitually have a link to something else that is Japanese... What link is it, you say?  Easy : animes.  Even then, some people only stick to the songs they hear.  So, what are the chances that someone hears B'z in an anime?  Unless they watch Detective Conan, there is only a handful of anime in which B'z appears.  Songs like Roots and Mienai Chikara ~Invisible One~ were in animes.  Fortunately, Friction might have helped people discover B'z... or not.  People playing the game Burnout Dominator or Burnout Paradise might like the song, so they head to buy Friction on iTunes... but when they inform themselves and find out that B'z is Japanese they might simply say "Eww...".

Anyway, most of the time, there are a couple of factors, imo, that doesn't help JPop at all :
- Inability for people to accept to listen to an asian language to be in a song.  They all categorize it has "Chinese".
- Japanese labels refuses to market Jpop/Jrock/JTrance/Eurobeat/Trance/[...] outside of Japan.  There are exceptions but a lot of those you will find in Canada and US are bootlegs.
- Non-openess of Japanese artist to tour outside of Japan.  Except Visual Kei bands of course.  There are a few exception to this... exemple : m.o.v.e.  If there is a band or singer that tours outside, I'm pretty sure it's related to anime somehow.

Lastly, I think it's sad that only Visual Kei bands gets lights.  I do have my explanation... Visual kei bands actually have sad lyrics and music (which is also aggressive; Visual Kei being a sub-genre of Metal).  So, I kind of attribute to the "Why-does-this-happen-to-me syndrome" which seem to affect every country EXCEPT Japan.

Anyway, I'm out.

[Chi1992]

- Non-openess of Japanese artist to tour outside of Japan.  Except Visual Kei bands of course.  There are a few exception to this... exemple : m.o.v.e.  If there is a band or singer that tours outside, I'm pretty sure it's related to anime somehow.

Lastly, I think it's sad that only Visual Kei bands gets lights.  I do have my explanation... Visual kei bands actually have sad lyrics and music (which is also aggressive; Visual Kei being a sub-genre of Metal).  So, I kind of attribute to the "Why-does-this-happen-to-me syndrome" which seem to affect every country EXCEPT Japan.

It doesn't have to be related to anime that much (talking about Visual Key) I think that this is connected with appearance. How many non-japan groups looks like Visual Key which looks like a group made of anime characters- it's eye catching (sometimes not ear at all XD) Something that looks different catch attention of masses. If there are good groups but they look casual people won't listen to them because of the language (as you said) and they'll just say "There are many also good bands which sing in English" well... it shouldn't make any problems to anyone, but I feel uncomfortable that Jmusic is that underestimated outside Japan (but Korean, Taiwan and Chinese like Japanese music too, hehe ^^" ). So they prefer invite Visual Key band rather than invite somebody who doesn't wear like witch because it makes bigger audience. I noticed that most of people who were emo some time ago listen to vk now ^^" And there were many emo so business just goes on. I know an emo girl who hates Girugamesh because their lyrics are too sad XD I don't like this issue with sadness- I love the good energy which comes from jmusic like from nowhere else and it should be more promoted in my opinion

Wow, until now I thought that Japanese music is more known in Canada (English version of "Sahara" was on Canadian edition of Slash's album wasn't it?) than in countries which lay farther from Japan like for example here in Europe =P.

I know this experience with people who hear "Japanese" always say "aaa, ching chang, chong" what makes me very mad (ha! I have a new maths teacher in my school and I noticed that he likes music and has a really good taste. His favourite rock band were from Russian- he thought that this is the best language to sing rock songs. And I've taken a risk and gave him "7th Blues" to try out and after hearing this he told me that Japanese sounds WAY better that Russian when it comes with rock songs what made "Yaaay, another person who respects B'z in my environment!" :3 Success XDD)  , but there are also big amounts of fans who make groups or just listen to this music alone, but still I'm able to find this kind of people even among my neighbourhood :/ 

But I realised that Poland is somehow more able to open for Japan oO If I try to find out why it's just too hard for me to understand. There are racists who doesn't see any differences between China and Japan and just ignores everything around them but smarter people have some kind of sentiment for Japan. Ok, it wasn't related to music in any way, but I predict and I hope that jmusic will get more popular here someday.

[Lebon14]

- Non-openess of Japanese artist to tour outside of Japan.  Except Visual Kei bands of course.  There are a few exception to this... exemple : m.o.v.e.  If there is a band or singer that tours outside, I'm pretty sure it's related to anime somehow.

Lastly, I think it's sad that only Visual Kei bands gets lights.  I do have my explanation... Visual kei bands actually have sad lyrics and music (which is also aggressive; Visual Kei being a sub-genre of Metal).  So, I kind of attribute to the "Why-does-this-happen-to-me syndrome" which seem to affect every country EXCEPT Japan.

It doesn't have to be related to anime that much (talking about Visual Key) I think that this is connected with appearance. How many non-japan groups looks like Visual Key which looks like a group made of anime characters- it's eye catching (sometimes not ear at all XD) Something that looks different catch attention of masses. If there are good groups but they look casual people won't listen to them because of the language (as you said) and they'll just say "There are many also good bands which sing in English" well... it shouldn't make any problems to anyone, but I feel uncomfortable that Jmusic is that underestimated outside Japan (but Korean, Taiwan and Chinese like Japanese music too, hehe ^^" ). So they prefer invite Visual Key band rather than invite somebody who doesn't wear like witch because it makes bigger audience. I noticed that most of people who were emo some time ago listen to vk now ^^" And there were many emo so business just goes on. I know an emo girl who hates Girugamesh because their lyrics are too sad XD I don't like this issue with sadness- I love the good energy which comes from jmusic like from nowhere else and it should be more promoted in my opinion

Wow, until now I thought that Japanese music is more known in Canada (English version of "Sahara" was on Canadian edition of Slash's album wasn't it?) than in countries which lay farther from Japan like for example here in Europe =P.

I know this experience with people who hear "Japanese" always say "aaa, ching chang, chong" what makes me very mad (ha! I have a new maths teacher in my school and I noticed that he likes music and has a really good taste. His favourite rock band were from Russian- he thought that this is the best language to sing rock songs. And I've taken a risk and gave him "7th Blues" to try out and after hearing this he told me that Japanese sounds WAY better that Russian when it comes with rock songs what made "Yaaay, another person who respects B'z in my environment!" :3 Success XDD)  , but there are also big amounts of fans who make groups or just listen to this music alone, but still I'm able to find this kind of people even among my neighbourhood :/ 

But I realised that Poland is somehow more able to open for Japan oO If I try to find out why it's just too hard for me to understand. There are racists who doesn't see any differences between China and Japan and just ignores everything around them but smarter people have some kind of sentiment for Japan. Ok, it wasn't related to music in any way, but I predict and I hope that jmusic will get more popular here someday.

I didn't say that it HAD to be from anime to tour.  I said that MOST of the tours were from artists that had songs in anime.  That's why I gave M.o.v.e as an exemple (they have two anime remix/cover albums, had quite a lot of anime song (Initial D mainly though)).

For Sahara, it wasn't a big deal because the Deluxe edition was limited and people that bought probably have still no clue about Koshi.

I agree with you for the "aaa, ching, chang, chong" part.  I can add : "oh, it's like chinese to me like *insert gibberish here*".  That and people usually don't accept to make the difference between Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamian, Taiwan, etc and all throw them in the same basket : the Chinese.  For myself, I don't like it either.  For my neiborhood, I think I must be in the rare ones that listen everything except mainstream music.  So yeah...

I think Canada has this pre-made idea of the Japanese music that goes along the "aaa, ching, chang, chong".  If they don't understand, they don't listen.  This is quite sad.  As for me, like I say to a lot of people, I don't f*ing care about understanding the lyrics... I'm listening for the music.

[Lum]

Lastly, I think it's sad that only Visual Kei bands gets lights.  I do have my explanation... Visual kei bands actually have sad lyrics and music (which is also aggressive; Visual Kei being a sub-genre of Metal).  So, I kind of attribute to the "Why-does-this-happen-to-me syndrome" which seem to affect every country EXCEPT Japan.

Lebon, that's called EMO 
I don't know if they're well know in Canada (I hope not), but there's a German band called Tokyo Hotel, if you look at them you could mistake them for a Visual Kei band... Even if they're more pop-oriented.
Anyway, here in Italy Visual Kei and the so-called "j-rock" are the most popular. Miyavi came in Milan a couple of times, same did Dir en Gray and other bands. After them, male idol groups and pop singers have some public. Since Visual Kei groups are the only ones who came touring in Europe, it's natural they're more familiar to fans.