Some videos, 2009

[koganbot]

I had an ongoing list of videos I liked, then back in May I forgot to keep up with it, so here are some vids from early '09. For further viewing pleasure visit Kat's tumblr.

Comments

[anonymous]

About the marketing thing and trying to get famous on USA, I’m not very sure. Probably is much more complex and has as much to be about a business than a cultural thing. You can read for example, the Pink Lady case (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Lady_(band)) in two directions and see how it informs the new attempts: you shouldn’t waste all your resources on that adventure because maybe there will be no home to return (BoA I think is more famous in Japan than in Korea, but she always publishes records and singles there, both Utada and BoA ‘american records’ topped the charts on Japan) and also that you can do your thing without being labelled an ‘exotic thing’. Also the ‘normalization’ thing just happens to be a strategy to avoid the images and stereotypes the media projected about Japan on the 80’s or China on the 00’s (devils with lots of money that want to buy everything and blah, blah, blah). Anyway is always very strange. Right now I’m into AKB48, a Japanese idol group, and they performed on two anime conventions, one in Paris, the other in New York. They changed the lyrics of some songs to both English and French, with mixed results: near but not following the original stories, not fitting with the music and, being a group where the crowd reaction it’s a vital thing, finding how they responded to the new lyrics singing the Japanese parts (anyway they couldn’t know the new lyrics). The funny thing is that the media repercussion in Japan was very, very strong about it. In NHK they made a documentary about it (also a latter visit to Cannes’ MIPCOM) which was very instructive. The guy behind it tried to sell his formula to other countries. On the documentary he explains (and the fans are still very puzzled and furious about it) that he has patented the three teams’ structure and that he wants to produce a franchise with it (if you buy it you get also the song library which rights he owns). Potential buyers complained about it being very dependent on Japanese flavours. Anyway, enough about this (I’m just waiting for their first drama group show (http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/majisuka/index.html)to begin in six or seven hours).

anhh