Flying over the bubble era

Chapter 1236 1236. Life choices
Osato Yokichi described the situation of Beyond, and some of his thoughts on how to promote singers from overseas. As Shinichi Iwahashi listened, an idea popped up in his heart.

If you want to introduce newcomers from overseas in Japan, perhaps the quickest and most effective way is to create a newcomer who looks like a bonsai.

Choose a newcomer who is a blank sheet of paper but fits the Japanese audience's stereotype of a foreigner from this place.There is no need for the singer to output anything, or even to overcome language problems, even poor Japanese can become a piece of the puzzle, a part of the selling point, and all the packaging is to show a bonsai-style beauty and satisfy the audience for a while. fun.

Such a newcomer can be sure that it is impossible to become popular.However, as long as they grasp a certain selling point that can be used, using it on such a newcomer can at least set off a temporary wave and make the record company earn a fortune.

The Japanese nation can never really accept a foreigner, no matter whether the foreigner is from Europe, America or Southeast Asia.

During the heyday of the bubble, young labor became the resource to be scrambled for. However, there were still large companies that rejected Koreans and Chinese.

In contrast, the entertainment world is already a relatively tolerant place.However, the harder a foreigner tries to learn to be Japanese, the more he will be despised by the Japanese: how can a foreigner become Japanese?However, if you keep the "natural nature" of foreigners, you will either become a bonsai to be watched, or a monkey to be watched.

Even for superstars in Europe and America, their records can be sold in Japan, and tickets are sold at sky-high prices during tours in Japan.But they are superstars from the world's popular center, and the Japanese audience chasing them is chasing "the most fashionable fashion in the world today".

These superstars have never "developed" in Japan.

If I really want to say, a popular European and American singer must be a singer who does not regard the Japanese market as a sales base.Once the Japanese find that this singer from Europe and America is not the most popular nowadays, they will quickly lose interest in him.

And if you don’t use sightseeing bonsai—such an opportunistic way, if you want to seriously manage an overseas singer, there is only one way: start from scratch and be down-to-earth.Create in Japanese, so that you have the opportunity to accumulate a group of loyal fans.

This road, non-singer-songwriters have the opportunity to go well, and there are indeed successful precedents.Learn Japanese well, prepare a production team that is all Japanese, and then invite songs from well-known Japanese songwriters.

But if you want to be responsible for the creation by yourself, this road will be a difficult and lonely one, with huge investment but not necessarily rewarding.To take this path, not only the singer must be determined, but also the agency and the record company must be willing to accompany him on this path.

But for a company to do this, it must have an ideal that ranks first.

It is true that AMUSE has the ambition to manage overseas singers, however, it is hard to say whether Yokichi Osato has such an ideal.

Beyond signed with an agency and a mainstream 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 host's jokes with a smile on your face-even if you don't understand, even if you are face-to-face Sarcasm will also be unresponsive, and inevitably become a monkey being watched.

Not only that, but as the bubble bursts, the social atmosphere that once believed that hard work can change destiny will also disappear.

In the past, it was the era when the Japanese believed that hard work would lead to success, and that even an inch-and-a-half-inch-long insect could kill a big snake.However, the bursting of the bubble will shatter this myth.The Japanese who are constantly absorbing garbage information such as "the powerful Japan is helping the United States", the more they cling to these illusory 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, this is a narrative that has overcome fate.

Before hanging up the phone, Yokichi Osato initiated another invitation, "Since Yanqiao-kun still remembers Beyond, do you want to go see them again when the band performs next time?"

As if to reassure Shinichi Iwahashi, Osato Yokichi added, "Of course, it's my personal invitation."

Yanqiao Shenyi understood, and politely agreed, "It's Dali-san's invitation, and I will naturally go to the appointment." In other words, if the invitation was not from Osato Yokichi himself, but had a clear purpose, Yanqiao Shinichi would would decline.

Beyond's record contract was signed with Warner, and this alone made it impossible for Shinichi Iwahashi to be deeply involved in matters related to this band.

With Shinichi Iwahashi's position today, the singer who can allow him to collaborate across companies as a producer can only be Akina Nakamori.To put it bluntly, if he goes to serve as the producer of non-GENZO singers again, it can only be this kind of humane cooperation with big things.

Dali Yangji knew exactly this, so he said it first, saying that it was an invitation from him personally.And he invited Iwahashi Shinichi to watch the band's performance because of this consideration.

The best place to meet singers who are not of your own faction is the backstage of the show.

Of course, after watching the performance, whether Yokichi Osato will follow his words and chat with him is another matter.However, even if Yokichi Osato really wanted to ask something, Shinichi Iwahashi could only say:

Don't put the band on a variety show.

Even if it is just out of basic common sense, a band should be avoided as much as possible, becoming a monkey on the show, performing juggling for the bored audience.That kind of program 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 popular and gain popularity, you can't live a life without principles.

……

On AMUSE's side, I don't know when the tickets for Beyond's performance will be delivered to the record company.Before that, on the first Saturday night after the Golden Week holiday, Shinichi Iwahashi went to his LIVEHOUSE in Tokyo in order to watch a performance.

A performance that Mineshima highly recommends, and Shinichi Iwahashi must go to see it in person.

With Mineshima's consistent standard, a band that can get his approval must have its own merits.Even without meeting the band, Shinichi Iwahashi felt in his heart that even if he signed the contract like this, he would not sign to a band below the standard.

Of course, if you haven't seen the band with your own eyes, you don't know what kind of performance it can bring.Before I went to see it with my own eyes, another point that impressed Shinichi Iwahashi was that this band is composed entirely of women, and the members can sing and sing by themselves.

If so, it is a very rare band.

In the band craze of the past few years, women have indeed shone.However, there are not many bands that are all women and whose members can afford to write.

To be honest, if a girl has outstanding creative ability, is a core figure in the band, and has a bit of beauty, the record company will suggest that she get rid of her "useless" teammates and make a solo debut.

Because of this, when Mineshima introduced such a band to Iwahashi Shinichi, he was very concerned and went to see it as soon as possible.

Nowadays, the record company is full of various arrangements, and Shinichi Iwahashi seldom comes to LIVEHOUE to watch performances in person.Instead, the company's scouts and producers would appear in the audience from time to time.

In itself, the work of discovering new talents is to be distributed to scouts and producers, and it is impossible to see it with only one pair of eyes.Similarly, if you only rely on your own pair of eyes, you will be able to choose similar styles.

According to Mineshima, the members of this band used to be classmates in the same high school. They formed the band in high school and continued to be active in college. Now, the members have become social people and started working. Still continue to team up.

Some time ago, this band came to audition and was selected by Mineshima Xiang, who was in charge of the interview.Tonight is their first performance in the store.

Mineshima couldn't wait, and invited Iwahashi Shinichi to watch the first scene, which involuntarily filled Iwahashi Shinichi's expectations.

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 a few like-minded friends. When there were many members, there were five members, and later four.And now, she and her high school classmate Yukiko Nishioka, and their little sister, the younger sister of the members who formed the team together in high school, Ishikawa Zhijing, two four years younger than them.

Several years have passed since the light music club in high school.After graduation, the three of them worked separately, but usually they still get together and work together as a band.

An ordinary office girl during the week, and an underground music scene during the holidays.

Holding two roles is like two sides of a coin, and it seems to be sitting on a seesaw. One moment is up, and the other moment is down.

When the first NAONのYAON was held, Yuki Kajiura and Yukiko Nishioka were college students.At that time, there were classmates around the two of them, who applied for temporary staff for the music festival, and brought information about the music festival back to school.

A classmate who knew that the two of them were forming a band even made fun of 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 about performing in front of tens of thousands of people.

But after waking up from the dream, they still got together out of interest, a band like a small group in a secret base, and even seldom performed in public.However, they did not feel depressed because they were far away from the content of the dream, on the contrary, they also had a state of mind to enjoy performing alone.

There is such a free and easy attitude, which is not only related to their background, but also related to their not really considering music as a life choice that can be considered when they were students.

The reality after waking up from the dream is that the three of them are employed after graduation, and get together during the holidays to exchange music and guard their secret base.

However, the longer the days like this, the more they realize that "music" is slowly withdrawing from their lives, turning from a once imagined possibility of life into a leisure interest.

Maybe in another year, the band will be like the sports of the sports club that I participated in when I was a student. After leaving school, I will no longer have the interest and opportunity to continue.

When they realized that they had come to the intersection of choice, the three girls, although they didn't say it out loud, felt more or less in their hearts the sense of urgency that they had to make a decision.

This Golden Week holiday, the three girls went on a short trip to different places with their friends from the company. After the holiday, they got together again to prepare for the performance tonight.

Colleagues in the company don't know that each of them has another identity.To become an office worker, the key point is to clearly distinguish between work and identities outside of work.Of course, even if a colleague accidentally discovered their secret, they would pretend not to know it afterwards.

If you don't experience the workplace, you don't know how interesting the workplace is.

For tonight's performance, perhaps, there might be their colleagues in the company or classmates from their school days standing in the audience.

On the way to LIVEHOUSE, the three girls had this kind of imagination in their hearts.

In fact, this is the first time they have performed publicly in front of so many people.It was also the first time for them to really stand on the stage of a LIVEHOUSE to perform - instead of just performing in a friend's shop like in the past.

Mineshima-san, the head of LIVEHOUSE, chose their band with no performance experience.But on the other hand, it can also be said that the three of them chose this LIVEHOUSE with Genzo's Iwahashi-san behind it.

In the distant student days, they had already seen the music festival that Yanqiao-san had worked so hard for.

Tonight, the three of them came to the backstage of LIVEHOUE early for the upcoming performance.

A debut band, of course, is not qualified to hold a special show.Tonight's performance is to participate with several other bands, and their band will appear second. Mineshima-san gave them 10 minutes of performance time.

After the performance, when they returned to the backstage, they could receive the performance salary for tonight-[-] yen.

Enough for them to find a small shop to eat a little bit after the performance.Use the performance fee earned through live performances for the first time in their lives.

In the underground music industry, there are no wealthy musicians.

Even if I can hold a special show, share the box office with LIVEHOUE, print and sell my own singles, the income is very meager, and I need to work part-time to make ends meet.The best result is to get a job as a touring musician, which can not only have a stable income, but also hone skills, and at the same time, have the opportunity to get in touch with the recording industry.

Of course, this kind of life is far away from the three girls, and only exists in hearsay.

(End of this chapter)