boyband sports update

[adevyish]

It’s so interesting to me how different J-ent companies are approaching boybands right now. You have JE transforming their newest boybands into utaite; Stardust chugging along in the 2010s musically but now with TikTok-ready dances; BMSG going full K-pop from the audition show down to the “fan”cams; and Avex replicating 2000s K-pop, except for the one group trying for something similar to Why Don’t We until they pivoted and went C-idol pop (although half of them are still doing R&B-lite solo releases). And now Yoshiki is doing a boyband audition show!

Like, obviously girl groups and boybands are very different markets, but I’d love to have boybands with an identifiable sound. (I don’t necessarily want a consistent producer, although that helps — Nakata and Perfume being the most famous example, but Suiyoubi no Campanella was originally meant to be a girl group, and a lot of indie girl groups have a single producer.) The Stardust groups probably come closest to having an identifiable sound, if you exclude Choutokkyuu for being a meme and GenJibu’s original incarnation, and it makes sense because Stardust is better known for its girl groups.

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If you were expecting actual sports, I can do a belated figure skating worlds update. Kaori gold! Roman Sadovsky did okay! Adam Siao Him Fa is the only dude with decent music. And obviously very happy for Stephane and his son Shoma.

Comments

[superborb]

I wonder if the industry is just in a moment of transition with no strong sense of what's commercially the most successful for Japan at this exact moment?

[adevyish]

I think that’s what’s going on, though trends in the Japanese music industry outside of boybands are quite well-defined right now. That said, the newer acts seeing consistent cultural buzz and chart success¹ — like Aimyon, King Gnu, Yoasobi, and Ado — are all very anti-boyband. In that atmosphere, GenJibu² and various JE groups taking cues from acts adjacent to Yoasobi and Ado makes a lot of sense.

¹ Excluding Oricon from “charts” because it’s tilted heavily towards idols due to emphasis on physical sales, but King Gnu is doing very well there rn.
² Also in the Stardust roster is DISH//, which had a breakout hit in 2020. I don’t really think of them as a boyband because they’re not strictly marketed as such, but they are a boyband in disguise.