Foreign Singers and Musicians in Japan

Scott Murphy, the Chicago-born rock musician, has another album out. Did you notice? Well, this got us at Japan Trends thinking a bit about all those foreign “upstarts” invading the Japanese pop charts…

Okay, first we should define our categories very carefully. We are talking about non-Japanese (well, western) musicians and singers whose career is primarily or entirely in Japan (and/or in Japanese).

Of course, the obvious question to ask is: Are they any good? And: would they have any career back home (i.e. are they only successful here because they are foreign and fit a certain image that a talent agency wishes to promote)? To be honest, that question could be asked about a large percentage of the foreigners in Japan, and it might seem unfair to pick on the musicians…But we are going to anyway, just for the next few hundred words.

Scott Murphy (left) and enka singer Jero (right)

Pop into any record store or turn on the radio, they seem to be everywhere. Only the other day we saw one of those truck-trailer moving adverts promoting a new release by North Japan favorites Monkey Majik. And now Scott Murphy and his latest album. To his credit, he first arrived in Japan in 2001 with his band Allister, and has since gone solo. He learned Japanese and now belts out covers of Spitz and Southern All Stars. What’s more, his success is not without precedent: previously we have seen Jero, Jake Shimabukuro and others all launching careers here. And for those with more esoteric tastes there is always a group like Ryukyu Underground.

Pop music is manufactured. It is like this in every country of the world, and Japan is no exception. The jimusho (事務所) (agencies) control vast swathes of the media; in fact, being a talento (タレント) or celebrity is a kind of slavery, bred from youth into a certain identity — and then having your jimusho take most of the cash! About the only thing left you can do to express your individuality is to take some drugs and/or get arrested — and we know what then happens to celebrities who do that!

Perhaps rather than scorning foreign pop stars we should sympathize, given the industry they are breaking into. And, as Keith Cahoon of Hotwire Japan (and former CEO of Tower Records Japan) said when we talked to him this month, “It is something of a myth that it is easy for foreigners to become famous in Japan. For foreign musicians making a go of it in Japan the typical reaction is: ‘If you are good, why aren’t you famous yet in your own country?’.”

So, personally I think Jero is great, but someone like Leah Dizon — if she can be called a singer — is pure image and not much else. But who is saying otherwise? Mr. Murphy, anyone?