Make Believe Mailer 38: Culture Convenience Club
Rental Shops, CD Revivals And "Experiences"
Old Tsutaya store in Nakano, a personal haunt. Photo via Google Image Search
Weekly trips to Tsutaya were a common part of my Tokyo life when I first moved to the capital. The 20-some-minute walk to the Nakano Tsutaya…tucked away on a hill behind a B-grade pizza place and next to the Sobu Line tracks…made for a pleasant way to end the day during warmer months, and a good excuse for exercise during colder times. I followed a familiar routine each time — a cursory look at the first floor’s selection of magazines, before heading up one flight of stairs to the second floor, devoted entirely to CD and DVD rentals.
This was, for someone still just beginning to dig into the history of Japanese music, basically a library that encouraged digital stealing. I mean, they had blank CDs right next to the register, the fine folks at parent company Culture Convenience Club metaphorically winking at customers carrying the maximum-allowed five jewel cases to the front. I never need those discs…ample external hard drive space saved me a few yen…but I appreciated the gesture.
The Nakano Tsutaya allowed me an easy way to load up on Japanese music both old (every Tatsuro Yamashita album, anything Denki Groove related, pretty much all of the late ‘90s) and new (though checking out the latest E-Girls or Akai Koen release meant having to turn it back in one day, instead of the regular five. No worries, just a chance to get more). Eventually, I started going to other Tsutaya outlets in the west Tokyo sphere, seeking out CD rarities Nakano didn’t have. The process of renting became not just part of daily existence, but the ultimate path to learning about this music.
2011-ish Tsutaya add wherein Italian people make fools of themselves
Recently, music journalism stared down a question throwing everything anyone in the industry seemingly knew into confusion — are CDs back? Sales for compact discs rose for the first time in a decade…look, data and charts! Not so fast, doubters cried, because that bump isn’t all that impressive and besides, it’s only being powered by a vanishing class of massive artists like Adele. Yet, as Marc Hogan explored in Pitchfork, there does seem to be some movement on this front. If nothing else, the very idea of CDs enjoying new attention has inspired odes to the format, from celebrations of them being the ideal way of experiencing music to…whatever this is.
Experiencing all of this from Japan has been particularly mind melting. That’s because CDs stood alongside fax machines as a go-to trope for English-language coverage about how behind the times the country actually is. “Japan is utterly, totally unique,” the chairman of Universal Music Group at the time told The New York Times in a 2014 story about how gosh darn strange the country’s music industry was compared to the rest of the world. Vice talked to someone working closely in this world for their exploration of “Japan…what’s their deal?” It’s an obsession, CNN declared. Why doesn’t Japan come over to streaming, the folks of the mid 2010s wondered. Spotify is great, they exclaimed, absolutely nothing could possibly go wrong with this platform!
Slowly but surely, though, this narrative was shifting. In 2016, most of the breakout hits of the year emerged via YouTube, while Spotify debuted in the country that fall. Digital only became bigger in the years after, with YouTube guiding the way and then TikTok emerging, being one of the early spots in pushing the pop hit of 2018 to the top. As it did for many parts of Japanese society,1 the pandemic accelerated this change, with subscription streaming and channels like The First Take suddenly becoming the center of the zeitgeist. Even English media stories on this have changed a bit…though you can still find writers infatuated with the physical angle.
But the times have changed, and at the same moment Western writers open up the jewel cases of yesteryear, Japan stares down widespread changes to how the music retail business functions. The biggest change — the almost certain end of the CD rental store. As industry documents show in convenient graph form, the number of rental shops have been on a steep decline since the mid ‘90s, sliding down further as the internet and streaming solidifies itself in the country.
Shuttered Geo rental store near Shin-Koenji station. One of the largest rental chains in Japan, these stores are starting to vanish.
The biggest sign of the times, though, has been news that various Tsutaya franchisees have made the decision to eliminate rentals in the coming years, with one of the biggest representing the retailer planning to phase out CD and DVD rental by October 2023. Tsutaya isn’t just a rental store — you can buy movies and music too, while there book and magazine business remains robust — but it is (becoming a “was”) a core part of what they are all about.
It truly underlines the massive digital media shift Japan has gone under over the last half decade, to the point where one of the seemingly ever-present centers of entertainment consumption in the country — a place that for me and many others was a great way to easily discover and acquire music from the last five decades of history, while for others was a punchline — will soon lose a part of its identity. Right now, people in the West contemplate what a CD revival even would look like and mean. In Japan, it’s imagining them becoming less present.
Empty retail space where Tsutaya used to be, in my current neighborhood.
The Shinjuku Tower Records used to stretch over four floors at the top of the Flags department store, a second away from the Southwest gate at the nearby JR Station. A new GU clothing branch (opening this April!) snatched up two of those floors, but visiting the remaining space on a regular Wednesday night revealed that it was more than enough. It was busy, with people lined up to buy albums and others weaving through the aisles to look at magazines, singles and records. A few snapped photos of a cardboard cut-out of an anime popstar.
Tower Records Shinjuku entrance.
Physical music retailers remain a fixture in Japan’s big cities even as digital streaming becomes the norm. In the largest cities, it isn’t hard to find used record shops, while new development projects such as Shibuya’s Miyashita Park made space for Face Records. Then there’s the continued presence of brick-and-mortar locations for HMV and Tower Records, both of which have opened new outlets over the last few years, with the prior leaning into renewed interest in records and the latter transforming their stores into experiences. I’ve seen concerts at the Shinjuku Tower, while the imposing Shibuya installment of the chain goes further, with larger spaces for events and livestreams, a cafe and a liquor section where you can buy music-related booze from around the world (try the Yoshiki red, pricey but surprisingly tasty).
Look at Slash’s guitar in Shinjuku!
One of my favorite things about Japan is how music remains valued enough where the whole art form can be transformed into this all-senses-hit experience, and generally feels celebrated for what it is rather than being part of some larger media-verse. Yet the key work is experience, because Tower Records, HMV and Tsutaya’s physical offerings veer towards the special occasion rather than part of daily life.
For Tsutaya, that means opening cozy T-Site stores across the country, which provide an elevated bookstore experience complete with cafes and ornate lounges. It’s like a Starbucks Reserve — those multi-floored cafes where you can put alcohol in your latte or take a class on the difference between beans — except you can read a copy of Popeye if you are so inclined.
This is the new state of entertainment retail int he country — as Nikkei Asia reports, the T-Site in Daikanyama has enjoyed robust growth since opening in 2011, and Culture Convenience Club aims to bring the hybrid experience to Southeast Asia next. Tower Records and HMV resemble this model more and more, too — and it’s actually spreading too, with HMV in England embracing something similar.
Again, it’s great music and physical media in general can still attract respect in Japan. But there’s also something lost when experiences become central to experiencing art or media like this. The mall outlets and rental shops dotting neighborhoods across the country slowly vanish, leaving only miniature corporate museums and libraries2 in cities to offer items. Delightful as part of a day trip, but that means folks living in bedtowns and more rural locations miss out on easy access. Plus, even when you go to the elevated Tower Records, a new CD is still going to cost you about $25 USD. You could get five…and technically rip the data…for $5, and keep doing it. Sure, Spotify and Apple Music and whatever else offers more options for a monthly fee…but it’s never really yours…
The slow disappearance of rental stores, Tsutaya or Geo or independent, marks one of the clearest signs yet that Japan’s music landscape has changed — digital streaming is winning, the old days are ending, lazy journalists need new angles on the country’s entertainment industry. So it goes, and this reality brings all kinds of pros and cons to the table.
Yet rather than poke fun at the days of carrying a little baggie to your nearest Tsutaya to pick up some discs, let’s appreciate a time when Tsutaya felt like a place for discovery, and one encouraging you to take the songs with you. Physical formats may enjoy boom periods, but this experience is becoming history.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
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Generally, the entire “Japan is obsessed with physical everything” angle that pops up in all of these CD stories is fading away. That Vice story mentions how Japanese consumers prefer physical currency over credit cards or anything digital…but even that has flipped. I can buy a sandwich at Family Mart using upwards of two dozen e-cash solutions. And sorry to snarky English Twitter but…I haven’t seen a fax machine in years…
Culture Convenience Club literally used to run local libraries, by the way. Libraries…one of the last great stands for rental culture in Japan, and probably your country too!