Make Believe Mailer Vol. 36: A People's History Of AKB48
It has been a busy week for J-pop group AKB48. Friday night, the first episode of Produce 48 aired on Korean TV, and on Saturday Jurina Matsui earned the top spot in the annual AKB48 General Election, held this year in Nagoya and featuring ranked members from various international sister projects. To coincide with this, here's a slightly updated version of a post I wrote on Tumblr back in 2014 shortly after that year's election wrapped up, but which vanished from online after I deleted said Tumblr (destroying an entire social media presence...feels good!). All 2018 updates are in italics, and only a few grammatical edits have been made.
Every year, a story like this one emerges on the Internet: a fan of idol-pop group AKB48 buys an absurd amount of the group’s latest single, usually the one right before the annual AKB election because the CD comes with a voting paper they can use to boost their favorite member up a few spots (or, for 2018, piles of CDs are found discarded). It doesn't matter whether this story is real or hoax. We, the non-AKB diehards, are supposed to shake are heads at this and feel better about ourselves.
It highlights an idea trumpeted by many -- AKB48 isn't nearly as popular as they look. And it's true -- the outfit’s sales are inflated to a large degree by sneaky marketing strategies that result in more devoted fans buying extra copies of what usually amounts to the same product (maybe not in RocketNews24-gawking numbers, but still more than one). It’s impossible to know how many CDs AKB would sell if everyone just bought one copy, but it would bring absolutely nutty numbers for 2014 down a bit. (Same in 2018, but applied to every single number-one album give or take a Namie Amuro compilation)
Sales gimmicks are nothing new to Japan or any music market in the world, but in AKB48’s situation, it does shine a light on the fact that the people behind the group focus on superfans who will shell out money, and not the general population with more passing interest. It creates a weird feeling that, despite topping CD-sales charts and appearing in countless ads, AKB are far from “mainstream.” Like…I can’t picture a car full of young adults driving by with “Labrador Retriever” blaring out. Or hearing it at the beach. Or at a club. They are everywhere, but also not really.
Mostly, AKB are the golden example of niche marketing, music companies targeting a very specific demographic at the cost of almost everyone else (insanely, AKB48 predicted ALL music in 2018). Still, two AKB48 songs stick out among their catalog -- two instances where the group, on purpose or accidentally, were universally embraced by all demographics in Japan.
“I Want You/I Need You!” - “Heavy Rotation”
The video for “Heavy Rotation“ is, to date, the ultimate summation of AKB48. In Japan, the image of the group laid out here remains their defining look, to the point where singing video games released feature the group wearing the same clothes here. It also tends to be THE visual introduction to AKB48 outside of Japan - look at these women in lingerie, frolicking around and sharing sweets mouth to mouth! In John Seabrook’s mostly bad (aging like milk left out in the Sahara) New Yorker article about K-pop, "Heavy Rotation” is the single example of J-pop he brings up, and he focuses exclusively on how “pervy” it feels (before spending thousands of words babbling about how Korean women look).
That clip remains AKB48’s most viewed (no more, beaten by the second song here!) and most defining video statement, yet “Heavy Rotation’s” legacy stretches far beyond that. Though I never ever bothered to even consider that for the first year this existed…I hated this song when it became inescapable in the summer of 2010. It was trying-to-hard pep at its worst, all shouty and manic and high-fructose acid. I tried all I could to never have to hear or interact with this song at all, and mostly felt bewildered. “Why is this so popular?????” (Wow was I young)
“Heavy Rotation” came out right as AKB48 were hitting their commercial stride…they had topped the Oricon Single Chart in late 2009 with “River,” and were starting to put together a run of top-ranking singles. Coming after the first really hyped-up AKB48 general election, “Heavy Rotation” emerged at the perfect time for the group -- they were still relatively fresh national newcomers coming off a big novelty event. So “Heavy Rotation” was met with extra enthusiasm…but then it stuck around, far surpassing the more niche accomplishments of previous singles. It became a mainstream song, the first AKB48 track to really do that.
I found out eventually, one night at the Rent-A-Car establishment that doubled as a karaoke joint (Mie Prefecture is WILD). A few convenience store drinks in and I was willing to sing anything. Someone put in “Heavy Rotation,” and I wasn’t going to stop them, not with the alcopop in my system. And that night, I found the skeleton key to understanding the song's success - “Heavy Rotation” slays for karaoke.
The ability to sing songs at karaoke is a big selling point for more casual music consumers in Japan (and other parts of Asia). And “Heavy Rotation” is a beast in this regards - it topped the JoySound Karaoke rankings in 2011 and 2012, and finished a very respectable 9th in 2013. It’s constructed perfectly for a sing-a-long…as hyperactive as this sounded to me in 2010, the verses actually move at a reasonable rate, to the point where even a deeply inebriated, deeply bad-at-Japanese me could sing along pretty easily. And the chorus, dear goodness…I didn’t enjoy having it shouted in my ear, but it is insanely fun to scream out yourself…and even more with friends. If a lot of AKB’s music feels closed off from the masses, “Heavy Rotation” works because it’s the one AKB song inviting you to holler along.
There’s one other, sneaky trick at the heart of “Heavy Rotation” I didn’t know about until a Japanese country music duo revealed it at a live show I saw earlier in 2014 -- the chords on “Heavy Rotation's” hook are the same as on John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” The latter is one of those inexplicably popular in Japan American songs that pops up all over the place -- there are Japanese versions (here’s a cover), I have seen it performed multiple times at local festivals and every English textbook I ever used at my day job used “Country Roads” as a sing-a-long lesson. This is a track people of all ages are familiar with…the folks behind “Heavy Rotation” just idol-popped it up, but the groundwork for a karaoke jam everyone knows was already there.
“The Future Ain’t That Bad!” - “Koi Suru Fortune Cookie”
For many, “Heavy Rotation” served as an introduction to AKB48 -- by the time “Koi Suru Fortune Cookie“ rolled out in the summer of 2013, most comprehended the sales strategy AKB48 use so well -- release single, have fans buy a ton of copies, top Oricon chart, drop out like a week later. Longevity was never the goal with AKB’s music -- the people pulling the strings sold as much as they could as fast as they could, and repeated. That’s still how they do it (yep).
"Koi Suru Fortune Cookie” bucked this trend. It boasted the usual strong first-week sales…but it hung around. For months afterwards, to the point where this single will sometimes creep back into the top 50 of the Oricon Singles chart nearly a year since it came out. (This one still probably gets more play than any other AKB song, and pops up more in everyday life, though maybe that's just my life)
More impressively though was its digital success. The AKB model puts a premium on physical CDs, because those usually come with tickets to handshake events or ballots for popularity-contests-turned-elections. Buy a bunch of singles, get more tickets/ballots! Oricon only measures physical copies moved, so many critics point to their rankings as being unreflective of what the public actually likes (in 2018, everyone points this out). The diehards load up physically, but your average person just wants to download a song they like for less than $10. “Koi Suru Fortune Cookie” killed on the digital charts too, a very rare feat for AKB. It finished in third place for the year on iTunes Japan, behind only a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu song and Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” It remained in the iTunes top five as late as February 2014. It was, unlike most AKB songs, embraced by mainstream listeners.
Why, though? One possible reason was a clever little viral stunt AKB coordinated, wherein everyone from Japanese mascots to fledgling basketball leagues to foreign fans filmed themselves doing the song’s dance. Those were inescapable, raising the song’s profile. It also came out at the same time Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” and “Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” were finding traction in Japan, intentionally or inadvertently tapping into a small disco revival that is still going today.
Ultimately though, I think it’s because they just hit on a great song that actually aimed to be as wide reaching as possible. The video says it all -- whereas the concept for “Heavy Rotation’s” clip starts out as someone peeking through a keyhole into a private world, “Fortune Cookie” finds the group dancing in the streets surrounded by all sorts of people, inviting everyone to come together. It’s fitting, then, that “Fortune Cookie” deviates from their standard, often-off-putting peppy pop in favor of easy-breezy afternoon disco, a style that is easy to digest and is far less intimidating than other forms of dance music.
Yet it also taps into something else that few pop groups in Japan bother to broach. Again, the official video offers a hint, this time at the very beginning courtesy of an English intro - “Is life getting you down? No money, no job, too much bad news?” Japan -- like a lot of places at the time (and, uhhhh, still) (AHAHAHA 2014 me, little did you know!) -- was not a positive place in 2013, faced by bleak future forecasts (declining birthrate! bad economy! losing power in the region! good luck finding a lifelong career young people!) and diminished opportunities. It was not a very optimistic period - which maybe explains why nobody votes in actual elections, because it all looks grim. (Today, a lot of bands and artists have found success by embracing a more optimistic outlook, but only in a limited scope. Groups like Suchmos or Never Young Beach celebrate the small things in life like hanging out with friends or eating pancakes, and use this as a vague jumping off point for thinking tomorrow will be OK. It's kinda starling to listen to AKB admit how bad the future feels in 2018 and know they were right)
The lyrics to “Fortune Cookie” unfold at a typical AKB setting -- a school -- and revolves around a familiar topic -- love. But instead of being clogged with dippy metaphors and feeling like a song about being a teenage girl written by a middle-aged man, the language here is more direct. Girl sees boy she likes, but realizes she has no chance with him…and mostly just feels horrible about it. It’s unrequited love made simple and plain. Yet the song carries more than just high-school feelings -- lines like “the future ain’t that bad!” and “not even God knows what will happen next” hint at a more general negativity -- the “that” in the first line especially stings, still acknowledging it will probably suck to some degree -- but AKB ultimately rallies around the idea of not giving into cynicism. “The world is full of love/it makes you forget all the sad things.” Though the edges still let some bad vibes hang around.
Weirdly enough, the song “Fortune Cookie” shares the most in common with is Pharrell’s “Happy,” another wide-eyed pop number rejecting negativity (and with YouTube legs, to boot). Criticism of “Happy” that reaches beyond “I wanna stop hearing this everywhere” zeroes in on the persistent just-feel-happy message, argued as a sorta dumb approach to dealing with issues both big and small. I get the gist of it, but ultimately I like “Happy” because it is a celebratory song that’s more about not giving into the sort of downbeat thoughts that come after, say, reading any news website. “Fortune Cookie” follows the same line of thinking, albeit it is a bit more honest about feeling down -- but the message is ultimately best summed up as “tomorrow is another day.”
Really, though, the surprising, far-reaching success of this song all rests on the fact this is the sound of AKB48 stepping out of the fantasy-selling, narrative-heavy world they mainly operate in and instead reach out to everybody, not just money-blessed otaku. It imagines them as an honest-to-goodness pop group for everyone, and the people responded like they were, even briefly. (It isn't a surprise that when AKB has tried to re-create this magic, they copy "Fortune Cookie." This year's "Jabaja" is a fine example, embracing a brass-heavy funk sound and with a video putting them in a public setting. But nothing has captured what happened with "Fortune Cookie," partially because music has just fragmented os much more and mostly because you can't make the same spark happen twice).
News And Views
Before AKB election results, the biggest musical story of the week revolved around the band RADWIMPS and their new song "Hinomaru," a song accused of being overly nationalistic and maybe pro-military (that fan-made video isn't helping). It's resulted in a lot of people on the far left and right coming out to use the band as a talking point, and has also made a lot of artists start talking about analysis of their art (including Kyary Pamyu Pamyu).
Another week, another member of NEWS hanging out with underage women. Almost like Johnny's & Associates has...some kind of systematic problem?
Sally Amaki is now a virtual YouTuber, and she's killing it.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of June 4, 2018 To June 10, 2018
Blah blah blah, a Sexy Zone song, whatever. Far more important is that Da Pump somehow sold enough physical copies of their latest single to land in the top ten. Warms my heart that 12,000-plus people needed "U.S.A." in physical form.
Perfume's GAME (33 1/3)
My entry in the 33 1/3 Japan series is out now! Get a copy at Bloomsbury or Amazon. Or at Kinokuniya bookstores in the US. Perfume have a new album out later this year, so expect me to ramp up the ol' personal PR machine ahead of that.
Look At Me!
I expanded on that whole RADWIMPS thing, along with the recent kick-back against a dance group's re-imagining of "This Is America" as "This Is Japan," in The Japan Times. The main takeaway -- Japanese netizens are getting more political about art.
For those needing to make summer plans, I also have you covered.
Blog highlights: Kazumichi Komatsu, Loveless, Shine Of Ugly Jewel
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
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