The BABYMETAL Thread \m/

[aine]

I neglected the thread again, but there's big news - Babymetal are on the newest Metal Hammer cover!



You can buy it here. It's £5.75 shipped (£6.75 to USA). I expect it will sell out fast.


I should probably do a round-up of their recent activities, because they did make a big splash at recent festivals in Europe, and their World Tour is continuing. But I feel overwhelmed with the amount of information now.

[aine]

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="aine" data-cid="189781" data-time="1436648647">You can buy it here. It's £5.75 shipped (£6.75 to USA). I expect it will sell out fast.</blockquote>
Aaand it's sold out in 3 days. Don't say I didn't tell you.

[Madara]

I haven't followed Babymetal, but since they seem to be having unprecedented international success, I have to ask some questions: 
 
Has any other Japanese pop or rock group had anywhere near this level of international success?
 
Which countries have they been the most successful in?
 
What kind of schooling are they getting while on the road? Are they learning any other languages besides Japanese? 

[Ap2000]

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Madara" data-cid="189853" data-time="1436904030">Has any other Japanese pop or rock group had anywhere near this level of international success?</blockquote>
Considering the time (lack of internet), I'd say X Japan had the biggest success in the west.
Obviously they were very different.

[al kusanagi]

Wasn't Pink Lady a pretty big deal back in the day?
 
But I don't think anyone has gotten more media/online attention in the West than Babymetal. I'm constantly seeing articles and write ups on them in various metal publications.

[star]

Pink Lady had some sort of television show with an American, if I'm not mistaken.

[Madara]

[quote="Star"]
Pink Lady had some sort of television show with an American, if I'm not mistaken.
[/quote]
 
"Pink Lady and Jeff" 
 
The Jeff being comedian Jeff Altman, whose career never recovered from it. I remember that show. It set back the cause of J-pop in the U.S. by some 30 years. The less said about it the better.
 
If anyone had told me when that show was on that I'd be buying Pink Lady albums in 30 years (and a DVD of the Pink Lady movie from 1978), I would have laughed at them and told them they were crazy.
 

[aine]

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="aine" data-cid="189842" data-time="1436886712">Aaand it's sold out in 3 days. Don't say I didn't tell you. </blockquote>
I've been wondering if it raised any brows in Metal Hammer, and damn right it did:
 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Metal Hammer on lebbit">Hello Babymetal fans – we are Metal Hammer magazine!

We just want to say a MASSIVE thank you to all of you who bought our entire online stock of Babymetal issues before it was even released. You guys rule!

But don't worry if you didn't get your hands on a copy, because on Tuesday the magazine will be released into stores and there'll be an iPad edition too – we'll post a link as soon as it's live!

Thank you again, you guys kick ass!

EDIT: Proof: http://i.imgur.com/tykZZtA.jpg</blockquote>
That's pretty cool. I keep wondering how very baffled the western metal industry is about Babymetal, but Metal Hammer for sure does keep pushing them a lot, and all that in spite of the amount of hate they get from the "metal elitists". They may be just business smart and have realised that Japanese idol fans are basically an endless goldmine, but it works. In the last year I bought more music magazines than I did in the preceding 10 years.


<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Madara" data-cid="189853" data-time="1436904030">Has any other Japanese pop or rock group had anywhere near this level of international success?</blockquote>
Surely not to this viral degree. I'd agree about X-Japan in the conventional sense. In terms of trying to reach out to Western fans and audiences, that'd be Dir en Grey. They did promote and tours aggressively starting about 10 years ago, mostly in Europe, coinciding with their re-invention as a proper metal band after years of being visual kei. Sadly it seems they never managed to shake off the baggage of vkei fangirls and it feels like they gave up after a while.
 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Madara" data-cid="189853" data-time="1436904030">Which countries have they been the most successful in?</blockquote>
The consensus is that it was the UK. This is where they had their 2 most successful concerts which were recently released on DVD and Blu-Ray. And they probably lean towards the UK as well as it's the home of NWOBHM and many of their "Metal Gods". They premiered Road of Resistance in Brixton, too.
 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Madara" data-cid="189853" data-time="1436904030">What kind of schooling are they getting while on the road?</blockquote>
Don't know the details, but they're all still just regular students.
 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Madara" data-cid="189853" data-time="1436904030">Are they learning any other languages besides Japanese?</blockquote>
It seems like it. Probably.

Sometimes I wonder if you read my posts Madara. =]

[aine]

Finally, proper videos of Babymetal performance with Dragonforce at the Golden Gods awards:

Gimme Chocolate
Road of Resistance

Catch them while you can.

 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="aine" data-cid="189946" data-time="1437163665">Sometimes I wonder if you read my posts Madara. =]</blockquote>
From now on I'll just assume that you don't. But the latest Metal Hammer article does answer some of the questions asked earlier, including the one about schooling.

[Meikochi]

Road Resistance was pleasant to watch.

[JPope]

Those clips are great. Dragonforce appears to be having a blast, too.
 
Imagine it's 2001 and Tsunku creates a metal unit featuring Maki Goto, Ai Kago and Nozomi Tsuji...

[Madara]

[quote="aine"]
Finally, proper videos of Babymetal performance with Dragonforce at the Golden Gods awards:

Gimme Chocolate
Road of Resistance


Catch them while you can.


 

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="aine" data-cid="189946" data-time="1437163665">
Sometimes I wonder if you read my posts Madara. =]
</blockquote>


From now on I'll just assume that you don't. But the latest Metal Hammer article does answer some of the questions asked earlier, including the one about schooling.
 
[/quote]
 
Thanks anyway, but that site won't let me read the article unless I sign up. And I won't. 

[aine]

If you thought the Dragonforce performance was great, check this out:

BABYMETAL at METROCK 2015: Road of Resistance, Ijime Dame Zettai

Those moshpits. That crowd cheering and jumping all the way to the horizon. I don't even like festival performances that much, but this is one of those "holy shit" ones.


More goodness, two new songs from the yesterday's concert. Still only fan recordings, but the best ones I've heard so far:

Awadama Fever

Chigau

 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="JPope" data-cid="190228" data-time="1438039327">Imagine it's 2001 and Tsunku creates a metal unit featuring Maki Goto, Ai Kago and Nozomi Tsuji...</blockquote>
This has been my dream for almost as long as I've been into Hello! Project, only partly substituted by occasional metal remixes. Then Babymetal happened and made it come true, and probably a hundred times better than UF ever would.
 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Madara" data-cid="190236" data-time="1438074273">Thanks anyway, but that site won't let me read the article unless I sign up. And I won't.  </blockquote>
It's free. :wut: You can use a throwaway account for it. Or let someone else do it for you. *cough*

Or even buy the actual paper issue.

[Meikochi]

Thanks for the links and the article Aine !

[aine]

High quality Awadama Fewer from SSA Blu Ray

[aine]

New official video, IJIME, DAME, ZETTAI at Sonisphere 2014.


And I don't think anyone was ready for this...

wembley_01.JPG

They will also release the last year concert DVD/BDs in Europe by Ear Music.

[Meikochi]

How big is it ?

[aine]

Wembley Arena is 12.5k. Not quite as big as the 90k of the Wembley Stadium, but we'll get there too eventually.

Their largest overseas gig to date (Brixton Academy) was 5k.

[Meikochi]

Nice step up. Hope next time they'll topple SM record (pretty sure they held the biggest asian pop concert in Europe, Bercy is 16k).

[JPope]

Huh, my reply simply vanished rather than posting. I guess the bbs didn't like it.

[JPope]

<div>Anyway, what I thought I had posted was that that performance of IDZ is really fucking good. The people who put BM together were smart to choose SU-METAL as the lead singer and anchor for the group. She's a legitimately very good singer -- my wife is a classicaly trained singer, and couldn't stop talking about how good she was live when we saw them in LA -- and while the band is stellar and the songs outstanding, Suzuka Nakamoto is the straw that stirs BM's drink. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>We've had many discussions about the overall decline of singing talent in the J-idol scene over the past 10 years or so, and how Japanese idol fans don't seem to care about it all that much. They could have just picked some cute, average idol to front BM and probably still have had decent success in Japan, because the girls are cute and the songs are strong. I think they would have flopped outside of Japan had they picked a lesser singer, though. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>I wonder if the dudes at Amuse had the idea for BM simmering on the back burner for a while until they found a singer who was capable of keeping up with a legit metal band?</div>

[Farrah]

[quote="Madara"]
Has any other Japanese pop or rock group had anywhere near this level of international success?
[/quote]
 
Does Loudness count?  My (much LOL) older brother had a Loudness album or two back in the 80's and he had no interest in Japanese music specifically until I got into it myself.  They actually got into the Billboard 100, Crazy Nights was a modest hit. I believe Utada Hikaru only managed the Billboard 200, if that. 
 
Dir en grey have also carved themselves out a pretty big following - I know they were on Warped Tour with a ton of popular post-hardcore/punk/screamo bands back in the day and that a few kids I knew in high school listened to them.  I'd actually say they have as many "normal" (in the sense of not following J-music) international fans now as J-music fans. They lost a lot of their visual kei fan-base over the years, some say due to the lack of pretty boy costumes, I say due to their music becoming way, way, way heavier and less accessible.  Like BM, they aimed for a niche market like metal.
 
I'm really glad BM are doing well with their international ventures!  I don't predict it will last very long but I'm proud of them.  I think people see them more as a gimmick (and to be fair, they are rather gimmicky, even though they're good) than a genuine metal band so I just can't see them having a very long shelf life internationally, most articles I've read see them as a surprisingly cool J-music oddity.

 

[aine]

Wembley tickets go on sale tomorrow.

And guess who was watching Metallica-san from some pretty prime seats at Leeds on Sunday.

bmmetallica.jpg

They watched and now they have an action and improvement plan.

[Elpis]

BABYMETAL was nominated for MVT EMA 2015. I don't know much (or anything) about the boy groups, but I hope Dempagumi.inc doesn't win.
 
Video
 
Vote

[sadude]

<a class="bbc_url" href="https://store.xbox.com/en-US/Xbox-One/D ... 8f4">Gimme Chocolate!!</a> is going to be in Rock Band 4 (as DLC), which comes out in 2 weeks.

[Madara]

In the New York Times Magazine, there's a quote about Babymetal from a piece about cultural appropriation attributed to Franklin Einspruch in an article for The Federalist
 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote">
 
Cultural appropriation is wrong when it results in failed art. Iggy Azalea, her astonishing powers of mimicry aside, has nothing interesting to say as a musician. Cornrows, which can look stunning on black people, tend to make whites look as if they’re wearing centipedes. That goes for everyone else’s borrowing, too. I wanted to like Babymetal. I did not succeed.
</blockquote>
 
Make of it what you will.

[JPope]

[quote="Madara"]
In the New York Times Magazine, there's a quote about Babymetal from a piece about cultural appropriation attributed to Franklin Einspruch in an article for The Federalist
 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote">
 
Cultural appropriation is wrong when it results in failed art. Iggy Azalea, her astonishing powers of mimicry aside, has nothing interesting to say as a musician. Cornrows, which can look stunning on black people, tend to make whites look as if they’re wearing centipedes. That goes for everyone else’s borrowing, too. I wanted to like Babymetal. I did not succeed.
</blockquote>
 
Make of it what you will.
[/quote]
 
The entire concept of "cultural appropriation" needs to be destroyed with extreme prejudice.

[aine]

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="JPope" data-cid="192327" data-time="1445810568">The entire concept of "cultural appropriation" needs to be destroyed with extreme prejudice.</blockquote>
Yes, please. And the people spouting that nonsense need to fuck the right out of my hobbies, too.

In other news, Takayoshi Ohmura makes one damn sexy Chun Li for Halloween:

[MejraThea]

I'm expanding my horizons.
 
As of this moment, I've listened to Gimme Chocolate and Megitsune. I really like Megitsune, but I didn't like Gimme Chocolate at all. Any particular recommendations? 

[JPope]

[quote="Thea"]
I'm expanding my horizons.
 
As of this moment, I've listened to Gimme Chocolate and Megitsune. I really like Megitsune, but I didn't like Gimme Chocolate at all. Any particular recommendations? 
[/quote]
 
"Ijime, Dame, Zettai" is still my favorite BM song.