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Explanation
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The Japanese music concert market is the second largest in the world. While sales are approximately half those in the United States, the Japanese market rivals its larger sibling in scale when the difference in the two countries' populations is factored in. While music concerts are held in Japan for a range of genres including pop, classical music, jazz, and enka, a variety of popular music known as 'J-POP' is responsible for the majority of sales in the Japanese music market. J-POP encompasses a diverse series of genres ranging from rock and folk to pop and hip-hop. It includes a constant stream of new artists in their late teens as well as veteran performers in their 40s and 50s. J-POP artists are active not only at home in Japan but also overseas, and the category is particularly popular throughout Asia.
Jazz performers—from veteran artists like Sadao Watanabe, Terumasa Hino, and Yosuke Yamashita, who dominated the jazz scene in the 1970s, to today's young musicians—continue to turn out highly original works that harness individual creativity in order to experiment with new forms of expression.
Topics
Next largest music market after the U.S.
Total production of music media including CDs and videos in Japan is JPY 522.8 billion (USD 4.495 billion), a figure that is equivalent to about half of U.S. sales (USD 9.651 billion) and significantly higher than sales in the No. 3 U.K. (USD 3.051 billion) and No. 4 German (USD 2.029 billion) markets. In terms of worldwide share, the United States accounts for about 34%, followed by Japan with 16%, the U.K. with 11%, and Germany with 7% (approximate figures for 2006 according to the Recording Industry Association of Japan). Although sales figures have fluctuated somewhat in subsequent years, there has been little change in terms of market share, and the Japanese music market continues to maintain a solid ranking.
Growth in electronic music distribution
Since debuting in the second half of the 1990s, electronic music distribution via the Internet has increased year-on-year worldwide. According to the Recording Industry Association of Japan, sales associated with electronic distribution in Japan accounted for approximately JPY 53.5 billion in Japanese sales in 2006 (a year-on-year increase of 56%) and reached a record of approximately JPY 75.5 billion in 2007 (a year-on-year increase of 41%), eclipsing music DVD sales and making electronic music distribution the second largest source of music media sales behind CDs. In contrast with the United States, where computer-oriented services account for 68% of the market, the electronic music distribution market in Japan is dominated by services for mobile phone users, which account for more than 90% of sales.
J-POP sweeps through Asia
Everything Japanese, from anime to fashion, has enjoyed surging popularity throughout Asia in recent years, and J-POP is no exception. Fans have greeted Asian performances by acts like Ayumi Hamasaki, Yumi Matsutoya, Namie Amuro, Misia, Shinji Tanimura, and Arashi with great enthusiasm.
Japanese summer rock festivals
Outdoor rock festivals are held on a massive scale across Japan each summer. Typical of these events are the Fuji Rock Festival (held at Naeba Ski Resort in Niigata Prefecture), Summer Sonic (held at Chiba Marine Stadium and other venues), and the Rising Sun Rock Festival (held at Otaru City Port), all of which attract huge crowds over the course of several days. Performers range from top Japanese artists to new bands, and a large number of popular groups from the United States also participate.
Industry Structure / Business Practices
Structure of the Pop Music Industry
The music concert business can be broadly classified into three categories: 1) Artist management; 2) Planning and marketing concerts; and 3) Concert execution.
In the domestic pop music industry, the functions in each category are performed by a different group in most cases: "production (management office)" for artist management; "production" or "booking agency" for planning and managing concerts; and "promoters" (or sometimes called eventer in Japanese), for staging concerts. In the case of inviting pop music artists from abroad, concert promoters with invitation rights such as Udo Artists, Inc., and Kyodo, which excel at invitation concerts, negotiate with music agencies, managers and attorneys on the artists' concert contract. In some cases these promoters are responsible for hosting the concerts, or they are responsible for the execution of the concert tour, working in partnership with each regional promoter or selling shows with them.
Structure of the Pop Music Industry
Related Organizations
- 日本レコード協会／Recording Industry Association of Japan
- 日本音楽著作権協会／Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC)
- 音楽出版社協会／Music Publishers Association of Japan (MPAJ)
- 日本音楽事業者協会／Japan Association of Music Enterprises
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- 音楽制作者連盟／the Federation of Music Producers Japan (FMP)
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- 日本音楽家協会／Nippon Musicians Association
- Japanese
- English
- 全国コンサートツアー事業者協会／All Japan Concert tour Promoter's Conference (ACPC)
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Database Resources
Culture and arts festivals / markets
- JAPAN国際コンテンツフェスティバル／JAPAN INTERNATIONAL CONTENTS FESTIVAL
- 東京アジア・ミュージックマーケット／TOKYO ASIA MUSIC MARKET
- 東京芸術見本市／インターナショナルショーケース／The Tokyo Performing Arts Market
- FUJI ROCK FESTIVAL／FUJI ROCK FESTIVAL
- SUMMER SONIC／SUMMER SONIC
- RISING SUN ROCK FESTIVAL／RISING SUN ROCK FESTIVAL
- 神戸ジャズストリート／KOBE JAZZ STREET
- 横濱JAZZ PROMENADE／YOKOHAMA JAZZ PROMENADE
- 東京ジャズ／TOKYO JAZZ FESTIVAL
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