Morning Musume: UK, then US, world

The following is a response to a recent blog essay about the viability of Morning Musume cracking the Western market, particularly the United Kingdom. This adds to, and catches up with, a rather larger-scale, longstanding debate among J-pop enthusiasts whether Morning Musume, Hello Project and young-girl singing and dancing troupes as a whole would ever be successful, either here or in Europe. The response is as follows:

Excellent array of comments, and a superb anchor essay. Now consider these points:

Morning Musume cosplay, or emulation, by USA Musume. Such groups are becoming more and more commonplace in the US.

*** For those who think that Morning Musume and related Asian groups would never be successful here, I have news for you: They already are.YesAsia's sales of Up-Front Works, Hachama and Zetima DVD titles -- mostly Hello Project and Morning Musume-related -- have more than doubled each year since 2004, when the junior MM groups Berryz Kobo and C-ute debuted. No, they can neither afford nor budget time and effort to launch a US tour (they are quite enough busy in Japan), but make no mistake, they are already a force to be reckoned with, being fueled by the proliferation of video Web sites which are equipped with the latest Asian digital technologies. US youth have also beaten Sony's silly game of making Asian DVDs unavailable in Region I (US) format, only Region 2, which can be played in Asian but not America. Solution? Download region-free DVD players in laptops from Canada, and buy region-free DVD players online from overseas sources. So much for the US music industry's attempts to suppress Asian music sales in the States.

This Puffy AmiYumi performance in Chicago – complete with taped-down dancing carpets – was typical of the group’s 2007 tour, including a sensational stop Nov. 16 at The Key Club in Hollywood.

*** I have seen Puffy AmiYumi twice live in the US, the most recent opportunity Nov. 16, 2007, at The Key Club in Hollywood.Puffy went through the back door in the US market, securing an economic foothold through the "Hi! Hi! Puffy AmiYumi" cartoon series on cable TV. But since Sony owns Puffy, they permit this sensational music ensemble to tour only small clubs (to my enormous delight, since I have twice stood right in front of this dynamic duo and their band colleagues). Puffy makes its cash through the cartoon-show royalties, and tours basically for the love of music and the amazing atmosphere created in smaller club venues by the Puffies. Puffy is the top club act in the world, in my view, but they are only allowed to fill arenas in Asia, not America.

But, just as in late 1963 when the Beatles broke through EMI's firewall only after a tidal wave of teen girls in the US "made it so," I forecast a mammoth breakthrough, and an inevitable huge concert in, say, the Staples Center in Los Angeles, by Morning Musume or maybe even the entire Hello Project company. The UK seems to already have a larger per-capita fan base for J-pop than does the US, so a Morning Musume world tour would likely include both the UK and US in some capacity.

Everyone is underestimating the market pull of these fantastic girls, age notwithstanding. If Americans embrace U-15 Hannah Montana, they might as well let youngsters from other parts of the world have a crack at it.