“I mean, that kinda goes without saying “

It should, and yet I had to say it as she was used as a counterpoint to the obscurity topic

I would imagine Boris has a pretty proportionate global audience comparatively speaking to other popular Japanese artists

Album Rating: 2.5

What’s the most popular Japanese artist worldwide?



Some JPop thing maybe

If you asked people in the streets if they know who shiina is in japan vs somewhere in North America what do you think the results would be? Probs nearly 10 out of every 10 in Japan would know. In canada i would be surprised if it was like 1 in 100. I’d say that constitutes ~relative~ obscurity. J-pop is still a niche interest in the west despite becoming a lot more popular with internet culture taking the fuck off

Album Rating: 2.5

Yeah, never broke through the way KPop did



Can’t escape that stupid Butter song by BTS

A lot of silence from Jon right now, wonder if he really is feverishly tapping out a list

"Rank all your fav Japanese artists from most to least popular and then note their album sales in Japan v globally"

could do this, but

Boris and MxBx are two of the most notable exceptions to the rule of generally not bothering at all to appeal to an international market and their tour schedules p consistently reflect this. otherwise, you've got Ichiko Aoba, Tricot, Mass of the Fermenting Dregs, Otoboke Beaver, and maybe Kikugaku Moyo (idk anything about their tour schedule). and ig Envy practically had a partnership with Mogwai

jpop is almost entirely a sealed market - Utada Hikaru used to be the big exception bc of their US dual citizenship and awkward export brand, but even then their overseas popularity was a tiny fraction given how they set new standards for hugeness in jpn. ig Babymetal catered v actively to western metal simps?

main point is that stuff that isn't promoted by the industry outside of japan still has ample online visibility if you know where to look. there are bands like Number Girl who are easily established enough that if anyone claims to know their (in this case) post hxc and hasn't heard of em I'll just giggle

finding something genuinely 'obscure' in the sense that it doesn't have any mainstream promotion in Japan *or* on whichever weirdo viral loop is honestly tough shit, and albums that fit that bill are precious and unfit for casual thread recs

none of this has much to do with how miniscule Colton's horizons are, which i think is far more worthwhile subject matter for a list-to-be

Album Rating: 2.0

"Utada Hikaru used to be the big exception bc of their US dual citizenship and awkward export brand"



I would also add Kingdom Hearts to that list of reasons (although I suppose it factors into that second one)

I mean everything has ample online visibility when you know where to look. Niches thrive online.

So yeah, relative obscurity.

Out of all the bands and artists you listed I reckon Boris and Envy are the only two that even 1 in 20 people on the street would know, even if you only asked people younger than 40

1 in 20 is probably being very generous too I think I’m a little out of touch with how little music the average person knows in general

yea no way lmao and i would guess shiina ringo has more visibility than those two

Definitely not . I know approximately zero people irl who know shiina and I know tonnes who know boris and envy

idk man i know relative normies who know shiina ringo

Boris / envy and anime fandom definitely isn’t a notable correlation

Anyways jon, definitely not arguing against your point on Colton’s limited music horizons but js most of the stuff you rep is certainly relatively obscure, even on sput. And that’s also definitely not a bad thing.

"Boris and Envy are the only two that even 1 in 20 people on the street would know"

potentially add Tricot to that, forever surprised by how much irl traction they have for whatever reason

but yes there's a sense of working obscurity for the majority of japanese artists that has far more to do with ignorance of foreign markets than how established or respected those artists actually are/aren't within their respective niches, as per any number of foreign countries

which is not an issue unless you happen to be a stunted dickweed whose entire diet is white bread anglophone bollocks and whose entire outlook on a foreign culture is predicated on an overrepresented subculture that you don't understand to begin with

Tru

also don't call me jon lol it makes me read your posts in zak's voice, and then things get wavy

lol but I like calling you Jon

arm wrestle the fucker, only one can claim this right

"I will literally listen to janelle monae, ben howard and protomartyr all in the same day just for people to say I have “limited horizons”"

whatever standards you have for a broad outlook just became that extra bit more painfully obvious

i think we should all start calling each other by our first names