I've been meaning to write something about Perfume for a while now. Part of their success is down to the way their marketing has courted two key demographics. Firstly the Akiba-kei otaku market (the image) and secondly the Shibuya-kei hipster market (Nakata's music and all the references to fashionable French house). Both these groups have their own information networks through word of mouth and the net that can make a band popular without going through the mainstream media, and the latter group is strongly represented in media and advertising, which gives the band a big leg up when it comes to making the jump to Oricon hit status.
The new album is interesting in the way it tries to satisfy the initial fans but also shows that the producers are aware of the need to make something that works alongside your Ayumi Hamasakis and suchlike. Future releases for Perfume will probably showcase a gradual move from quirky and borderline hip towards acceptable, cookie-cutter mainstream J-Pop.
Whenever I'm at any DJ nights around Kichijoji/Shimo Kitazawa/Koenji, there's always at least one Perfume song dropped semi-ironically into someone's set (I'm as guilty as anyone of doing this).
ian, the Akiba/Shibuya-kei marketing theory is interesting, and there's probably something to it. A friend of mine (who usually wouldn't listen to an idol group) said the appeal of Perfume is they're both kawaii and kakkoii--the former being their Akiba side and the latter being the Shibuya-kei angle, was my take on her succinct summary.
Still, I'm not sure if it's wise to explain a group's success solely on the basis of clever marketing (or the marketing clout of a big agency)--I don't think it's that easy to manufacture a hit. I do think Perfume is GOOD in a lot of ways, and the fans are responding to that. There's no hipster semi-irony when I play 'Vitamin Drop' or other songs of theirs on my radio--I just like them.
But I think success of J-Pop *can* be explained more or less entirely on the basis of marketing, as long as you accept that getting the right songwriters on board is an essential part of a good marketing strategy.
None of this negates the self-evident quality of a good song, but I think it's unfair on those bands that aren't promoted by huge labels and top management companies to talk about bands like Perfume in the same context as underground and indie bands who have none of the same marketing tools available to them. They're not competing on a level playing field and you and I both know that the argument that "good songs are just good songs" is not the whole picture.
Anyway, I am fairly confident that we agree with each other here. Perfume are awesome, and a breath of fresh air in the J-Pop world that should be enjoyed while they last. I DJed "Jenny~" and "GAME" the last couple of Switched On! events, although I refuse to get into a debate about the amount of irony necessary to play them!
OK, I think I see what you mean. We're talking about different things: I think you are saying that being backed by a big label or an agency puts a band at an advantage to indie groups in making good-sounding music, which is no doubt true. I'm saying that even so, what the label or agency invests in isn't always a sure thing: they can't ram something they want to sell down the throats of a hungry public that doesn't know better. I'm skeptical about those 'top-down' hypotheses that seem to pop up in certain online Japan discussions.
One interesting theory I read about was that Perfume's managers didn't have much hope for the three because of their many years of non-recognition, which is why they got Capsule's Nakata to be their producer because he isn't a top-tier producer (YET) and thus cheaper, and that actually worked well for Perfume because it gave them a fresh Shibuya-kei/techno sound that made them stand out. Who knows whether it's true, but it's interesting.
Perfume's really something though. I had drinks with some dyed-in-the-wool guitar pop fans last night, and several of them were also into Perfume. Guitar poppers digging Perfume?? I suppose there's the Shibuya-kei connection, but at the same time the Shibuya-kei/guitar pop relationship isn't always an easy one to figure out, and maybe that's best left for another day.
They're really popular with a lot of the avant-garde and noise people I know as well. I think regardless of the connection between Shibuya-kei and whatever other indie subgenre we pick up on, a lot of people just see Nakata's influence on the group as a good thing because he's one of "us". Even people who don't like Capsule at lease have a sort of residual respect for Nakata.
An interesting comparison, I think, is the utter indifference that a lot of indie people have to Kimura Kaela, whose image is much more explicitly pitched to capitalise on indie cred. AxSxE from Natsumen and Ishibashi from Panicsmile (among others) have been commissioned by her people to write songs for her albums, but still no one's buying the indie kid bit.
One way of looking at it is that while Kimura Kaela's relationship with indie is accepted but seen as parasitical (leeching off their cred but giving nothing back), Perfume are seen as a sort of trojan horse by which indie values are infiltrating the mainstream. It's a confrontational way of looking at the relationship between the two worlds, but I suspect there's some truth in it.
There's probably some truth in the story about how Perfume's people came to contact Nakata, but there was only a two year gap between them forming in Hiroshima and them moving to Tokyo and doing "Sweet Donuts". In any case, it was a smart move. Not the first time it's been done though:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3OD3IeheUq4
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