When they're in winter uniforms and singing bubble gum pop, you're a weird creep for being a fan.
But put 3 of the girls in gothic lolita outfits and have them jam to metal tunes and suddenly its rather more socially acceptable to be part of the audience.
Uh...how does that make sense in any way?
Sorry, but being outside of Japan doesn't excuse them from this 'idol' thing. Its pretty much the same thing. [...] Still doesn't change the fact that these guys are cheering on a group of young teenage girls...who are admittedly not so young anymore though. Its been 6 years since their debut.
I've been giving your post some thought over the last day and I just wanted to reply.
I really don't know if I would agree with your premise.
Frankly, I don't see how having three girl singers is different from any other metal band with a lead vocalist who doesn't play an instrument. Just to take one example, I remember seeing Queen play at Wembley Arena (the same venue that babymetal apparently sold out in in 2016) back in 1980 when I was 15. Freddie Mercury was a great singer and performer (he can also play the piano) but he was certainly strutting his stuff with a skintight, barechested, spandex catsuit with his package on full view and using his microphone stand as a very obvious and large phallic symbol. Quite frankly, anything after that sort of experience doesn't really register.
Personally, I think that the two main issues are the age of the performers and the style of music.
Taking first the age thing. The first performance of this group outside of Asia apparently was in 2014 when the lead singer was 16 and the two dancers were 15 (I understand that they are now 19 and 18). Yes, this is very young indeed but, if you look at other groups, it is certainly not unknown to have a young attractive lead singer fronting a rock group. This also happens in other styles of music. I really don't know too much about modern groups but think back to punk groups like Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bow Wow Wow, Altered Images etc; all of whom had very young female lead singers who were that sort of age at the start (I'm really showing my age now by referencing all these groups). If you go back even further then the British singer Lulu first made it into the UK charts at the age of 15 and at the age of 18 she had the highest selling single in the USA in 1967. I'm sure that there are plenty of other examples in other countries that I am not aware of.
The same sort of thing applies with boy bands. A well known former British boy band called Take That had members that were all aged 16 to 20 at the start. You may have heard of a British singer called Robbie Williams, he started with Take That when he was 16.
I would suggest that if the group had come to the UK before that date (when the girls were younger) they would simply have been dismissed as a novelty, one hit wonder, type of act. I would suggest that the fact that they were at least 15/16 meant that people in the UK wouldn't simply write them off as a novelty act.
As it turns out, their first performance was at a metal festival where the audience were waiting for later bands (the Deftones and Iron Maiden) and where nobody really knew them but they actually won over the audience. I’ve watched a few live videos of theirs over the last day and I think they have two things going for them. Firstly, the backing band; they are superb and very, very, heavy. There aren't too many heavy metal bands around today with that level of musicianship. The second is Suzuka Nakamoto, for someone of her age her voice is quite remarkable.
Would I buy a Babymetal CD? The short answer is no; but would I go and see them live? Any time, as they put on a really good show.
The second issue is the actual style of music. Outside of Japan, this group are positioned very much as a metal group and definitely not as a “bubble gum pop” group. This makes a really big difference to the sort of demographic that listen to the music.
If you go to any rock or metal concert or festival in the UK then it’s basically going to be mostly young white guys in their 20s or early 30s with a few girls (maybe 5-10%) and the odd older guy. From what I have seen, the audiences for their live shows in the UK or USA are no different to this (actually, slightly more diverse).
On the other hand if you were actually to go to a “bubble gum pop” concert in the UK or USA then you would have a very different demographic in the audience indeed, much more female orientated.
Perhaps the nearest the UK has had to idol groups have been Take That or, more closely, S Club 7. S Club 7 were a manufactured pop group of seven young people aged 17-20 that sang “bubble gum pop” and had their own TV show (not unlike The Monkees for those who are old enough to remember them). This is from the opening titles from the TV show:-
Their primary audience were teenage and younger girls (my daughter was one) and this really is not uncommon in the west. This sort of music is primarily consumed by young girls (and maybe their mothers as well) in the west. As a very stark illustration of this fact, you may or may not be aware that there was a terrorist bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in the UK earlier this year when an Islamist suicide bomber killed 22 people and injured 59. I think Ariana Grande comes under the heading of “bubble gum pop”.
Those who died were almost exclusively teenage (or younger) girls leaving the concert or adults who were waiting in the foyer to pick up their daughters who had attended the concert.
Just for a moment, stop and think what the casualty list would have looked like if the same thing had happened at an Idol concert in Japan. I’m guessing that it would primarily have been middle aged men on their way home to their wives.
Do you spot the difference?
I really do believe that this is a big part of the issue that many people have with the Japanese Idol group thing - the style of music. I could really see Japanese Idol groups being popular in the west (if they sung in English) but their primary audience would be teenage and younger girls - very definitely not middle aged men.
I would argue that a lot of what middle aged men in the west listen to is generally informed by their past (yes, I know that there are always exceptions). For example, my youth was spent listening to rock, heavy metal and punk. If I listen to music now it generally comes still from those genres (although I have also gained a liking for some classical music over the years).
There are also a lot of bands that I still feel nostalgic about and will go and see. I think that this is what keeps bands like the Rolling Stones, Iron Maiden, The Police, Stiff Little Fingers, Motorhead (until Lemmy’s unfortunate death) etc being able to carry on touring as there are loads of sad gits like myself that will still pay to go and see them (I last saw The Police play the M.E.N. arena in Manchester in 2010).
On the other hand, talking to other guys my age I don’t really come across any that are in to “bubble gum pop” in any way at all. To be frank, quite a few think that me still being into heavy metal is a bit weird anyway.
Now this may just be my lack of cultural knowledge but it does seem unlikely that 20 or 30 years ago there were huge numbers of teenage Japanese boys who were really into Idol groups (did they even exist then?) and that they are now, in middle age, still really motivated to keep up with developments in the genre of music that was so important to them when they were younger.
Who knows, perhaps that really is the case?
But in that case I would ask the question (quite seriously, as I really don’t know Japanese culture) what sort of music and bands is it that Japanese teenage girls are listening to and going to watch?
In the UK or USA I guess it might be Taylor Swift or Fifth Harmony (I really don’t know - genuinely just a guess). I would have thought that Idol groups would have been really popular with young Japanese girls but, perhaps not?
This is another video from the group that you linked to. Just have a look at the audience. In the west, I would suggest that the audience for this show would have been almost entirely pre-teen girls. The fact that the front row is made up of almost entirely balding men (and the entire audience is men) is really as creepy as f**k to someone viewing it form an entirely western perspective:-
I did mention in my very first post that I’m coming to Japan for several months next year for the very first time; perhaps my views will change after I have become more culturally aware - or perhaps not.
