Japan

YOASOBI dropped the new English-language version of their No. 1 hit “Idol” on digital platforms and shared the accompanying music video. “Idol” is the latest single by the breakout duo that serves as the opener of the TV anime series Oshi no Ko. Released digitally April 12, the track is still at No. 1 on the […]

Japanese artist NON is set to drop her second album called PURSUE on June 28, and has been teasing details leading up to the release. The actress and singer announced that she’s collaborating with ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION on a track called “Beautiful Stars” on the highly anticipated set. The new track performed by NON and […]

Japanese pop icon Kyary Pamyu Pamyu sat down with Billboard Japan for its Women in Music interview series featuring trailblazing female players in the country’s music industry. Billboard Japan launched its WIM initiative in 2022 in the same spirit as the established example of Billboard’s event that began in 2007, honoring artists, producers and executives who have made significant contributions to the music industry and empowered women through their work, the highest accolade being Woman of the Year.
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu is currently in the midst of her world tour that kicked off May 15. Since her debut, the “Fashion Monster” singer has established a one-of-a-kind world with her unconventional style and has grown into an artist with loyal fans in her home country and abroad. While the Harajuku icon recalls that the little girl who eventually made her debut as Kyary Pamyu Pamyu used to be “shy and withdrawn,” she transformed her insecurities into her strengths as she built her career. In this interview, the KRK LAB label founder shares how she has valued taking a step forward without worrying about how other people see her, and encourages others to do the same.

Could you tell us about the women you looked up to growing up?

I think the first person I looked up to was my kindergarten teacher. She must have been in her early twenties, and from my point of view as a little girl, she was a flawless woman who was cheerful and kind, could play the piano and good at making crafts. It wasn’t until I was a little older that I realized what a great person my mother was. Especially after I started living alone at the age of 18, I came to realize that my mother, who had been there for me all along, had been doing various things to make our family’s life easier.

What were you like as a child?

Originally, I was shy and withdrawn. I was also easily swayed and wasn’t very interested in fashion until I entered high school. Even then I’d tag along with my friends to SHIBUYA 109 (fashion complex), and if someone said, “This dress is cute so let’s get the same one,” I’d be influenced by that and end up buying one.

But after I began hanging out like that, I saw some clothes in a window display in a store in Harajuku one day on my way home and thought, “That’s so cute!” It was really like a bolt of lightning. That’s how I got into Harajuku fashion and became more and more flamboyant. I really enjoyed wearing the clothes I liked and going out on the town, and it felt like I’d found my place in the world.

I imagine it would take a lot of courage for a shy and withdrawn girl to dress in loud fashion. You didn’t feel any hesitation?

I didn’t feel comfortable presenting something in front of everyone at school and drawing attention to myself like that, but I actually felt happy when strangers on the street looked at what I was wearing. I even wore makeup like a clown, and even when people giggled at me, I felt like I could stand proud and say, “This is me!” I was myself in the fashion I liked, and that was when I began thinking that was how I wanted to live my life. That has continued after my debut as Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.

So Harajuku fashion helped expand your world in a major way. People tend to worry about how others see them, especially around high school age, or are caught up in stereotypes of femininity. Why do you think you were able to free yourself from such stereotypes?

Back in those days [in Japan], we had magazines that everyone read that presented role models that supposedly helped you become more popular [with the opposite sex] in a comprehensible way, so I think I also had a vague idea of how I should dress myself and do my hair to be popular. If that particular style had suited me, I might have gone along with it, but I didn’t think I looked good in it. I think felt insecure about certain aspects of myself and was trying to hide that or was make myself look strong by wearing eccentric clothes and flamboyant colors. Especially after I made my debut, I was complimented because I didn’t fit into that framework and that made me happy.

If you were to give advice to someone who wants to dress the way they want to, like you do, but feel hesitant about doing so, what would you say?

I’ve had people tell me, “I’m interested in your style, Kyary-chan, but I can’t do it myself, so I’m content to just look at you,” and the thing that goes through my mind is, “Please just try it once!” My favorite quote is by [the Japanese author] Mariko Hayashi, who wrote, “Regret about the things you’ve done grows smaller by the day, but regret about the things you didn’t do grows larger by the day.” [from Yashin no susume]. If there’s something you’d like to do, just do it once, it’s OK if it doesn’t work out.

[Hayashi’s] words actually helped me out last year. When I performed at Coachella, three of the four dancers who were supposed to perform with me on the second weekend suffered health problems. My team was concerned and suggested maybe I should cancel the show, but I decided to go ahead with it by myself. Until then, I didn’t think it was possible [to do alone] but when I gave it a try, I managed to pull though like Mario in superstar mode. And I thought, “Why didn’t I try it before?” I realized that I had been limiting my own possibilities. There may be a lot of things you can do when you actually try them, even if you don’t think you can, so I encourage everyone to give whatever a try.

You got married in March and began new stage in your personal life. I’d like to ask how this might affect your work as an artist, but first of all, congratulations on your marriage!

Thank you so much. I think this industry is a world where there’s a gap between the glamorous side and everything else. There are times I find myself eating fast food alone in a corner of a room after performing on a big stage. [Laughs] I think it’s important for people to support each other precisely because it’s such a world, so it’s reassuring to have someone I can support who will also do the same for me.

While I’m not sure what will happen yet, I’ve thought about having children. I often hear of [female] colleagues who fear the gap [in their career] brought about by childbirth, since women do need a period of rest. They’re afraid they won’t be able to return to their place in the industry after taking a break. Now that I’m married, I feel I need to face these issues properly by accepting that they happen. 

Having one’s career interrupted due to motherhood is a major issue for many women. Has being a woman affected your choices in any other ways?

Around the time when I was in high school, I think there were even fewer female politicians than there are now, and I don’t think there were many women in decision-making positions in schools as well, like principals or year-head teachers. Things have changed now compared to those times, and I feel that the world is becoming easier to live in. Having said that, I still sometimes find myself being the only female artist in the lineup at music festivals and other events where multiple artists perform, and have always wondered why.

Also, I faced a lot of frustrating moments when I first started out. In addition to being a young woman, people wanted to treat me as some kind of ditzy character, perhaps because of my eccentric stage name and fashion. My comments in interviews would be rewritten as being overly friendly or rude in tone, or the writer would add something like, “Kyary threw candy at us the moment she walked in.” [Laughs] Then there were times when I would greet clients on site and they wouldn’t even look me in the eye. Because of these experiences, I’ll always remember the people who were kind to me back then, and I want to make sure that I treat everyone equally in the workplace.

That’t unacceptable, to be treated without respect because of one’s gender or fashion. What do you think is necessary for women to thrive in the Japanese music and entertainment industry?

I think [Japanese] society is in the process of shifting into an era of new values from that of the old. For example, when a politician comes under fire for making a derogatory remark about women, they say things like it was meant to be a joke. I find it hard to believe that someone who said something derogatory as a joke would realize that “times are different now, so I should change the way I live.” It makes me think that people’s values don’t change that easily. If more people of the younger generation with new values are given decision-making powers, that would make it easier for women to work.

—This article by Rio Hirai (SOW SWEET PUBLISHING) first appeared on Billboard Japan

CHAI’s Mana and Yuuki chatted with Billboard Japan for its Women in Music interview series. Billboard Japan launched its WIM initiative in 2022 to celebrate women in the music industry through various endeavors, including this series. Billboard has been honoring artists, producers and executives who have made significant contributions to the music industry and empowered women through their work since 2007, the highest accolade being Woman of the Year.
With its “neo kawaii” (new cute) slogan and outstanding musicality, the four-woman band has been steadily expanding its reach outside of Japan. When asked about what motivates them, Mana (main vocals, keyboards) and Yuuki (bass, lyricist) shared their genuine, heartfelt thoughts on wanting to further spread the music and words that saved them from the difficulties of life.

Did you have any women you looked up to growing up or envision the kind of woman you wanted to be?

Mana: The only thing I liked when I was little was Pikachu. [Laughs] Other than those around me, the only people I knew were on TV, but I never had any ideals of the kind of person I wanted to be like. Around when I grew up a bit and began aspiring to become a musician, the first woman I looked up to was Lovefoxxx of CSS. I was listening to various kinds of music and watching performances by artists while thinking about how I could best express myself, and Lovefoxxx’s stance as a vocalist and the way she performed clicked with me. The impact of their band name, which means “tired of being sexy” and the way they expressed other female dissatisfactions through rock music was huge.

So you already felt some discomfort from those days.

Mana: I’ve always felt that way. The word “kawaii” (cute) has always been a bane to me. The girls in my class who were called kawaii usually had big eyes and a straight nose, the exact opposite of my own face. CHAI’s keyword “neo kawaii” is also an expression of resistance to only having two values to choose from, kawaii or “busu” (ugly). We came up with it because I always hated that there were no words to praise myself or the girl sitting next to me even though we also definitely have good qualities. Our message is that regardless of gender, “You definitely have good qualities from the moment you’re born.”

Yuuki: When I was little, I didn’t really know what I wanted to be like or if I had anyone I looked up to, but I did like Tsuji-chan (Nozomi Tsuji) and Kago-chan (Ai Kago) of Morning Musume. As an adult, I don’t have any particular individuals that I like, but I kind of take the good parts from various people. When I notice something good about the people around me, I go, “That’s nice!” and I copy it and make it my own. [Laughs] And I find good things about people one after another at a fairly fast pace.

Your perspective of finding the good in everyone really links to the band’s concept of “neo kawaii.” Nowadays, diversity is considered important and values are gradually changing in Japan, but as Mana just said, even a short while ago the definition of “kawaii” was very limited and people were bound by that stereotypical view. How were the members of CHAI able to connect through those “neo kawaii” values back in your early days as students?

Mana: We started CHAI after graduating from high school, and all the members except Yuuki met in band at school. We already knew that we wanted music to be our livelihood at that point, but it wasn’t until we met Yuuki that the idea of “neo kawaii” became clearer to us.

The four of us hung out a lot on a regular basis, so naturally we talked about our respective problems, and for example I’d say something like, “I have a complex about my single-fold eyelids.” When you have conversations like that, you realize that people each carry different physical and emotional issues. As we encouraged and praised each other, we all started thinking, “We should spread this more!“ The four of us praised each other and that gave us the confidence to choose to do music, so we wanted to praise everyone else as well.

I can understand how you could discuss your inferiority complexes with people who share the same values, like band members, and praise each other like that, but when you open up about those complexes to the world, that means people with different values will know about them. It must have taken courage to take that step.

Mana: I actually thought that sharing our hang-ups was our only way to go and that we were able to find our raison d’etre, so having that gave us the confidence to go ahead with it.

Yuuki: Yeah, we’d been discussing how artists who have core values are cool, so we were happy to find ours. We weren’t worried. We can write lots of songs because we have this core, and it’s so much easier than having nothing.

But recently someone said to me, “Your songs and performances are good. Why put strong messages in them?” That person seemed to think they were complimenting us on our musicality. [Laughs] It was interesting to hear an opinion like that, but CHAI is CHAI because we value our messages as well.

Mana: That’s the part that hasn’t changed at all from the beginning. Ever since we were little, we were anxious and dissatisfied because we weren’t sure how we were supposed to live, but when we coined the term “neo kawaii,” it gave us release. We wanted to share that with people and have been doing this for almost a decade. Now that we also do shows outside of Japan, we’ve learned that the message we wanted to convey through “neo kawaii” is now a common value throughout the world. But Japan may still be a little behind the curve. That’s why I want the concept to spread more widely here.

So you feel that your message has been properly reaching your fans in Japan and elsewhere.

Mana: Everyone interprets it in a different way, but I think they find hope in CHAI’s approach because everyone has something they’re hung up on in life. This is what I see on everyone’s faces during our shows. I was born a woman, I stand on stage as a woman, and I write songs about my life as a woman, but I get reactions from all kinds of people, regardless of gender, generation, or race. I feel that if I do it right, people will understand.

I have an affinity to CHAI as a woman of the same generation, and it’s cool to hear that you get reactions from a wide range of people beyond that. What do you consider important when writing lyrics, Yuuki?

Yuuki: The message we want to get across is clear, but if we communicate it too straightforwardly, it might sound superficial or come across as explanatory. For example, if I just said, “Individuality is important,” it might not click with people because they’ve heard it so many times before. We also don’t want to be like what we say is the only right thing. So we try to be conscious of conveying our messages in a fun, interesting, and lighthearted way to the rhythm. I don’t want to limit our fans by gender or generation, so I use “we” or “I” as the subject, and my intention is to encourage people to think, “I’m free to decide, ‘This is how I am’ for myself.”

Mana: After we put those lyrics to music and I sing them live, I digest them and they give me self-confidence as well. I think the interesting thing about lyrics is that the nuances change from day to day, and the thoughts that I put into the words, like, “I’ll convey them in this way today,” change as well.

You stand on stage as women, but write lyrics and perform intending to transcend gender, which is probably why you connect with so many people. How do you think being a woman affects what you do?

Mana: I think it only has positive influence. We didn’t like being labeled a “girls band,” so we decided to call ourselves an “onna (woman) band,” but being labeled like that gave us the opportunity to reject it, so it turned out OK.

Yuuki: There were lots of times when we were the only female performers at festivals, and I’ve always thought the balance was skewed. And while the situation is similar when you look at society, that also means there’s a possibility for change. Like how we changed the way we looked at our inferiority complexes, we probably interpreted it as opportunities.

Mana: I do feel a tendency (in Japanese society) of people wanting to suppress badass women and wanting them to stay tame. So I want to keep saying, “Everyone can say what they want to say more!”

Yuuki: I express myself not only through music but also through drawing, and there are many people around me who express their identities and thoughts like that. I’m hoping that expressing your will in that way becomes something mundane.

I think if people could find methods to express their will, like how you were encouraged by your musical and artistic endeavors, they’d be able to move forward. What would you say to someone who’s feeling lost because they haven’t found a way of expressing themselves?

Mana: You don’t have to force yourself to find it. I’d like you to interpret the fact that you haven’t found it yet as a positive thing. Because if you haven’t found it, it means you can do anything.

Yuuki: I think that being interested in things is a talent in itself. People often say, “I won’t do so-and-so because I don’t have the talent,” but if you’re interested in that so-and-so, you’re already talented at it. If you take a small step toward something you’re interested in, it might change your world. Don’t make a big deal out of it when you begin, just act, even if it’s just a millimeter or so.

I’ve noticed through our conversation that the two of you seem to translate everything into positivity. Have you always thought of things like that?

Mana: No, there’s still a part of me that thinks negatively. But I think I’m able to make music that feels real because of that wavering within, so I want to hold on to that. I want to feel proud of the way I face my troubles in my journey as a musician.

Yuuki: I’m a pretty positive person now, but I wouldn’t say I’m positive 24 hours a day. But having moments when you feel negatively about something doesn’t mean you don’t have a positive mindset. When you feel negatively about something, you can grapple with it, digest it, and transform it into positivity. Maybe I’m able to think like that because I have CHAI. I just happened to find the thing that I live by, and I’m willing to work hard for it.

Mana: Yeah, if you come to see CHAI live, you’ll see that women like us exist, so I hope you’ll come to see us at least once. We give 200 percent of ourselves to our live shows.

—This interview by Rio Hirai (SOW SWEET PUBLISHING) first appeared on Billboard Japan

Billboard’s Women in Music event has celebrated artists, producers and executives who have made significant contributions to the music industry and empowered women through their work since 2007. In 2023, Noriko Ashizawa of Spotify Japan was recognized on this esteemed list.
Billboard Japan launched its Women in Music initiative last year, highlighting women in the country’s music industry through projects including interviews by leading figures in their respective fields. As the next featured guest in this series, Ashizawa spoke about working to support up-and-coming artists as Spotify’s Head of Music Planning and Operations in Japan. She also shared the company’s efforts to expand the reach of domestic artists and their work beyond borders to new listeners and fans. As the one who has been involved in the process that the streaming service has become the mainstream way of listening to music in Japan, how does she see the future of the music industry?

Congratulations on making Billboard’s Women in Music list for 2023. Could you tell us how you feel about this honor?

Noriko Ashizawa: Honestly, I was surprised to hear the news because I never expected to be chosen for such a prestigious award as someone who works in Japan. It still feels kind of unreal, but if it means that Spotify’s various efforts in Japan were acknowledged, I feel very honored about that.

Spotify encourages the activities of female creators in music through its global EQUAL project. What have been the results so far?

Spotify’s EQUAL program has selected 700 women around the world across various genres as ambassador artists, and more than 4,000 acts have been featured in the related playlists. We launched the localized program, EQUAL Japan in 2021, continuously spotlighting the works of Japanese female artists and creators and their voices through playlists. So far, a diverse range of female acts including the all-women band CHAI, rapper Awich, and Utaha of WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA have been also highlighted as ambassador artists in the project. Moving forward, we’d like to further raise awareness of the program itself and make it more meaningful for artists to participate in it.

When a platform highlights that many artists, it definitely creates more opportunities for users to discover them. By the way, the year-end Billboard Japan top 100 chart for 2022 shows a noticeable gender imbalance with 58 male artists, 27 female artists, and 15 mixed groups. Spotify also has its own annual rankings. What trends do you see?

Spotify releases various annual rankings at the end of each year. Looking at last year’s ranking from the perspective of gender balance, there were 11 female acts including solo artists and groups on the “Top 50 Most Streamed Domestic Artists in Japan” list and 3 mixed groups with women as main vocalists. The “Top 50 Most Streamed Domestic Songs in Japan” tally saw similar results, with 10 out of the 50 songs by female acts. The ratio of women announced globally the year EQUAL launched was one in five, so it could be said that gender imbalance still exists on a worldwide level.

But there were some major differences between the global and domestic rankings. Looking at the “Top 5 Most Shared Artists” globally, female artists ranked in the upper tier with Taylor Swift at No. 1 and Lana Del Rey at No. 4. In Japan, the top 3 were boy bands — JO1, BE:FIRST, and INI — and the “Top 10 Most Shared Songs” list was dominated by tracks by these three groups.

That’s an interesting result. Do you know the demographics of their fans?

The majority of listeners supporting these boy bands are women. Supporting your favorite artist or act in a tangible way is called “oshikatsu” in Japanese, and especially during the pandemic, momentum rose to support those artists by listening to their music on streaming and then sharing it proactively via social media. In fact, when this ranking was announced, female fans of these groups posted many comments on social media expressing their joy. Looking over at K-pop, many female artists are also very popular among women in Japan, but it seems that in such cases, it’s more of a “listening for themselves” kind of mentality at work, encompassing feelings of empathy and admiration, rather than actively expressing their support for those artists.

It’s interesting to hear that men are dominating the charts fueled by the power of women. How do you analyze the current situation where women account for only one-fifth of the most played songs and artists on Spotify, both in Japan and globally?

I think there’s probably a gender imbalance in the number of creators to begin with. Many next-generation artists aspiring to become stars like Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish are emerging, but I think it’ll still take a bit more time to change this situation in a significant way.

What do you think about the gender balance on the production side of the music and entertainment industry?

Many women work at Spotify and looking around the workplace, not only at Spotify but also at other companies in Japan, I don’t see any significant lack in the number of women these days. But if you look at the industry’s senior management, it still feels like it’s mostly men, and I think there is a difference between the state of frontline workers and that of management.

Could you share some of your background? Did you envision a particular kind of woman you wanted to be growing up?

I don’t think I’ve ever thought about men and women in a separate way. I don’t personally share the view that being a woman should be given special weight, so I respect the type of woman who can assess any given situation to realize her goals as an individual human being.

You’re certainly someone who has stuck to that value of making decisions as an individual person, transcending labels and existing frameworks imposed on you by others. How did you come to work in the music industry?

I’ve been loving music since I was a child, and always vaguely wanted to make a career of it. I listened to Western music (along with J-pop), so I became interested in English and studied abroad during my college years. After joining Sony Music Entertainment Japan and building my career in the International music division, I gradually became more interested in production work, so I chose to move to a domestic label where I was in charge of A&R for a number of years. Then, when I got transferred to Sony Interactive Entertainment in 2014, I became involved in the formation of the PlayStation Music. Until then, I’d only been involved with the artists and labels that created and delivered the music, but I had an opportunity for gaining a new point of view by working on the side of a digital platform for the first time in my life.

That was just at the time when people in Japan were starting to think that the ways of listening to music might shift from physical formats to streaming. After a while, I was fortunate to get involved in the launch of Spotify in Japan as an external partner at PlayStation Music, and although I then had to return to my previous workplace as my transfer period came to an end, I decided to work at Spotify considering much potential in streaming as a game-changing platform for bringing more opportunities to various creators by enhancing discovery between listeners and artists.

Reaching out to a global audience, which had been a high bar in the past, is now relatively easier to achieve through streaming. For instance, Fujii Kaze’s “Shinunoga E-wa” hit No. 1 on Spotify’s viral chart in 23 markets outside Japan last year and spread throughout the world. The more successful cases of Japanese artists I actually see, the more I believe there’s a lot of potential in the Japanese music industry and that we can work together to make unprecedented dreams come true.

That must have been the period when people thought it’d be hard for streaming to penetrate the Japanese market, but it turns out you made a bold decision. And since then, you and your team have supported a variety of artists to build a career in a way that might not have been possible before. Are there any female artists or acts you’d like to shout out at the moment?

Rina Sawayama’s work has been particularly remarkable lately, and her message of inclusiveness of diversity has encouraged many people. In 2020, she was selected for Spotify’s “RADAR: Early Noise,” a year-round emerging artist support program in Japan, and now she’s a superstar with a global following. Haru Nemuri is one of this year’s RADAR: Early Noise artists, and it’s really encouraging to see Japanese artists like her who convey strong messages from various angles being supported overseas even more so than in Japan, and I’d like to see this movement spread domestically as well.

—This interview by Rio Hirai (SOW SWEET PUBLISHING) first appeared on Billboard Japan