JACK OR JIVE. Its the stringiest band which
I know, not only their music,
but the most strangeaspect of them is how they are known to the
people.
They released dozens of albums in Germany
and France, but in their homeland Japan,
it's hard to believe, but they are hardly
known.
I first heard the name of JACK OR JIVE about
6 years ago from an American guy which
I traded CDs.He told me that there is a great "goth"
band called JACK OR JIVE in Germany.
From then, I have been looking for JACK OR
JIVE albums, but with no success.
It was until the year 2000 until I found
out that JACK OR JIVE was a Japanese band
in
Himeji,a city just 50 kilometers away from my home.
No way I could find them in the import
record shops! After the several years of desperate
quest for the album, I finally got a
chance to hear them. And then, I had a question raging in my mind; "WHY
I DON'T
HEAR ABOUT THEM IN JAPAN ANYWAY?".
For those in Europe, it might be hard to
believe,
but the only way to buy the JACK OR JIVE
CDs in Japan is to buy directly from them.
Otherwise, you must order them from France
or Germany. There must be a reason for why
they don't get popularity among the Japanese music
fans. If their music isn't so good,why
they are accepted in Europe anyway? In my opinion, the clue
to this phenomenon is in how
the most Japanese listener treats music. For most
of the Japanese music fans, music is
part of the fashion. You are judged by other people
by what kind of music you hear to, just
like you are judged by what clothes you wear. The kind
of music required in this must be
high sense and cutting edge, and the most important
of all, it must be what everybody
knows. If they choose the music by their own decision,
relying on their senses, there is
nothing tosayabout it.But what makes this a problem is that they
rely on authority's opinion to
choose their "favorite music".Now it is clear that why JACK OR JIVE don't
get known in Japan.
1 No magazine write about them
because no
one knows them.
2 No CD shops sell their albums because no
magazine writes about them.
3 No one knows about them because they can't
buy the CD (back to #1).
This loop looks hopeless but JACK OR JIVE
still have a chance to strike back.
They have already made a stronghold in Europe,
ready to make a counter attack on Japan.
Remember, most important changes always came
from OUTSIDE of Japan.
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