Onkyoku Eika Monogatari - Eissei ni Ezureru Utagoe no Yukue - February 1975

Onkyoku Eika Monogatari - Eissei ni Ezureru Utagoe no Yukue - February 1975

In the mid-1970s, Japan's music and television industries were rapidly growing closer, and the country was moving into an era in which television stations dominated the music market. While singing programs became important content for ratings, record companies and entertainment production companies used the influence of television to create a succession of stars who would win the hearts and minds of viewers. This was a time when the value of music was shifting from being merely a "work of art" to a "product to be consumed as a visual image.

This trend was determined by the influence of Watanabe Productions, commonly known as NABEPRO, which in the early 1970s dominated more than 50% of the entertainment industry, with its talents dominating television programs. The casting of singers was subject to the wishes of NABEPRO, and it seemed as if the entire music industry was under its control. The entertainment industry is still not sane. With more than 50% controlled by NABEPRO, diversity cannot be created," complained one insider. The power of the offices was so strong that more and more singing shows featured only talents who belonged to the same production company, thereby creating a system in which certain singers were deliberately marketed.

Furthermore, it was not only NABEPRO that was gaining control of the music industry. Some pointed out that the TV stations themselves were tightening their control over the music market, and that "under the guise of fostering the music industry, the TV stations had become a structure for controlling the music industry. The cultivation of artists and the production of music, which had previously been the responsibility of record companies, gradually came to be heavily influenced by the direction of TV programs and the wishes of producers. TV stations gave top priority to viewership ratings and turned one star after another into characters who looked good on film or who were popular rather than talented. In this way, the top priority became short-term sales rather than the inherent artistry of the music.

As a result, the number of new singers appearing on TV with immature singing ability rapidly increased, leading to criticism that "singers with no singing ability are becoming stars one after another these days. Singers who in the past would have grown and developed their skills slowly through live performances and recordings were now being consumed as instant "sellers" through the power of TV program production. In singing shows, the star's character was more important than the music itself, and even the singer's own story and personal life were used as part of the production. In this way, a complicity between the music industry and the TV stations was created, and a "factory" system for producing stars was established.

In the midst of this trend, the staging of music programs also changed dramatically. In the past, singing programs were purely for the performance of songs, but around 1975, they began to incorporate variety elements to entertain viewers. Costume competitions became a hot topic in "Kohaku Uta Gassen," and popular singers began to appear more frequently in comedy and talk shows. Music programs were transformed into entertainment programs to promote the singers' characters, rather than simply a place to present music.

In this trend, the music industry moved in a direction different from its original musical value while becoming more and more closely associated with television. As the dominance of NABEPRO continued, other entertainment production companies and record labels were forced to form alliances with television stations and to survive in the face of the supremacy of viewership ratings. As a result, the Japanese music industry entered an era in which the greatest value was not "musical ability" but "being on TV," and visual elements and buzz became the top priority.

This change later led to an idol boom and further commercialization of the music industry. The fusion of television and music produced one star after another, and revolutionized popular culture. At the same time, however, the essential questions of what music is and what a singer is were gradually being drowned out.