The concept predated the phrase Neil Sedaka made it big in Japan with " One Way Ticket" before breaking through in his native United States.
The phrase began to appear in several major Japanese foreign-rock magazines, especially Music Life magazine, in the late 1970s, and in most cases, the "big in Japan" artists became popular in Japan due to being featured by Music Life. However, the expression is commonly used ironically to mean successful in a limited, potentially comical, oddly specific, or possibly unverifiable way. Big are generally considered a one-hit wonder for their single " To Be with You".īig in Japan is an expression that can be used to describe Western (especially North American or European) musical groups who achieve success in Japan but not necessarily in other parts of the world. They were one of the two most popular foreign music artists in Japan alongside Bon Jovi. Big are a "Big in Japan" band from the United States. It also reached #8 in the UK, #67 in Australia and #3 in Norway.Mr. The track reached #1 in the US (on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play), Switzerland, Sweden and Germany. Songwriter/s: Bernhard Lloyd, Marian Gold, Frank MertensĬhart Rankings, Certifications: The song received a Gold certification with over 250,00 units sold in Germany. Featuring Alphaville lead singer Marian Gold singing in front of a projector with different scenes, such as a sun rise, a city, fireworks being lit – all with a woman who’s image changes throughout the video until she changes into a geisha towards the end of the video. The music video was directed by Dieter Meier and was uploaded on a YouTube channel that goes by the name “RHINO” that specialises in being “the greatest music catalogue in the world.” Since it’s upload to the RHINO channel in December 2013, the music video has over 6.5 million views. The sound was fairly new and modern for music of that time, but also fit into the 80’s synth-pop style tunes that were extremely popular at the time. With an electronic sort of atmosphere with a chime like sound from a keyboard, the steady drum beat and the shakiness in the background, the track does a fantastic job at telling the story of the drug loving couple just as well as the lyrics do. “Big in Japan” provides a multitude of multi-layered sounds alongside the heavy and thought provoking story telling lyrics. Bernhard recognised the quality of the song and Andy the ability of its marketing.” I must admit the only ones who understood the meaning of the song correctly were Bernhard Lloyd and our then publisher Andy Budde. “They both imagine how great it would be to love without the drug: no steal, no clients, no ice age in the pupil, real emotions, -true worlds. The title of the track being “Big in Japan” (which is a phrase referencing a Western band’s popularity with Japanese audiences rather than their home country), is fairly misleading as the song is not about being popular in Japan, but actually tells the story of “a couple of lovers trying to get off Heroin”, Alphaville lead singer Marian Gold told German online magazine “Re.flexion” in 1998. “Big in Japan” comes from their 1984 album “Forever Young” and is the third track on the album. Alphaville is a German synth-pop / new-wave band that were particularly popular in the 1980’s.
0 kommentar(er)
