RISE OF ARTISTS FROM JAPANESE ONLINE MUSIC SCENE: OPPORTUNITIES, PERILS AND CO-EXISTENCE WITH OLD GUARDS

Abstract

For a very long time, stardom in the Japanese popular music market is inseparable from good connections with jimusho, recording companies and mass media. In recent years, however, a group of artists have proved this wisdom wrong. With seemingly little support from the aforementioned stakeholders, netto-hatsu ātisto, or artists who gained recognition through the online music scene, took the Japanese popular music market by storm. In this paper, I intend to account for their emergence through in-depth studies of Niconico, one of the biggest content-sharing platforms in Japan. In particular, I will focus on utaite, a particular type of netto-hatsu ātisto, for their supposed limited of association with corporates given their status as amateurs. I will bring forth three arguments. First, I argue that the rise of internet-bred artists is to be attributed to the active immaterial, free and affective labour by the artists and users on online-content sharing platforms. Second, I argue that the development of online music scene on Niconico has led to the imposition of standards on utaite. Insofar as this phenomenon of “professionalisation of amateurism” arguably raises standards on the online music scene, it also destroys the spirit of amateurism as a fun, hobby-like activity. Drawing from Jenkins’ (2006) concept of convergence culture, my third argument is that the opportunities that the internet offers to budding artist do not necessarily diminish the relevance of the mainstream Japanese popular music industry.