[Told by a female singer-songwriter] The difference between idols and bands (Part 2)

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[Told by a female singer-songwriter] The difference between idols and bands (Part 2)

• singer-songwritermisaki-tan
  Singer-songwriter Misaki-tan, born from punk rock and raised on subculture. She was too headstrong to form a band, so starting in December 2015 she began pounding out her own songs with just an acoustic guitar to play punk rock. Originals like “Ugly Girl’s Selfies, Fat Girl’s Bare Legs” and “Theme of the F***ing Old Lady and F***ing Old Man” keep coming one after another, each distinctive and unique. With a freewheeling live show built on a crowd-engaging performance style and brutally straightforward MCs, she appears not only at acoustic singer-songwriter events but also at band and idol events. (If anything, she can even feel out of place at acoustic events.)

https://twitter.com/misakitan22/status/848486332271706112/photo/1

I think it’s simply because what they’re selling in the first place is different, so customer spending behavior ends up being completely different as well—an almost too-obvious reason.

Consumption trends of band fans

https://twitter.com/misakitan22/status/842717701873123329/photo/1

For bands that sell themselves on their “music,” once the audience encounters the “music” during the main live set, their desire is satisfied.

Of course, having drinks and chatting after the show is fun, but once we've provided the value of music during the main performance, the minimum service requirement has already been met.

Some bands and singer-songwriters place so little importance on merch that they show up, just play their set, and go home without bringing anything to sell.

Even when I go to see a band’s live show as an attendee, it’s almost unheard of for me to go home after spending several thousand yen on top of the ticket price.

If I find a band I like, I'll buy a CD to take home, but I almost never buy multiple copies of the same CD, so the amount of money I spend there is quite limited.

Even if going to see a band member becomes your reason for frequenting live houses (music venues), it doesn’t cost any money to do that.

In idol fan slang, you can basically do a “free cling” (muse ngattsuki), meaning you can get up close without spending money.

I’ve never seen a girl being told, “A two-shot photo with the band member is 1,000 yen.”

I’ve never seen anyone be told, “If you want to talk for more than a minute, buy another CD and get back in line” (can’t speak for visual-kei scenes, though).

Consumption trends of idol fans

On the other hand, while there are surely customers who like groups that market their music and who enjoy the songs themselves, in reality I think the business is about assigning commercial value to the idols themselves and selling that.

Of course the audience comes to see the main live performance, but I think they value the time spent talking with and being with the idols just as much, if not more.

You can tell from the fact that most idol events have an unusually long “merch sales time” built into their timetables.

We often see events where the time allotted for merchandise sales is about four times longer than the actual performance time (at that point, it’s hard to tell whether the merch is for the live show or the live show is for the merch…).

Cheki is amazing.

And when it comes to idol merchandise, it's all about cheki (instant photo) sessions.

While CDs and other merchandise sold by bands are typically limited to one per person, cheki (instant photo tickets) can be purchased in any quantity by the same person.

It's not just the Instax photo itself that has value anymore—talking with the idol during the process of taking the photo has become valuable too. So if you want to talk more, you buy more Instax shots. It’s basically endless.

These days, there are occasionally bands and singer-songwriters who sell Cheki (instant photo) shots as part of their merch lineup or as a sort of support/donation window. I sell Cheki too. It’s not that I’m selling them because I think my appearance has value; I sell them because I see them as a donation window.

Idols are, first and foremost, a business.

I think the merch sales system for idols is really well designed as a business.

I think the reason idols are doing so well economically is that there are adults who view idols as a business.

These days, I think it’s no longer unusual to see self-produced or independent underground idols, but originally, the structure of idols was that there were girls, and then there were adults who handled things like producing and management.

Since the livelihoods of the adults backing them have to be supported by the power of these idol girls, it’s only natural, as a business, to set up a system that turns a profit.

Self-produced idols might not have adults they need to financially support, but I think those people are also skillfully using the idol system to generate excitement.

Lastly

It's not about which is better or worse, idols or bands, but if doing what you love keeps draining your money, no matter how much you love it, you won't be able to keep it up for long.

You can't buy instruments with feelings alone, you can't pay for studio fees, and you can't cover the quota either.

Being in a band costs money, but I want you to keep trying.

Also, a live music venue is not a karaoke room.

We live in an era where anyone can get on stage—even if they can’t write original songs or don’t have the money or connections to outsource them—but it’s a bit painful to watch the reality that idols who mostly sing karaoke covers of famous idol group songs can achieve results more easily than bands.

At a really awful event, I sometimes find myself wondering, what was a live house supposed to be again?

I don’t want bands and artists to disappear, so I hope we can develop a good system that lets fans spend more money on them.