I fell inside a jap music rabbit hole tonight and kinda cyberstalked a band from the musical college of Senzoku Gakuen, class of '22, specifically the lives of three girls from their graduation to the present date. It was pretty interesting and I plan to following them for a lot longer, I'll just write my original observations here. Girl A is successful, she works a bass and has had multiple tours across the world. Still despite the work she's put in her car kinda sucks, it's a probox. She lives inside the same apartment so she must be renting as her newfound success still isn't enough to buy an apartment from Tokyo which is weird since she's worked in at least one stadium size event as a bassist. Has 100-200k followers.Girl B was in a failed band and nuked her twitter/Instagram handles which had sub 5k followers. She's now trying again in a new bando alongside one ex member, everyone has around 20k followers except our girl. No tours outside of Japan, capacity of concerts is often around 200~ ish people, they're ramping up and are releasing a physical album so I think they're gaining traction.Girl C pivoted into being a radio personality. She's not part of any serious band but she does some casual stuff with her group. I'll try to record one of her radio shows if I have time, nuff said, drives a CBR, most well off of the bunch, probably owner of the radio program and 6 years into it.1/2
2/3 pics are unrelated to real girls Girl D. Looks like a landmine, posts like a landmine, prettiest of them all and plays a guitar, smoll. Does the hardest weirdest rock too, subsequently her band is the least successful. Capacity doesn't exist, they're performing in a box except when they're not. Really likes satanic imagery, everyone else sings with cute girls but her band mates are middle aged, long haired men who do Mongolian throat singing. Drives a beat up toyota from 1995 despite being 28 and going to college, lives in messy apartment. Maybe it's because she got ghosted in college? I think she dropped out of her friend group which kinda nuked her connections and career opportunities.
3/3I honestly expected them all to be wealthier or more successful but the one who's raking in cash works more as a podcaster than a performer, I'm left to wonder if they work dayjobs. One thing I noticed that despite them not having that many followers the gigs are often fully booked so there's 100-2000 people interested in them which is a great rate per follower. I guess Japs use other platforms as well? Outside of numbersfagging and estimating income of small/medium artists twitter also revealed a lot about their every day lives. Some of these girls knew each other before enrolling in the music college, there's one extra one which I didn't list but who's in a same band. That's pretty incestious and unlikely if you think about it but that's secondary to the way these lifelong friends drifted away after college. They really stopped contacting each other after COVID outside the two who started a band while in college I think two of them, can't remember which, fought over a boyfriend on twitter. Another small story was how one of them kinda dropped out of their friend group which I mentioned earlier. I started this out of morbid curiosity to gauge if average artists can make money in the industry but I still can't answer that question. All of them attended a decent musical college and saw varied levels of success but the one who has access to best vehicles, I believe owns her own place pivoted away from being a performer. Meanwhile girl A has to do product placements inside her tiny apartment that's overflowing with (free) stuff, maybe radiostars just make bank in Japan? Then again girls B and D aren't even big enough to do endorsements or to receive gifts from meet n greets
>>129650145>>129650155>>129650167If ur a musican in Japan it is for passion not for money. Unless you are one of those girl bands that does Idol Slop and you get mega popular. Even then you dont own much, its your producers and label.Anyway Japan's music scene is literally the best in the planet, not ethically, or financially but in taste and final product. They are just musical prodigies.They are taking over NeoClassical too. The hardest genres they dominate them all now.
>>129650145id like to listen to the weird music of girl D if youd mind sharing
>>129650302I say weirdest in relationship to other four. She's lead guitar>>129650260>Anyway Japan's music scene is literally the best in the planet, not ethically, or financially but in taste and final product. They are just musical prodigiesI wonder why that is. Japan only has a handful of musical colleges, I think I counted seven as I dove deeper into it, enrollment at Senzoku Gakuen was around 500, if we assume that's average we get 3500~ish per year, probably lower, 2000-3000. They have technical skills I give you that.Maybe Japs give kids more and more varied exposure to music in school?
Another thing I've researched into is Japanese university fee structure when it comes to musical studies! It's bloody expensive compared to everything else, Senzoku has tuition of 2 million yen which has reminded the same since COVID. Before Yen depreciated it was almost 20 000$, now it's closer to 10 000. Median salary in Japan is around 4-5 million yen so a household putting their kid through private university must've been extremely burdensome. Some of these girls came from seemingly disadvantaged backgrounds so I'm really intrigued about what really went down behind the scenes. On the other hand we are talking about a society where many families just have a single kid which offsets this a little, from my understanding none of the girls had siblings so which might've been what made schooling them possible. Hunger comes with eating, I'm tempted to just straight up send them a message out of curiosity to ask if this all was financially worth it. Because touring abroad provided income in USD at for the girl A it must've been plus she's on record saying so, as previously mentioned girl C is doing well but it's unclear what role her education plays into it. She might've gathered a sizeable network during her college years which allowed her to launch a radio station with frequent quests. For B and D I can safely say they'd earn more in STEM or performing as idols. I'd kill for an interview.
