Saturday, August 13, 2011

J-Pop Group SCAM Charity Album for Tohoku

The Japanese schlock group SCAM have joined in with the effort of "helping" (themselves) and looking like they are actually doing something besides holding a mirror and combing their hair by releasing an album of their old and tired songs in a new song order on a new record.


There will be nothing new recorded for this album at all and the boys really will do nothing to actually help anyone in need after the March 11 disaster. They won't lift a finger to help anyone but their record label, agency and bank.


Like I said, what they will do is allow old music to be recompiled into a different order and then repackaged and sold as if it is a new product.


The real kicker is, even though this schlock is being advertising as a charity effort and proceeds will be donated, the fact of the matter is only about 5% of sales will go towards any charity.


You'd think that with a project that his a supposed charity that is reusing old material, that they could give a bit more than that...


Asian Fanatics reports:


J-pop group SMAP have announced the songs on their new album “SMAP AID,” which goes on sale Aug 17 to help raise funds for recovery efforts in the Tohoku region. The album features the group’s 15 most popular songs chosen by their fans. It will be the group’s first “best” album in 10 years.


The top three tracks are “Original Smile” (from June 1994), “Hazimari no uta” (from September 2008), and “Not Alone” (from May 2005).


The album, which will sell for 3,570 yen, comes with a yellow or red handkerchief — red representing health, and yellow representing happiness. Two hundred yen from the sale of each album will go toward the “Marching J” charity project.


According to SMAP’s management, Johnny’s Entertainment, many Japanese fans wrote to the agency following the March earthquake and tsunami disaster to say that SMAP songs cheered them up in the wake of the tragedy. The messages led to the album’s concept.


They say that there's one born every minute!... Many fans wrote to the agency and said the songs cheered them up? This lead to the album's concept? Yes! That and the temptation to steal from suckers was too great to resist.


Two hundred yen out of a ¥3,570 sale goes to charity!? Here's what little a*swipe SCAM singer says as he's admiring himself in the mirror:


"Gee, I'd like to really help those poor people in Tohoku... As long as I don't have to do anything, make any effort, and it doesn't hurt my pocketbook."   


Korean artists are doing great in Japan. Japan keeps trying to push sh*tty artists like SCAM on the Korean public. Any wonder why Japanese artists are not as popular over there as Korean artists are over here?


Let me finish this article with an intelligent comment: "Those twits in SCAM might be nice guys - no one could blame them for having any brains or morals - but their agency are douchebags." This is an even worse charity than Red Cross. At least Red Cross has been able to get a lame 51% of the money to the survivors. 


5%!? Any media in Japan - especially the English media - who report on this nonsense without a commentary are just as big a bunch of jerks as SCAM and all their members.


No wonder English rags like Metropolis and Japan Today are going bankrupt. On the one hand they criticize Japan and Japan's "entertainment"... On the other hand, they bootlick because they need sponsors for their trashy rags.


Losers. All of them. 


Thanks to Alistair Rogers

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

To be honest, I don't think SMAP members had any input on this. Exec management is usually the one at fault in these types of situations. Blame the old man who's run JE since the '60s (Kitagawa). It's his fault all of the music coming from the groups under his management sound like bad '80s songs. Little wonder Japan turned to SK for new music; the beats aren't reused and sound fresh. Even the most popular Jpop artists these days emulate K-Pop in feel and rhythm (Yuya Matsushita, w-inds).

Anonymous said...

Aaah, the music-industry racketeers, ehh oops, profiteers never miss a "bizunisu chyannsu", do they ? 200 Yen per CD-sale contributed ? Wow. Probably built into the price.

Definite cashing-in on what appears to be a mix of people seeking ways to genuinely help + "disaster nationalism" fervour.

The 4/11 "tsunami" that followed the 3/11 tsunami, was the number of corporations across the board (but front-lined by the entertainment industry) - under the "we really care" umbrella - tying up with this great tragedy to launder their soiled names or source fresh revenue streams.

"All money raised for Tohoku is good. You shouldn't criticise this", people say. Yeah, THAT old nugget ! But as we have seen, these contributions - and the absence of independent auditing - one can only wonder how much will be skimmed from the "proceeds", and how much will reach those in need (my guess is 1 Yen out of 10Yen).

Certainly SMAP members are just tarento-less wind-up toys for JE management, and don't figure in this business decision. But they can always give THEIR own personal proceeds directly (but probably not).

BTW ... @savingjapan.net ... You can also add "Simulate", "Appropriate" and "Remix" to the "Emulate" tag for J-Pop ... At best JE = yesterday's lunch re-heated. At worst = WTD (Weapons of Taste Destruction).

Anonymous said...

This is quite disgusting but not surprising really given the music industry. I do know however that one of them at least, Nakai-kun has expended a fair amount of personal money, and time going back and forth to Tohoku apparently. I once heard that artists (anyway) usually only get 1-2 dollars out of every CD sold and the rest goes to the various management and production companies. Maybe that is why 200 yen is the limit.

James A said...

Metropolis is going bankrupt? Huh, no wonder they have been dropping their advertising prices (Which are ridiculous).

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