The path to J-pop stardom used to be pretty simple: Align yourself with the right talent agency and label — they'll do all the work.
That didn't change much in 2017, but it also became clear that there are many paths to success. Old institutions remain important — and established artists still wield the most power — but this past year showed how messy and, at times, exciting the journey to the top can be.
Take the year's biggest song, "Uchiage Hanabi" by Daoko and Kenshi Yonezu. Save for some EDM-appropriate percussion, it's a rather standard ballad that serves as the theme song to the film "Fireworks, Should We See It From the Side or the Bottom?" and could've just as easily come out in 1997. But "Uchiage Hanabi" exploded online, easily outpacing the film it was made for, racking up more than 80 million plays on YouTube and leading the two artists behind it to pop up on weekly music shows and news programs.
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