Original Usage
For example, Scorpions initially had only mediocre success in Europe and the United States, yet were "Big in Japan", as evidenced by their 1978 tour of the country and the double live album Tokyo Tapes. Another example is The Ventures, a band formed in 1959 and touring Japan each year since 1965, having logged over 2,000 concerts there by 2006. "Being 'Big in Japan' turned into a positive sign of their closeness to the hearts of Japanese people, with the band embedded in national and local rock cultures."
The phrase was used as the name of a UK punk band in 1977-82 (whose name inspired the title of a 1984 hit single by pop band Alphaville) and was the name of the lead track on the Grammy-winning 1999 album Mule Variations by Tom Waits. The mockumentary This is Spinal Tap parodies this phenomenon when the band schedules a Japanese tour after discovering that their latest album is inexplicably selling very well there.
The phrase began to appear on several major Japanese foreign-rock magazines, especially the Music Life magazine, in the late 1970s, and in most cases, the "big in Japan" artists became popular in Japan due to being featured by Music Life.
In the late 20th century, notable "big in Japan" artists included several stadium rock bands from the United States, metal artists from Northern European countries such as Norway, Denmark, and especially Sweden and Finland, eurobeat artists from Germany and especially Italy, and UK rock artists literally from the United Kingdom.
Some bands have used their popularity in Japan as a springboard to break into other audiences. Notably, the power pop group Cheap Trick, which had been known as the "American Beatles" in Japan for their appeal, achieved widespread success with their multi-platinum live album Cheap Trick at Budokan. The band had previously struggled to break into the mainstream American market with their earlier albums. Furthermore, like Cheap Trick, some bands have lost their "big in Japan" titles after gaining popularity in their respective homelands. The most notable example is Queen, along with Bon Jovi.
Read more about this topic: Big In Japan (phrase)
Famous quotes containing the words original and/or usage:
“Such is oftenest the young man’s introduction to the forest, and the most original part of himself. He goes thither at first as a hunter and fisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of a better life in him, he distinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist it may be, and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind. The mass of men are still and always young in this respect.”
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—Kenneth G. Wilson (b. 1923)