HMV Piccadilly Circus might get J-Pop/K-Pop

Joshawott

Joshawott

Monsieur Monster
AUKN Staff
Hey Y'all!
I have a favour to ask (well, my brother does). You see, my older brother works in the music department of the HMV in the Trocadero Centre, which is in Piccadilly Circus, London. Throughout his time working there, he is often asked whether or not the store stocks J-Pop or K-Pop (he says about 10 times a day), due to being close to China town and whatnot. My older brother has spoken to the store's manager and they have agreed to have a J-Pop and K-Pop section.

However, he has no idea what kind of artists would be available for them to get in and what people would want. As my knowledge is only limited to say, Geneon having a few artists on the UK iTunes (like Mami Kawada...although they have nothing from 2008 onwards 9.9), I've been given permission to ask here.
 
How interesting. I remember the Tower Records (R.I.P.) very close to that HMV being a lifeline back when I couldn't freely import stuff myself, with its entire floor of world music. As places like Japan Centre have scaled back on that kind of thing completely, and JP Books only has one shelf, it may well be a successful thing to try.

I imagine, without knowing anything about what HMV's connections are like, the easiest stuff to get is the music which has already had some kind of global release - the American albums by Utada definitely belong there, and there are a bunch of Japanese/Korean/Chinese artists who have courted the American charts with varying degrees of success such as BoA, Coco Lee, Gackt, L'Arc etc. Some groups are playing in the UK in the coming year and getting their stuff on sale would definitely be wise.

I'm sure there was also an initiative of some kind to get Hello Project works distributed in the US, but I'm not sure if that was digital-only.

Allegedly there's a Korean section in Oxford Circus now (as described here http://unitedkpop.com/2011/10/26/hmv-no ... more-kpop/ ) so perhaps they can assist?

As for stuff I'd like to see on sale, just general 'best of' albums from strongly charting artists seem like a safe bet. I tend to preorder for my very favourite artists, so stuff I'd impulse buy in London is the tier below that; artists I'd like to check out when I have some cash to splash but people I don't already follow.

R
 
On a slightly unrelated note, does anyone know of any good non-pop J music they can recommend me, lol. It's no secret that I'm a fan of black music (soul, reggea, hip-hop, ect) but I love all music and am interested in hearing what Japan has to offer. However I have a fairly limited tolerance to pop, and the majority of the J-pop I've heard thus far seems to grate on my ears like someone's trying to file down them using sand paper.
 
I'm not a fan of Progressive heavy metal, yet. But I have friends who are, and I'll certainly give it a go.

Thanks for the recommendation, Teo.
 
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