Actually, It’s ALWAYS Been About The Music…
Recommended reading. Our own CJ takes Vulpi of Fighteen to task on the idea that Morning Musume’s music is second to their image. He does a pretty thorough job addressing her argument, including the title she chose. He also makes an interesting point about how many overseas people who listen to H!P don’t like American pop music. It makes me wonder if there’s any trends in non-Jpop tastes that can be traced in overseas wota.
Speaking for myself, I do find my interest in an H!P group hinges on how good their latest singles are – and from there, my fondness for specific idols shift accordingly. So this year was pretty bad for Berryz Koubo but great for C-ute and pretty good for Morning Musume. Expanding beyond H!P, the maturing of SweetS’ image didn’t save them musically so I was kind of relieved to see them break up. So as much as I like to beat the drum on idol personae and eyecandy and so on, I guess music does play a huge role. (Unless they’re junior idols who do no singing, in which case I’m off the hook.)
Though I’ll stand by my earlier assertion that image and music take a back seat to just looking at these idols as commodities first, then determine the best ways to commodify them. It’s the neo-Marxist in me.
The commodity thing thing is always true in this kind of big Pop music. I like to just ignore that part and deal with the music. Kinda like network TV shows exists to sell ads, some people involved to care making the shows so I don’t feel the need to bring them up everytime you criticize the thing itself.
Image and the music is inseparable in all types of music. Even when it’s not about how the individuals look, it’s always something about how artists project their personalities. Even fine artists and writers are subject to this, like it or not. Whether the art or image comes first is really up to the individual audience member. I think image is mostly a subliminal effect on an individual’s decision to accept the art or not.
Personally, I accepted MM’s music after I got into the image; I accepted C-ute’s image after I got into the music (after I was into MM’s music.)