Flailing Chicken, Graceful Swan

Regardless of the sort of music you listen to, movement plays a clear role in any performance. It might be just the movement of the singer’s hands as she guides herself through those high notes; a clear display of emotion using the whole body, an instrument/microphone, and maybe even the audience; or dance.

Um, yeah. I’m not quite sure what I’m getting at here myself. When did I go off-track? Before I started typing this? Anyways, to the point.

I want more dance versions for Japanese music videos.

I don’t think it’s a very demanding request, especially since lately the Japanese music market can be divided into three categories: Artists/bands/groups who have a direct hand in what they release (See: Hamasaki Ayumi, L’Arc~en~Ciel, HOME MADE KAZOKU, DEPAPEPE), performers who sell based on the level of their vocal abilities or other intangible talents (See: Shimatani Hitomi, Nakashima Mika, any actor/actress who has also sung), and dancing idols (I don’t think I need to give any examples for that last one).

Oh, and of course, the people in between any two groups or even all three. I think you can stick Koda Kumi in there somewhere, but I’m really not sure where. She dances, she’s really not all that bad at singing, and apparently wrote the lyrics to Butterfly, the single that sent her to the top of the charts in Japan. At the same time though, she doesn’t really fit in specifically anywhere. But don’t quote me on that.

Anyways, continuing. I think it’s common sense that if you have a performer that dances, make dancing an integral part of their identity (for marketing purposes), and have them dancing in any promotional videos or lives… well, why not just have a video showcasing the dance itself?

The level of choreography doesn’t particularly matter. As far as dances go, the ones from Hello!Project are can be simple (I’m going to get killed by so many H!P fans for saying that) but still look nice when done with a decent amount of coordination. (And at least they make use of whatever amount of dancers they have.) HINOI TEAM’s choreography is mainly para-para, something that just about anyone can join in on (as evidenced by Korikki). And then you’ll have some more active routines, like those performed by SweetS, BoA, and Tamaki Nami. And hey, Tamaki Nami’s DVDs also have a section where viewers can learn how to perform part of the dance, step-by-step.

So why can’t others do it? AAA, various boybands (mainly because I want to be able to screencap pretty boys for potential posts on a similar subject), hell, even Amuro Namie and Koda, I’m looking at you.

It’s clearly not a problem of marketing style. As previously mentioned, avex has released dance version videos for HINOI TEAM, BoA, and SweetS (though only for one release for the latter two. Shame). With most of their artist stable consisting of dancers, why not more? It’s also not as though they need to be released on the same DVD that comes with whatever release the video is for – SONY released dance versions of Tamaki Nami’s videos on her video clip DVDs. I can wait for that to occur.

It’s not a matter of “the easier the dance is to learn, the more likely it is we’ll release it.” w-inds. used to have clips on their official website where they would (personally) teach viewers how to dance along to their single releases (granted, it only lasted up to Paradox, but it was released later on DVD). But you know, there’s no problem with just showing off the ability of your performers. Koda has some stunningly sexy dances that are also pretty interesting, and I would seriously enjoy the chance to watch more of Amuro’s WoWa dance on rollerskates.

“Making of” clips are included all the time. It’s not all that much more expensive to also include the scenes of the dance. There are already plenty of shots of the dance taken for the PV, just use those. It doesn’t have to be in a different setting – I just want to be able to see the dances clearly and admire these performers that I’m already pouring money into even more.

And while I’m a bit odd in that what attracts me to a bunch of the artists I like is their dancing ability, I know I can’t be the only one. Think of all the revenue these companies potentially losing! They could charge more with the release of another DVD just for this purpose, and for most of the dancing artists out there, it’d be worth it.

But since they’re obviously not likely to read this… y’know. Just saying. *cough*