Author Topic: Kouhaku Utagassen 2013 (Read 3582 times)

SomethingWild · « **on:** November 25, 2013, 10:26:01 AM »

The line-up for this year's Kouhaku Uta Gassen has been announced:

The best news is Linked Horizon and miwa appearances!

Other than that, this has politics all over it

- They pretty much announced NMB48's appearance over a year ago through some documentaries. Ironically, they had a pretty bad year musically, compared to last year.
- E-girls? Who?

kuro808 · « **Reply #1 on:** November 25, 2013, 10:45:37 AM »

Well SKE did pick a song from the previous year when they first appeared so NMB can probably do the same and why not with the better singles in the year before.

And by the looks of it, no K-pop acts... :shrug shoulders:

initial · « **Reply #2 on:** November 26, 2013, 02:06:33 PM »

I swear the back-room Agency talks ruin the show every year. Morning Musume had a great year of releases and aren't invited?

SomethingWild · « **Reply #3 on:** November 26, 2013, 02:42:35 PM »

Politics aside, I think MM's problem is still the same as last year; not enough media exposure.

Even though MM's singles sell better than say Momoclo, you don't really see them in many shows.
Whereas Momoclo have their own show, Kanako is a regular on Meringue no Kimochi and they appear in tons of stuff.
It helps a lot. Same with Golden Bomber. No idea what their singles sell like, but they are on every show ever.

I had to google E-girls haha. Seems their latest single is pushing 90K so I guess they're bigger than I thought

Slack · « **Reply #4 on:** November 26, 2013, 08:18:49 PM »

Honestly I'm not too surprised at MM not being invited. At this point, it's what I'm used to.
How long until Kouhaku is just another TV show for AKB-related groups, which happens to feature SMAP, Wada Akiko, and assorted enka singers?

The interesting thing for me is that about 1-2 months ago, Up-Front scheduled new year's eve countdown concerts.
Did they have some advance knowledge that no H!P acts would be invited? Or were they just contingency planning?

The whole thing reminds me a bit of when Pink Lady turned down their Kouhaku invitation in the 70s and tried having their own competing new year's eve show.
They weren't invited back for at least 10 years.
According to wiki, "The songs and performers are examined by a selection committee put together by NHK. The basis for selection are record sales and adaptability to the edition's theme."
That definitely sounds like there's room for personal agendas of the selection committee members, so I wonder if there was anything that happened?

That said, K-pop acts are pretty much out just for being Korean.
This show claims to be a popular music singing contest, but make no mistake, there's got to be tons of politics going on.

And regarding E-girls, all I know is that Takechan is a big fan of them:
【Ｅ-ｇｉｒｌｓ】Ｅ-ｇｉｒｌｓｖｓＳｍｉｌｅａｇｅ『ぷっ』すま