Ever wonder where unreleased music comes from?

 

Perhaps you're on the Internet, shifting from window to window, wandering aimlessly through procrastination with an IMEEM playlist in the background. Suddenly, when the next song from your favorite album fades in and you realize something: you've already bought the album of the artist this unrecognized song claims to be a part of.

 

To get to the bottom of this mystery you decide to do a few Google and Yahoo! Answer searches to find that the song has been a refugee in a foreign playlist camp since the album's release date. After days, weeks even, of forced listening, and after elaborate escapes through the interhighway, the track has finally make its way back home where they were meant to be released in the first place. Where are our songs being harbored and held hostage you ask? I'll tell you. Japan!

 

Popular American artists are going behind our backs and releasing top-notch material in Japan without our knowledge, and they aren't even apologizing about it. I'm not angry. I simply want a heads up on the situation. For example: for those of you who own it, Kanye West released Graduation with the track titled "Good Morning," right? But, I bet you didn't know that "Good Night," the perfect bookend for the album, which is equally as hot, was only fit for the Japanese release. And not only did "Good Night" make the limited edition Japanese release, but "Bittersweet Poetry" featuring John Mayer, which has never been officially released in the states, made the cut as well. Also one of the hottest selling, chart-topping, life-changing albums of the summer, next to Lil' Wayne's Da Carter III, turned it's back, or in this instance, CD cover, on the American audience. I'm talking about Coldplay's Viva La Vida who put a daring acoustic version of "Lost!" on the album only for release overseas.

 

Who else is an undercover track launderer for the Japanese? Mariah Carey gave them "Heat" from her album E=MC². The Arctic Monkeys gave them "Da Frame 2R" and "Matador" from Favourite Worst Nightmare. The Gorillas gave "Punk," Beck gave "Walls", The Verve gave "The Drugs Don't Work," The Stylistics gave "You Make Me Feel Brand New." Alicia Keys, OutKast, Be Your Own Pet, Bloc Party and Of Montreal are among a fraction of a fraction of the artists who are releasing our gems to the Japanese. They even re-release special album covers and printed lyrics so that we don't recognize that we've been swindled at first glance.

 

So what makes the Japanese release so much more special than the U.S. and U.K. release? Well, do not fear. I do, in fact, after all my incoherent ranting have the answer rendering this column, at last, effective. You see the answer is that it is extremely expensive to import and export items to and from Japan. For example, on an unrelated note, to buy an apple in America would run you, at most, one dollar. But to buy the same apple in Japan would cost you a cool $14.00. This is simply because most fruits and vegetables all have to be imported, which is unfortunate. But the same goes for music. And since artists want their music to be heard, and since the Japanese market is so important, Japanese ears get the special treatment. This is why rare, hidden, or bonus tracks tend to be included in the Japanese version only.

 

Of course the American release doesn't suffer because of this, because we are able to download these and have them on our own. I suppose it's all a matter of, who hears it first. But all of this is of no major concern because the Japanese remain cool, and our embezzled tracks always make their way back home.

 

http://media.www.carolinianonline.com/media/storage/paper301/news/2008/09/30/ArtsEntertainment/Important.Imports-3463347-page2.shtml

hmm?...Interesting :D

quote : . But all of this is of no major concern because the Japanese remain cool, and our embezzled tracks always make their way back home.

 

:flutterby: Yes they do and yes they do :D

I always thought it was to try and get the Japanese people to buy the non-import version instead of importing in a cheaper standard issue cd