We Want Media

Nothing makes me happier than a new song from L’Arc~en~Ciel, the Asian band with a French name. Sure, I don’t know a wit of Japanese and I used to pronounce escargot as es-car-GOT, but it seems music bridges international borders as well as language borders. In 2004, L'Arc had their first American concert in Baltimore. Last fall, their newest album AWAKE received a North American release.

But it’s not just L’arc that’s getting stateside attention - it's their whole genre of music.

In 2006, jrock ink magazine became the first English-language print magazine to exclusively feature Japanese rock music. And guess where the company is based? Baltimore.

Asian artists have always had trouble breaking into the U.S. market. Even bilingual pop-stars who can speak and write perfect English have failed. Just take a look at Japanese pop-star Hikaru Utada, whose song “Simple and Clean” was featured in Disney’s Kingdom Hearts. The North America release of her Exodus ’04 album flopped despite all-English lyrics and a hip-hop makeover. Then there’s Leehom Wang, an American-born Chinese pop-star. According to Wikipedia, he didn’t start learning Chinese until he was 18. The year after, he released his first Chinese album. Could he only find success overseas?

Despite the supposed globalization of media, it seems most people are not yet global in their tastes. Let’s just hope for foreign music fans everywhere that jrock ink doesn’t fold.