Kohaku Utagassen 2018

This year’s 69th edition of Kohaku Utagassen went on with a higher degree of coherent entertainment and with a theme that was consistently kept the whole show. Japan is entering a new era in 2019 and as such Kohaku has reflected on the past 30 years. As somebody who has grown most of his adult life in Heisei I found this quite amusing.

On the musical side of things, there were no particular individualities and as is always the case in recent years, we are lacking big stars and highly talented people in the Japan music industry and this went to show. There were a few highlights however that were delivered by a few artists.

The first half of the show had Ai Miyon, an interesting new voice that has potential; Yoshiki featuring Hyde and then Sarah Brightman; and a remarkable performance by Sakamoto Fuyumi. The main song of the first half was Jidai by Shimazu Ami which pretty much drove a good closure, but not enough for the red team to lead the score.

The second half had more excitement with the heavy hitters in place. Da Pump and their USA hits was good, Ikimonogakari was OK, but why while being a relatively young band sing a very old song? The same applies to AKB48 although in their case they did it with more style by inviting their Thai expression to join them. The rest of the artists kept a good standard with all the remaining big names doing their best possible performance for the theme in place. The song of the 2nd half was Amagigoe by Ishikawa Sayuri with the impeccable performance of Hotei playing guitar to match Koto tones.

In all, the white team won, there were no surprises and frankly not a whole lot of excitement around the show in a way that indicates that something is about to change in the Japan music scene. Once again, there’s good content and good intention in place, but as this type of uneventful Kohaku continues to happen year after year, there isn’t much to look forward in the year ahead. Or better, said, there isn’t much to look forward in the sense of artist discovery which is where real change must be delivered to reinvigorate and literally rejuvenate our musical expression.