Kohaku Utagassen 2017

The 68th edition of Kohaku Utagassen went by on a rather conservative and predictable note. This year, the men (white team) won but as is my impression in recent years with every winning team, they won for the lack of better competition from the other side.

This year the highlights go to the opening of the program with an interesting use of the whole of Shibuya to feature the artists disguised in common, every day places. I have never seen anything of that magnitude done previously and for this I thought we were set for a good ride. Later on, reality settled in.

As the night progressed the peering of the teams was somehow predictable and not-exciting. The generally old men sang old songs that were mostly at least 15 years old. The women had better and newer songs, but in general weak hits. The unbalanced match between old guys and young girls made the girls look uninteresting, perhaps unattractive.

All things considered, the stars that shone are: Mai Kuraki, Superfly, Perfume, and an impeccable Namie Amuro on her way out from the music industry. On the side of the men, I was only impressed with X-Japan and Ken Hirai with a song I thought was out of the ordinary and quite motivational.

The sad reality of the Japanese music industry continues on a rather somber note without new shinning starts coming in to actually shine. It is not that I don’t think there are good artists out there who can revive the industry and change its reality, what I see that this is merely happening because the industry itself is literally growing old and old executives seem to have lost their interest or appetite to discover the new stars.