6/21/2023 0 Comments High school days akb48Then as now, the audience mainly wanted a spectacle and didn’t seek highly creative and avant-garde expressions. That way, fans could always see them live, which is not the case with most pop groups, who just give occasional concerts and are usually seen on TV.Īs theatrical performers, AKB48 are much like a review show, which were huge in Asakusa in the Taisho period. The group’s producer, Yasushi Akimoto, wanted to put together a girl group with its own theatre where they could perform daily. The AKB48 model harks back to the days before western pop music came to Japan. But even the savviest American record producer would struggle to find a band that appeals to both teenage girls and middle-aged men.ĪKB48 figurines on sale at the AKB48 Art Club Exhibition. Of course, idol competitions like "American Idol" have also become big in the West in recent years. Thanks to YouTube, older music fans can go online for their music, so record companies have had to find younger audiences for their mass-marketed, high-sales model. They have been targeting younger audiences ever since the internet put back vast back catalogues just a click away. Western record companies have long recognised that the future of the music business rests on the shoulders of young girls. What makes the band so phenomenally profitable is their business model, which targets both teenage girls and men, including middle-aged men. They are a huge phenomenon in Japan, where they made over US$500m in revenue from CDs and DVDs between 20 alone. Although the majority of its currently 99 members are legal adults, many of them are teenagers, and some of them, still junior high school students.ĪKB48’s songs are typical J-pop: short, fast-paced and high-pitched, with choruses that anyone can sing along to. It’s based on a commitment to try my best to be a good father and to teach my girls what Alan has taught me.As a mass-marketed pop group with a pool of over 100 members from whom acts are chosen, AKB48 mark a remarkable departure from the traditional girl group.ĪKB48’s pool of young tarento was originally 48-strong, hence the name. I have faith we can get through the worst of times. Just as I imagine that Alan feels rewarded at the end of his career with me and the thousands of people he influenced, I will have been a good father if my girls - no matter how crazy the world gets or even their lives get - can continue to better themselves and subsequently everything else around them. If I instill in my girls the same ideals that Alan cultivated in me through my life, then I will have the ultimate comfort as a father and will not have to worry about solving their problems. And is it just me, or has there been a successful ideological export of socialism from China to California? A year-long war in Ukraine started by Vladimir Putin. Divided government in Washington that took us to the brink of economic collapse. I’m guessing that most of you will agree with me when I say the world seems even crazier today than three years ago. Like the fact that I can still solve my baby girl’s tiny problems.” The world felt like it was turning upside down, and the one sigh of relief I could utter was what I wrote in The San Diego Union-Tribune: “I’m just grateful for the little things. Three years ago on Father’s Day, we were in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. When my baby girls reach adulthood, that’s how they’ll get through their problems, tiny or not and with or without Daddy. The more tenuous life gets, the more important it is to stick to improving yourself and holding yourself accountable. Yet one thing I’ve learned from Alan - and a reflection on what he’s taught me as my father-in-spirit - is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. And he expressed this concept to high school, middle school, elementary and college students in the context of an ever-changing educational landscape. He expressed in a thousand ways that we could be better individually and as collective ensembles. Alan Hallback taught me much more than music - he cultivated within me and the thousands of other kids he worked with over nearly four decades that we each have to better ourselves so we can solve our individual and collective problems.Īnother speaker said that just as the various Eskimo languages have numerous words for snow, Alan had so many ways of inspiring each of us to be better. I’ve realized that I must strike these same D major chords in my kids. It is the key of getting through problems - our own and ours as a community. As noted by one of Alan’s mentors, this opus Alan wrote in all of us was composed metaphorically in D major, the key of the great classical composers - the key of triumph, of Hallelujahs, of war cries, of rejoicing in victory.
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