After releasing the recent
D'espairsRay single
KAMIKAZE, at least the name
HearJapan should be familiar and some of our readers are probably aware of it. But who is behind this project and what is the point of an online music store? We asked the company's president,
Nathan Reaven, some questions to reveal the secrets and find out more about HearJapan.
Please introduce yourself to our readers first!
Nathan: My name is
Nathan Reaven and I am the president of HearJapan. I first fell in love with Japanese music when I went to Japan on a one-year foreign exchange program during high school, way back in 1999. When my exchange finished and I returned to the United States, I made it my mission to introduce as many people to Japanese music as I could. This passion eventually led me to form HearJapan many years later.
How did you come up with the idea for HearJapan?
Nathan: During my college years, I did a lot of promotion for bands like
The Mad Capsule Markets and all of the Tofu Records bands. At the time, I saw that there was a growing demand for Japanese music, but CD
distribution models were simply not the best way to please the fans. For one, the CD would be released in the States, or in Europe, many years after it was released in Japan, so all of the real fans would already own the original Japanese version! Also, it was very difficult to get local CD stores, most of which had no idea about the demand surrounding Japanese music, to even stock the CDs, so without the CDs in the stores, it became extremely
inconvenient for fans to even get the music of the bands they were so eager to support. Until recently, the only way to get most CDs was through online CD retailers that are very expensive and take a long time to deliver. I, like all fans of Japanese music, wanted to see a Japanese music distribution system that would do the following:
1. Get the music to the fans overseas on the same day it is released in Japan.
2. Have the music priced at a comparable rate to that of the country in which it is sold.
3. Be convenient to locate, purchase and get information about.
4. Have absolutely no country or territory restrictions--available to everyone.
I realized, in 2004, that the only way to do this was to open a digital music store!
What makes HearJapan special?
Nathan: HearJapan offers Japanese music equally to every country in the world, at fair prices. We don't use Digital Rights Management (DRM), so users can play their high quality mp3s in any player without difficulties. We are affiliated with all of the Japanese copyright and royalty associations such as the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC), so every purchase you make is guaranteed to directly support the artist, which no other digital music store selling Japanese music outside of Japan can promise. Also we are a licensed digital music store of the RIAJ. In addition, we offer new releases on our site the very second it is released, at 12:01AM in the Japanese time zone. That is even before the CD stores in Japan open, so technically, now for the first time, fans outside of Japan can get the music even even the Japanese can!
What do you offer so far?
Nathan: We feature all kinds of Japanese music - including visual kei, electropop, JPop, enka, post-rock, electronica and more. Our song catalog is constantly expanding and we will be adding thousands of tracks every month, so keep checking back to see if the music you are looking for is on HearJapan yet!
My favorite music isn't featured on HearJapan. Can I send you proposals?
Nathan: Sure! We are constantly trying to get the music that the fans want onto HearJapan, so we welcome emails from our users, especially regarding indie artists!
Click on the link to send your suggestion and we will go ahead and make contact with the label or artist on your behalf! However, in the case of major labels, we need the help of the fans to tell the bands directly that you want to see their music on HearJapan. So hop onto their respective homepage or MySpace and send them a message about us. We are one of the only DRM-free stores in Japan and many major labels currently have a DRM-only policy, so we need the fans' help in pressuring them to drop their policies and make their music available! Also, please continue to explore and purchase the music on HearJapan, as it is the best way to prove to the Japanese record industry that all of you international JMusic fans
are out there, and
are showing your support!
I'm from Europe. Can I use your service? How?
Nathan: Anyone from anywhere, including Europe, can use our service. You can purchase in any currency, including Euros, US Dollars or even Japanese Yen. All you need is a major credit card to buy credits and that will set you on your way. If you don't have a credit card, you can contact us about using PayPal.
What can we expect from HearJapan in the future?
Nathan: You can expect a constantly expanding catalog of all types of high-quality Japanese music. We will be heavily increasing the amount of music in genres such as visual kei in the near future and, starting in November, we will begin rolling out thousands of anime songs from such popular titles as "Dragonball" and "Evangelion."
If this interview made you curious, please browse through HearJapan's
online catalog. You can listen to song samples and, if you like it, put those songs into your virtual shopping cart!
We are glad to announce our partnership with
HearJapan. You, our readers, will especially benefit from it in the future since we will be able to increase our video area - so look forward to music videos, video messages from artists, live recordings and special videos, including acoustic takes, on JaME. Furthermore, be prepared for reviews about the albums and singles HearJapan offers, song samples and contests.
Without further ado, we would like to commemorate this new partnership with a contest. You can win:
1st prize: 40,000 yen plus
Megamasso merchandise
2nd prize: 20,000 yen plus
Megamasso merchandise
3rd prize: 15,000 yen
4th prize: 10,000 yen
5th prize: 5,000 yen
Please note that the prize money will be credited on your HearJapan account. If you are a winner we'll ask you to create a HearJapan account and this account will be credited with yen, which is not transferable or exchangeable. The merchandise will be sent to you via mail.
To win one of the prizes, all you have to do is complete the JaME/HearJapan challenge. We created a sample album for you, available from HearJapan (see
here). There, you can listen to ten songs, but you won't find artist names or song titles because YOU have to find out who wrote the songs and their titles. To make it less difficult for you, we will provide hints for each track's identity:
1. In November, this band will play at Keep It True XI festival in Germany and they're on a highway, but we're not talking about Highway to Hell in this case!
2. This talented female singer wrote the ending theme for the hit anime series "Noir." In 2006, she performed in France.
3. A very special diamond, made by four JRock gems.
4. This band is named after a widely spread and well-known round. The song title we are searching for is also known as a bath tub plug by Alessi (Italian designer).
5. Their music is difficult to describe, but they have an array of sounds from acoustic to pop-rock, rock-ballad to rock. They've got two well-known members: Koji (formerly La'cryma Christi's guitarist) and Jun (formerly Pierrot's guitarist). Viva la Revolution!
6. Their singer was once part of the R&B scene. Now he's a popular visual kei vocalist and in this song they render homage to a pretty lady.
7. They are part of the label Sword Records and performed at JRock Revolution
in 2007. Maybe this song is about one of "Final Fantasy VII"'s main characters..?
8. This band is named after a province in the Netherlands, while this song deals with a German city.
9. This artist stands for electropop. Upon hearing samples of his works, the promoters for the "Great Escape" festival in the U.K. were quick to offer him a gig in the 2007 event. Immediately after his debut solo album was complete, he received a call from French diva, YSA Ferrer, who went on to tell him that she had made a remix and that it had hit the Top 40 charts in France. Hecalls himself doctor by the way and the song title we are searching for contains the word hospital..
10. Think of Johann Sebastian Bach and a cantata he wrote, then you'll know album and song title.
If there are too many correct entries, we will draw at random from the correct submissions.
To participate, just send an email to
finja@jame-networks.com with the subject 'HearJapan Contest' and the following information:
- Your full name as stated on your passport or legal ID
- Your address
- Current country
- E-mail address
- And of course, the ten artists and song titles we want to know
RULES
- Your email must be in English.
- Incomplete submissions or non-English submissions will be automatically excluded.
- You have to send in your entry before
November 30, 2008.
- Prizes are non-transferable and cannot be exchanged for money or other items.
- Please just send one e-mail to us. Duplicate submissions will be ignored!
Good luck!
JaME would like to thank HearJapan for making this contest possible.
