Since then, they have been travelling to festivals all over the world and sold out their first showcase in Japan. They are planning a global tour starting in May.
“It’s really about spreading XG all around the world to where the fans are,” says Simon Park, the group’s producer. “Our music is spreading in a really interesting way that we haven’t seen before.”
It is a dramatic shift for the country, whose pop music industry relied heavily on domestic audiences for decades. At US$2.2 billion, Japan is the world’s second largest music market after the United States. But it is evolving – revenue from digital sources rose to 35 per cent last year, from about 21 per cent in 2018, according to the Recording Industry Association of Japan.
The transition to streaming has helped J-pop reach more people. The country’s share of the top 10,000 tracks played worldwide grew by more than half to 2.1 per cent last year, according to researcher Luminate Data. While still small, it is approaching that of Korean-language songs, which had about a 2.4 per cent share in 2023.
J-pop started to gain global fame under Johnny Kitagawa, a powerful music mogul who controlled the Japanese industry for decades and paved the way for idol groups.
1980s Japan lives on in Hong Kong as ‘future funk’ music finds a home
1980s Japan lives on in Hong Kong as ‘future funk’ music finds a home
The music mogul built almost monopolistic power in the industry, as well as the media landscape, by controlling copyrights – but he forced bands to limit their activities to Japan and shunned social media and streaming platforms.
Advertisers and broadcasters have since been boycotting Johnny & Associates’ bands, which has created a void in the market. The immediate winners have been K-pop groups and new Japanese artists who have gained popularity through social media.
Sony Group, Japan’s largest media conglomerate, is riding this global momentum by maximising the country’s strongest cultural asset: anime.
Backed by Sony Music, Yoasobi’s songs, such as “Idol”, for anime shows on Netflix have become massive hits. The duo will perform at the US-based Coachella Music & Arts Festival this year.
The singer Ado, who only appears as a silhouette when singing live, has topped charts with “New Genesis”, a song for animated movie One Piece Film: Red. It became the first Japanese song to top Apple’s global 100 chart.
Ado is currently on her first global tour with support from Universal Music and Sony’s Crunchyroll, the world’s biggest anime streaming platform.
Hip-hop duo Creepy Nuts’ “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born”, the opening theme for season two of the anime show Mashle: Magic and Muscles, is the biggest hit among J-pop songs so far this year.
About 20 per cent of Gen Z music listeners in the US and South Korea are discovering Japanese music through anime, according to Luminate.
“Generations that discover music through anime are also most likely to be high streamers of music,” the research firm says.
As the J-pop industry evolves, so does the music – Japanese artists and duos are now creating music mixing electropop and hip-hop. XG’s songs do not perfectly fit into typical J-pop or K-pop music, and the members call their genre X-pop.
Creating a concept and genre that did not exist before is what XG wants to do, the group’s producer said. And they are not the only ones.
XG’s company, Xgalx, started with support from Avex, the Japanese media group behind legendary singer Ayumi Hamasaki. Founded in 2017 by Park, who goes by Jakops when working as a producer, the Seoul-based Xgalx is fast becoming known as one of the music labels targeting the global pop market.
“I am telling our artists that we were born to make a new genre, even though our Japanese artists are singing K-pop-style songs,” says Choi Shinwha, Lapone’s chief executive officer. “We would like to eventually make a new genre and make it mainstream.”
Meanwhile, South Korea’s K-pop giants, Hybe and SM Entertainment, have set up offices in Tokyo, taking prime spots once occupied by Johnny & Associates’ boy bands at the Tokyo Dome and on Japan’s biggest television shows.
XG members, for their part, have set their sights on the US and beyond.
“We are dreaming of doing a halftime show at the Super Bowl or topping the Billboard charts or performing at Coachella, and of course performing in space would be amazing,” says Chisa, a 21-year-old XG vocalist.
