Global Archives - Black Promoters Collective (BPC)

Global

Billboard Japan  ·  Global  ·  Japan  ·  Music  ·  Music News
J-pop Singer-Songwriter miwa Looks Back on 15 Years of Change & Growth: Billboard Japan Women in Music Interview

Billboard Japan’s Women in Music initiative launched in 2022 to celebrate artists, producers and executives who have made significant contributions to music and inspired other women through their work, in the same spirit as Billboard’s annual Women in Music celebration that has continued since 2007. This interview series featuring female players in the Japanese entertainment industry is one of the highlights of Japan’s WIM project, with the first 30 sessions published as a “Billboard Japan Presents” collection by writer Rio Hirai.

Explore

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

J-pop singer-songwriter miwa spoke with Hirai for the latest installment of the WIM interview series. The 34-year-old musician has taken the stage at Billboard Live every November for the past few years for her “miwa CLASSIC” concert series. The singer and actress celebrating the 15th anniversary of her career this year recently moved to Canada. She shares her views on the driving force behind her 15 years of changes and challenges. 

Trending on Billboard

This interview, in Japanese, is also available in podcast form on the Billboard JAPAN Spotify and YouTube channels.

You made your debut while you were a university student, and performed at the historic Nippon Budokan for the first time in March of the year you graduated. You’ve established yourself as an artist in your twenties and thirties, which is a period when the stages of women’s lives change greatly in general.

When my friends were looking for jobs (before graduating), I was thinking, “I’m going to make a career out of music,” but still felt like a student in some ways. I became more and more professional as I focused on music as my sole career. As the years went by, I felt a stronger sense of responsibility towards my fans. What hasn’t changed is my desire to keep taking on challenges. I started going to graduate school a decade after getting my undergraduate degree, and moved to Canada last fall. I also try my hand at new genres of music. I don’t want to be fixated on just one thing, and want to keep moving forward.

Why are you able to keep taking on new challenges?

It occurred to me that ramen restaurants that always have queues are constantly updating their flavor and continually improving. When you think, “This taste’s great, as always,” it actually means the flavor has improved from last time. I realized this when I was talking to a hair and makeup artist, and began to think I wanted to be an artist like that. Someone who can always improve and shine more and more. I want to be an artist who can grow little by little in that way.

I’d like to talk a little about the Billboard Japan charts. On the 2023 year-end Japan Hot 100 song chart, there were 64 entries by male artists, 19 by female artists, 16 by mixed groups, and one by an artist whose gender wasn’t disclosed. This ratio hasn’t changed significantly for many years. This Women in Music interview series was inspired by the question of why this is the case, when there are so many wonderful female artists like yourself in the Japanese music industry. Were you aware of this gender imbalance on the charts?

I’ve never been aware of it. Regarding gender inequality, I’ve felt that opportunities are limited for female artists at rock festivals. There’s a big hurdle there. I’ve used adversity as an impetus, believing that if I have the ability, I’ll be able to overcome it.

How do you think being a woman has affected your life?

I think there are so many changes. My values are so different from when I was 19 and just getting started, and the things I want to I cherish now and the way I use my time are completely different. I’ve changed so much more than I could have imagined when I was 19 — even the country I live in isn’t the same now. That’s why it’s probably important not to be stubborn or be fixated on things. There will times when things don’t go the way you want them to, but if you can accept that, I think it will give you strength.

If you were to give advice to yourself when you were first starting out, what would you say?

Well, in my first year, I was so busy with so many things that I didn’t know what to do and just threw myself into the work in front of me. There were lots of things I couldn’t do well, and there were times when I was so frustrated that I’d cry as soon as I got off the stage. I just had to gain experience. I’m the kind of person who practices a lot, so I tried to be fully prepared at all times and kept practicing hard.

So 15 years of doing that has led to who you are today. What do you think is necessary for women to thrive in this country’s music and entertainment industry?

In the course of a woman’s career, there will inevitably be periods when she has to take some time off, and I think it’s going to be very important to think about how to support them during those periods of absence. Looking at women’s careers in the long term, support from the people around them is key to ensuring they can continue to work without interruption.

You studied at the graduate level at Keio University’s Neurosciences and Music Laboratory and graduated in March 2023. How did your experience at graduate school affect your current activities?

I had the opportunity to talk with younger classmates, and it was such a good experience to relearn things. I was very happy to learn that efforts are being made to seriously consider music from various perspectives and try to prove it scientifically. It’s been scientifically proven that music can be effective in helping people lead happy lives, and I was able to feel the potential of music all over again. I chose to research live performances, and studied why people are moved by them. I was able to realize once again that the things I’m trying to convey are reaching the audience, and that their feelings of support and being moved by the performance also reach the artists onstage.

What would you like to try next?

The challenge is whether I can make going back and forth between Canada and Japan work. Living abroad has always been a dream of mine. This year is the 15th anniversary of my career, so I want to meet my fans in person and share some time with them.

Lastly, please give a message to women everywhere.

There are so many changes and choices in the way women live their lives, and I think it’s up to each individual to choose the path they want to take, but there may be times when people say things to you based on your age or what’s considered the norm. But I believe that the moment you can truly feel happy about having come into this world is when you believe in your own choices and live your life as you are. So let’s live together, confident about what we choose, not comparing ourselves to others and not bound by age or what’s considered the norm, believing in our own choices.

That was a really lovely message. Have you always had faith in your own choices in life?

Well, I think that when you’re in doubt, you have to trust yourself. Even if you make a mistake, if you can go, “This is the path I chose, so I’ll just correct my course,” then you can try again from there. There are many different paths in life, so if the door you open happens to not be the one, you can just look for a completely different door and go down that path.

—This interview by Rio Hirai (SOW SWEET PUBLISHING) first appeared on Billboard Japan

January 13, 2025

Billboard Italy  ·  Dance  ·  film and tv  ·  Global  ·  International  ·  Music  ·  Music News
How The Chemical Brothers’ Tom Rowlands Ended Up Scoring a Series About Benito Mussolini

The Chemical Brothers’ music has been loved by the cinema and video games since the beginning, when in 1995 “Chemical Beats” ended up in the soundtrack of the PlayStation game Wipeout. The latest such appearance is in the film Sonic the Hedgehog 3, where “Galvanize” sounds perfect in a scene with Jim Carrey dancing among laser beams. Tom Rowlands has already worked on commission for some directors such as Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan and Joe Wright for a theatrical production and for the film Hanna, in the latter case paired with Ed Simons (the other half of the Chemical Brothers).

Explore

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

But this new adventure was really a challenge. With the usual English irony Tom defined “an act of intimidation” the request of director Joe Wright to score the new Sky Original series Mussolini: Son of the Century, based on the novel M. Son of the Century by Antonio Scurati, which was recently released in Italy. The series tells the story of the birth of fascism in Italy and the rise to power of Benito Mussolini. The challenge was won, because the Chemical Brothers-style tracks perfectly amplify the emotional and sometimes tragic scenes.

Trending on Billboard

Working with Joe Wright seems to have become a regular occurrence.

True! Ed and I worked together on his film Hanna and then I composed the background music for Joe’s adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s famous play Life of Galileo, an experience I really enjoyed. I like working with Joe: I still remember him when he followed us on our first important tours, all three of us were kids… Suddenly one day he sent me M., Antonio Scurati’s book. I was hooked from the first pages, it’s a fantastic book! I studied history at university and I immediately realized that Joe’s gesture of offering me this reading was a real challenge, because M. is not only a long book but above all dense and profound. Plus, I’ve always been attracted by the history of that period.

So was it easier for you to feel involved in the project?

Yes, but I could also say that making me read M. was also a sort of intimidating act. First of all because I have never worked on a text that deals with a specific historical event, then because the rise of fascism and the figure of Mussolini are certainly not easy historical topics to deal with. Composing this soundtrack was a serious task. I was very excited at the idea of taking on a challenge so different from my previous ones, and for a project that started from such a powerful book.

The compositions you created for the series are very precise in commenting on the scenes in which they are inserted. Did you start working on the sound even before shooting?

That’s right: Joe Wright and I started talking about ideas and musical themes with just the script in hand. It was a long process of ideas, plus I was interacting with a person who is also a true friend in addition to being a great talent. I tried to give shape to his ideas, because this series is the fruit of his vision.

The soundtrack has very rhythmic sound comments – Chemical Brothers style – and not many melodies.

There are melodies! But they are a bit convoluted, they are never obvious. The main theme is all based on a precise and constant rhythm.

The theme is close to the sound of fascist marches but also takes up the ideas of futurism.

Of course, Joe and I discussed the difference and the relationship between noise and music, which was a theme dear to the futurists. I certainly would never have associated a “floral” sound movement with the advent of fascism!

You stated that part of the soundtrack was made by making old acoustic instruments interact with modern electronics.

Right. I developed a system in my studio where I can have total control of all the information I receive by making my technology interact with traditional instruments such as strings and piano. What we were describing musically was a certain past that really happened. When I met Antonio Scurati he was absolutely in agreement with this creative process, as well as the fact that for (this series) all modern electronics were used to tell not an imaginary world but historical facts, the songs often comment on words taken from real speeches by Mussolini.

The tracks are sometimes very short sound comments. Was it difficult to work on them?

Yes, that was also a real challenge. But that’s why I like working on soundtracks: it’s a very different process. I’m also intrigued by being able to comment on the change of emotions during a scene: you can easily go from a sense of calm to one of terror in a few moments, whereas in a song you often try to create only one type of emotion or feeling.

The impression is that in the second part of the series the music becomes increasingly dramatic, as the historical events do.

I tried to musically describe a very complex historical period where a leader conquers the people – part of the population also found Mussolini a funny man – and then comes to total control of the Italian state after the killing of the MP Giacomo Matteotti. I also tried to convey the director’s and writer’s vision: I hope I did it coherently with that.

What do you think of the Oasis reunion?

I’ll be honest: it’s crazy! My kids and their friends are really desperate to get a ticket because that’s a generation that has never seen the Gallagher brothers on stage together. I’ve known Liam and Noel for years, I’ve been to their concerts many times and it’s always been great to be there, but this time the level of hysteria reached to get a ticket here in Great Britain is truly incredible. Speaking of people from Manchester, my kids would love to see The Smiths reunite too!

Which Oasis albums do you like the most?

Whatever age you are, even just 17, Definitely Maybe is still an incredible album: listening to it is as if the songs were speaking directly to you. I’m sure that this effect is triggered also in the new generations. But the second album is not bad either. They are their two masterpieces.

Will we hear new Chemical Brothers music anytime soon?

It’s too early. Ed and I have to take our time, as always. When we release music, we want to make sure it’s music we really love! We’ve never limited ourselves to putting out productions just for the sake of it. And that’s still true today.

January 13, 2025