MUSIC AWARDS JAPAN’s Top Global Hit From Japan Entries Show Characteristics of Japan’s Music Popular Overseas

The inaugural MUSIC AWARDS JAPAN ceremony, the largest music awards in the country, is set to take place in May in Kyoto. Embodying the theme of “Connecting the world, illuminating the future of music,” the new international music awards is hosted by the Japan Culture and Entertainment Industry Promotion Association (CEIPA), an association jointly established by five major organizations in the Japanese music industry.

This year’s MAJ will recognize works and artists in more than 60 categories, including the six major awards for Song of the Year, Artist of the Year and more, which have gained significant attention and recognition from Jan. 29, 2024 to Jan. 26, 2025. The entries for each category were announced last month and the nominees will be revealed on Thursday, Apr. 17.

The second installment of Billboard Japan’s series breaking down the trends and characteristics of MAJ will focus on the entries in the Top Global Hit From Japan (GLOBAL) category, one of the awards’ six major categories that recognizes Japanese music popular outside of the country. We’ll explore the characteristics of domestic music being listened to overseas by comparing them against the 256 songs up for the coveted Song of the Year (SOTY) award.

Analysis of the Songs’ Properties

Genre-wise, GLOBAL has 9% less rock songs and 1% less hip-hop/rap compared to SOTY. Meanwhile, alternative tracks comprise 6% of the former while the latter has none. Alternative in this case includes instrumental tracks such as DJ HASEBE’s “The Lazy Song.” GLOBAL includes entries from anime and movie soundtracks and easy listening-type music, which can be said to be a feature of the category.

Next, there are three songs using Vocaloid software in GLOBAL and two in SOTY. Notably, the two entries in SOTY (Yoshida Yasei’s “Override” and Hiiragi Magnetite’s “Tetris”) and the three in GLOBAL (siinamota’s “Young Girl A,” DECO*27’s “Rabbit Hole” and Satsuki’s “Mesmerizer”) are all different. As interest in Vocaloid music grows around the world, older songs like “Young Girl A” from 2013 are being rediscovered outside Japan. Billboard Japan will focus on Vocaloid music in the fourth installment of this series.

When looking at artists by type, the proportion of singers who don’t compose their own music is 28% in GLOBAL, which is much lower than in SOTY (more than 40%). But there are more singer-songwriters in the former (27%), nearly a third of all entries, as compared to 18% in the latter. While mainstream singer-songwriters like Kenshi Yonezu and Fujii Kaze have multiple entries, young artists who have gained popularity on short video platforms, like Yuika and Ayumu Imazu, also have entries on the GLOBAL list. This category seems to be slightly more oriented towards tracks by artists who write and perform their own works.

The artists categorized under producers are the so-called “Vocalo-Ps” (Vocaloid producers) such as Satsuki and DECO*27. Also, tracks by composers of film scores, such as Joe Hisaishi and Hiroyuki Sawano, have entered the GLOBAL list as well. The entries show that a wide range of music from Japan is popular all over the world.

The proportions of tie-ins are 65% for GLOBAL and 57% for SOTY, so the popularity of songs on the former list is more influenced by their connections to other works. In particular, anime accounts for 45% of the tie-ins on GLOBAL. 38% of the songs tied to anime shows were released before 2020, such as Ikimonogakari’s “Bluebird” (opening theme of the TV anime series Naruto Shippuden, released in 2008), TK from Ling tosite sigure’s “unravel” (Tokyo Ghoul opener, released in 2014) and more, indicating the enduring popularity of old anime numbers.

Meanwhile, of the 15 entries on GLOBAL that were released in 2024, seven weren’t tie-ins. This shows that the influence of tie-ins on new releases is relatively small. Songs that weren’t tied to other works include those that became popular on short video platforms like Kocchi no Kento’s “Hai Yorokonde,” and songs by XG and Vocaloid tracks.

The graph above shows the average streaming shares in Japan and overseas for the entries in GLOBAL, according to Luminate. (In addition to Luminate’s data, Tencent Music Entertainment Group provided data from China for the selection of songs in the Top Global Hit from Japan category). The overseas streaming share for GLOBAL is 60%, so the songs are being listened to more outside of Japan. For example, two songs by Lamp, “Yume Utsutsu” and “Hatachi no Koi,” are on the list, and the overseas streaming shares for both are over 98%.

Looking at the shares of countries/regions other than Japan on the GLOBAL list, according to Luminate, the U.S. is in first place with 18.4%. Asian countries follow suit, with South Korea coming in second (11.9%), then Indonesia (7.0%), Taiwan (6.9%), and Thailand (5.3%). Latin American countries including Mexico (4.9%) and Brazil (3.9%) are also in the top 10. The top three countries/regions with the highest number of streams per capita are Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea, and can be presumed that Japanese music has established itself as a genre in East Asia.

In terms of the ratio of songs by year of release, 67% are from the 2020s, but there is also a certain number of older songs released before the 2010s. Considering that 89% of the songs in SOTY are from the 2020s, the ratio of older songs is relatively high in GLOBAL. Apparently, interest in new Japanese music from a global standpoint is still limited to a few artists and genres.

The gender ratio in GLOBAL is 44% male artists and 31% female artists. The proportion of male artists is 17% less compared to SOTY, while the proportion of female artists is only slightly more, by 1%. Notably, the proportion of mixed acts is 23% in GLOBAL and 9% in SOTY, more than twice the latter. GLOBAL has multiple entries by mixed acts such as YOASOBI and Yorushika, as well as by mixed-gender collaborations such as Lotus Juice/Azumi Takahashi and MAN WITH A MISSION x milet.

The percentage of female vocalists, including those in mixed and collaborative groups, was 54% in GLOBAL and 36% in SOTY. The higher presence of female artists also coincides with the current trend where the global success of women such as Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, and Sabrina Carpenter is resonating with a wider range of listeners.

While trends in music being supported in Japan and elsewhere differ, they’re based on the diversity and uniqueness of Japanese music. We’ll be witnessing how this multifaceted music scene is reflected and how it leads to the future at the awards ceremony in May.