How can we estimate a visual kei band's popularity?

[inartistic 1151]

Hi all! Two questions, inspired by a chat with @cvltic.

 

---

 

First: for visual bands, which statistics indicate popularity? Obvious ones are “ticket sales × release sales,” but what else matters?
 

• Capacity of livehouses at which they play?
• Capacity of livehouses at which they hold oneman lives?
• Number of sponsored/oneman lives held?
• Number of CDs released?
• Number of tanuki threads?
• Price of releases at second-hand stores?
• Length of activity period?
• etc.

 

---

 

Second: without raw sales data, how can we approximate popularity?

 

We don't have ticket/release sales, but we do have lots of other data, via visual kei library vkgy available on iTunes. My hope is to compile/weight that data and automatically assign a rank to each band (as we overseas fans are notoriously bad at judging actual popularity). Here's what I have so far:
 

• Average capacity of livehouses at which the band plays. (Could be improved by weighting sponsored events/oneman lives, but how?)
• Number of releases (excluding free releases?).
• Number of releases which vkgy users own. (Anyone with a vkgy account can add releases to their collection to make this stat more accurate!)
• Number of releases which vkgy users want.

 

Average livehouse capacity is already pretty promising (see Syndrome vs Cell no.7 vs ARLEQUIN), and will become more accurate as more data is added (let me know if you'd like to contribute). But I think those other statistics could be useful if weighted properly; I'm just not sure how to do it yet. Before I make some monstrous algorithm that magically gives all of KISAKI's bands an S rank, I'd love to get some input from you guys!

 

[Cantavanda 141]

They way the CDs are made tell a lot about their budget. When a band is low budget ATM they use a thin CD case, or one with not much prints, or a small booklet, or a 8cm, when they have a budget at the moment, it's a thicc well made CD with sometimes a DVD extra.

[chemicalpictures 1888]

I think oneman tours and the size of the tour final livehouse says a lot about how the band is gauging their size. I'd say any band playing on 1000~1500 capacity livehouses on their tour final is pretty much sucessful nowadays, which means they can sustain band actitivies without the need of a part time job.

 

But that is definitely the soft cap of a band grow. to break this barrier is WAAAAAY harder, would need some kind of mainstream breakthrough, or at least employ some alternative tactics to earn a bigger following

[madygrain 515]

What I do is take their CD releases and see how the stack up against their venue capacity and how large their tours are. But this is hard due to the reliance of VK on very small CD prints.

[karai · ebi 505]

When you're on a completely non music / vkei related youtube video and see people in the comments with the band as an avatar / name.

[BrenGun 2261]

What's overseas popular doesn't mean it's popular in Japan. 

Also sometimes bands throw out CD releases even if they are not that popular. 

Same goes for appearing in venues. Some bandman have pretty good connections or just a bag full of money. 

 

I doubt it's pretty much not really possible to know a band popularity. 

Unless you know how many people always attent a bands live. 

 

 

 livehouse capacity is a thing but only for one-man gigs.

2-man 3-man gigs.. well maybe the other band is more popular.

And then still... how many people went? was it full? half full? even more less?

 

 

 

I think it's pretty hard to know for us fans if a band is really that popular. 

 

But as for your website, you can check out how many people own or want a CD. 

However also not ever user on your website keeps up the list of owned and wishing CD's....

 

 

 

[Takadanobabaalien 3607]

57 minutes ago, Shadowtear said:

We can just ask Rob, since hes an expert on band information.

(if its accurate is another question)

every band that ever played at ikebukuro cyber was criminally underrated FYI 😩😩😤😤😤

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

You forgot to mention you can measure by how many Twitter handles are based off of a song title.

 

@tsumiToBatsu69

Edited July 1, 2018 by Peace Heavy mk II

[colorful人生 2777]

Length of tanuki threads about the length of their p-

 

Also, how many "Come to Brasil" comments there are on YT.

Edited July 1, 2018 by colorfuljinsei

[filth_y 189]

Interesting topic! Your ideas seem good for old/disbanded bands i guess since its otherwise really difficult to determine how their popularity was. 

 

______________________

For active bands i think its what BrenGun wrote:

2 hours ago, BrenGun said:

What's overseas popular doesn't mean it's popular in Japan. 

Also sometimes bands throw out CD releases even if they are not that popular. 

Same goes for appearing in venues. Some bandman have pretty good connections or just a bag full of money. 

 

I doubt it's pretty much not really possible to know a band popularity. 

Unless you know how many people always attent a bands live. 

 

 

 livehouse capacity is a thing but only for one-man gigs.

2-man 3-man gigs.. well maybe the other band is more popular.

And then still... how many people went? was it full? half full? even more less?

 

And since you wrote

 

6 hours ago, inartistic said:

[...]as we overseas fans are notoriously bad at judging actual popularity[...]

for me results in

6 hours ago, inartistic said:

• Number of releases which vkgy users own. (Anyone with a vkgy account can add releases to their collection to make this stat more accurate!)
• Number of releases which vkgy users want.

 

From my experience going to lives:

Capacity of livehouses at which they play? Difficult as described by BrenGun

Capacity of livehouses at which they hold oneman lives? Difficult as described by BrenGun; If a band does "free" oneman its also a very bad sign IMO

Number of sponsored/oneman lives held? No

Number of CDs released? Definitly no; budget =/= popularity

>Number of tanuki threads?< If positively, lol

>Price of releases at second-hand stores?< If the band is still active (i often see massive price dumpings the second disband is announced/foreshadowed)

Length of activity period? E.g. DANGER☆GANG is active, idk 15 years? When i saw them at an event they had 2 fans that seemed to be their kids or something playing infront of the stage.

Adding:

- Articles in visual kei related magazines (the vocalist of kuroyuritokage once explained at a oneman i went how he noticed their popularity decreased (beside obvious smaller audiences -> and therefore smaller livehouses (here is a pro argument for the live house discussion, lol)) that magazines stopped to feature them).

 

The biggest problem: I often feel its also not a band that is famous but a member of a certain band. You can see this when whatever i thought noname session has the venue filled cause the girls love member xyz and some what i thought would be big bands had everyone leaving. You can easily find out by looking at the number of twitter followers a certain band member has and compare it to the other members of the same band.

 

__

I somehow was reminded of Saki's XII-Destructive Agent of JAP reading this thread  With faked/photoshopped audience pictures, randomly calling themselves major, etc. you cant believe what you read online and need to see yourself.

[platy 3018]

How many fangirls are in the comments dying over how sexy they are is a good indicator.

[Duwang 676]

Livehouse capacity for onemans can be a good indicator of a band's popularity at times, especially if the band consistently plays at larger venues, but some bands also play at venues they can't fill just because they can whether it's due to connections, the guys having money, having fans who give them a lot of money, or whatever. Some popular bands also like playing smaller venues because of the intimate atmosphere.

Also keep in mind that bands of all sizes play at AREA because it's a famous/popular vk venue. 
 

Number of tanuki threads is irrelevant. Sometimes bands have a lot of net gya who constantly like to shit on girls who go to lives, sometimes there's a lot of drama surrounding the members. XAA-XAA has had 95 tanuki threads in 3 1/2 years but they still have onemans at venues with a 200 person [or less] cap both in Osaka (where they started) and in Tokyo (where they're based now).
 

Being featured in magazines, it really depends, but many times it's really a matter of having a good label/management. XAA-XAA and Grimoire are not very popular but get featured in a lot of magazines because they're signed to Timely Records which is connected to little Hearts.
 

I remember seeing a similar thread or some posts on here regarding Youtube views and popularity but that's also not a good way to judge. DIMLIM's PV for vanitas has had over 71K views on Youtube in just 4 weeks (which is really good for a vk band) but I saw them again at EDGE on Friday and there were only maybe 15 people there for them (out of a crowd of maybe 40 people total)
 

Tbh the only way to know for sure how popular a band is is to go see them or ask someone who has seen them before.

Edited July 2, 2018 by Duwang

[Takadanobabaalien 3607]

You can't really take gigs / venues and judge their popularity unforutunately. I think you need to either see them live or see live clips, a good example of this is Gossip. You would assume that a band that has a 109 stop nation wide tour, a fanclub and a one man at Blitz would be very popular but they're not as big as they come off. 

[マジゲイ誤算 127]

I was an obessive fan of a ドマイナー band, that regularly had less than 10 people seeing them(sometimes there would be less depending on the live day), and they released really nice jewel cased CDs and booklets. They played cyber a lot and their chekis were 200yen a piece. 

[cvltic 1482]

most of the non-meme replies here are right that there's no way to know for certain, but i still feel like if you're forced to approximate, capacity of oneman venues seems like the only usable metric. perhaps consistency, as in the number of times a larger (1000+ cap) venue is used could help to counter the trend to race toward the biggest venue regardless of whether or not you can put bodies in it -- as i assume that's not doable on a continual basis. alternatively you could try to track if they're "backsliding" (e.g. if they go from Nagoya Bottom Line in tour A up to the bigger Nagoya Diamond Hall for tour B, but then go back to Bottom Line for tours C, D, E)? but sometimes it's just as simple as the venue not being available.

i feel like it has to be done in a more methodical way than just "biggest ever venue" but i can't really wrap my brain around it.

this is just a hunch, but ticket price might also be a hint when it comes to trying to further divvy up bands, at least at the very top levels? spoilered for being long and boring
 

Spoiler

 

i have no idea how to measure it in a meaningful way & obviously label/ticketing service factors in, it's just something i thought of when i looked at the prices for bands bandied about as the top right now when i was wondering about the question of how to compare say, multiple bands who've reached Budokan or something similar.
Golden Bomber: 7,560
Gazette/SID: 6,800

Dir: 6,500

lynch.: 4,860 - 5,400
Nocturnal Bloodlust: 5,000
R Shitei.: 4,860
BugLug/A9: 4,800
vistlip/Arlequin/Kiryu: 4,500
Dog in the PWO: 4,000

but: 1) even the most irrelevant band capable of a oneman sells tickets between 3000-4000y, so going 200-800y above this doesn't really mean that much and could be as simple as ticketing service choice/just feeling cheeky
2) obviously this doesn't always work... see: gibkiy3 - 5,000 (don't try to tell me gibkiy are actually super popular, i've seen them enough to know they have a small but dedicated fanbase ala emmuree)
3) it gets weirder with legendary bands who can basically charge out the ass (LUNA SEA - 9,800; L'arc - 10,000)
4) christ knows how to apply this to to old/dead bands

so i think it's really only useful if a band moves into the 6000+ yen class, and/or maybe the 4800+ yen class.

 

 

Edited July 2, 2018 by cvltic

[nick 10212]

Download count on MEGA, MediaFire, and etc.

[cvltic 1482]

3 minutes ago, nostalgia said:

Download count on MEGA, MediaFire, and etc.

unironically the best way to measure a band's popularity overseas imo...
i guess it's important to distinguish between popularity overseas/domestic success for this conversation

[Masato 365]

Well, most bands are just so unpopular.... 

 

Do they make it to festivals? Which time/stage do they play at? What is the size of that stage?

 

That is at least a good japanese approximation of popularity. At least it felt like that at Cure World Festival and Kansai Rock Summit.

[Zeus 7997]

On 7/1/2018 at 10:14 AM, inartistic said:

• Average capacity of livehouses at which the band plays. (Could be improved by weighting sponsored events/oneman lives, but how?)

 

How would you be able to determine the amount of fans who showed up to see that particular band and not one of the other head lining bands?

 

On 7/1/2018 at 10:14 AM, inartistic said:

• Number of releases (excluding free releases?).

 

Any band can pump out releases, but popular bands would tend to sell more. If it's a limited release, you could try to figure out if the band sold out of all of the copies they pressed. If they end up pressing second or third editions that's a good sign.

 

On 7/1/2018 at 10:14 AM, inartistic said:

• Number of releases which vkgy users own. (Anyone with a vkgy account can add releases to their collection to make this stat more accurate!)
• Number of releases which vkgy users want.

That would be introducing bias into your data set because it would be restricted to vkgy users, which may not encapsulate the scene as it stands in Japan.

[violetchain 912]

On 7/1/2018 at 9:33 PM, Duwang said:

I remember seeing a similar thread or some posts on here regarding Youtube views and popularity but that's also not a good way to judge. DIMLIM's PV for vanitas has had over 71K views on Youtube in just 4 weeks (which is really good for a vk band) but I saw them again at EDGE on Friday and there were only maybe 15 people there for them (out of a crowd of maybe 40 people total)

Yeah, Youtube views are definitely not a good gauge of popularity. I remember seeing one video from a band I follow that had way more views than the others they made (they usually average ~10K, and this one had about 120K) and being like "Oh, they must be getting more popular", but then I saw a post from the director (he was blogging about music marketing) saying that they paid for a Youtube ad for that one.

 

A lot of the comments from the period when it was running as an ad are just variations of "I came from an ad, but this is cool" or things like "This is the first time I've watched an ad to the end" in Japanese, so I wonder sometimes if it's even actual people posting or if Youtube has just set up generic automated responses from fake accounts so people feel like they're getting their money's worth when they pay for ads...

[Seelentau 884]

If they have been compared to or called the next Dir en grey, obviously.

 

:]

[Takadanobabaalien 3607]

18 hours ago, Seelentau said:

If they have been compared to or called the next Dir en grey, obviously.

 

:]

 

 

 

Edited July 8, 2018 by Takadanobabaalien

[inartistic 1151]

Thanks for the interesting responses!

 

It really does seem like the only "foolproof" way to know is to ask people who attended lives of each band, which is obviously not possible on a large scale. But for now, I think I'll keep the "venue size over time" charts on artist pages, as it's an interesting metric to look at nonetheless.

 

Incidentally, the idea of tracking downloads to gauge foreign popularity is brilliant. MH needs to implement this, stat

[Zeus 7997]

9 hours ago, inartistic said:

Thanks for the interesting responses!

 

It really does seem like the only "foolproof" way to know is to ask people who attended lives of each band, which is obviously not possible on a large scale. But for now, I think I'll keep the "venue size over time" charts on artist pages, as it's an interesting metric to look at nonetheless.

 

Incidentally, the idea of tracking downloads to gauge foreign popularity is brilliant. MH needs to implement this, stat

If you want an approximate count for that, look for how many views a release has.