more info needed re her "Japanese Grammy"

[stevemacdonald]

Hi y'all,

I read that Hayley won two Japanese Grammy awards for Amazing Grace and Pure .. see: www.superiorpics.com/hayley_westenra/

I don't recall seeing any pictures or reports on this but it does seem like a pretty big deal. Does anyone here have more information?

Thanks,
Steve

[milewalker]

Now that you mention it Steve, I have wondered to some extent about this as well. I am guessing that it is less of a deal than it seems, or it would be featured more prominently in her promotional material.

Jon

[Dave]

Hi Steve and Jon,

It is a big deal, it's as prestigious in Japan as the Grammys are in the US. I haven't heard of it referred to as the Japanese Grammys before but of course, that's exactly what it is! It's sometimes mentioned in Decca (or Universal Japan) press releases, usually as the Japan Gold Disc awards 2004, when Pure won International Album of the Year and Amazing Grace won International Song of the Year.

However... Decca seem to consider more important the fact that in the same year, 2004, Pure became the "highest selling classical album" ever in Japan so they tend to quote that more often. I am not sure if that record includes or excludes domestic Japanese albums.

I was certain this had been dioscussed in the forum at the time as i remember reading about it in late March 2004 on an official Japanese website RIAJ www.riaj.or.jp/e/data/gdisc/2004.html but at the moment I cannot find the discussion in spite of several searches.

There is a brief article about it on the HWI website here

Hayley Westenra Wins Japanese Music Awards

The Japan Gold Disc Awards were held at Tokyo's NHK Hall 10 and 18 March. New Zealand teenage singer, Hayley Westenra, was announced as the winner of two major awards. She won "Song Of The Year" for her single "Amazing Grace", which has been the theme song of one of Japan's most popular TV dramas. The second award was "Album Of The Year" for her album "Pure".

What it doesn't say is that Pure sold nearly 100,000 copies in Japan and Amazing grace sold well over 100,000 copies, the latter especially is a staggeringly high figure for a foreign single to sell and the Japanese have never forgotten it (and Hayley keeps going back so she ain't going to let them forget!) i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

So there you go, thanks Steve, it's about time we had a thread about it. If we can't find the original discussion, I think I'll rename this one Japan Gold Disc Awards 2004 (Grammys) in a few days time.

Cheers, Dave

[milewalker]

Hi Dave,

Your clarification of the awards makes it make a bit more sense. You are calling it the "International Album of the Year" for example, when every reference I have seen (and there have been three or perhaps four) have all omitted the word "International". That makes a difference because it makes it a "lower case" grammy so to speak.

What confused me before was simply that in every case I can think of, the winner of the real "Album of the Year" Grammy in the US is also a major selling release.

Jon

[Dave]

Hi Jon,

Yes Pure was International (non-Japanese) Classical Album of the Year but Amazing Grace beat all the foreign singles of all genres, so that one is a bigger deal, obviously. Record Companies (or the press) do tend to miss out important words from their press releases and it's a continuing source of annoyance for me..

Foreign CDs don't beat Japanese domestic CDs at anything, so being the "best of the rest" is admired and remembered in Japan.

Cheers, Dave

PS I've corrected my original post of this message.

[milewalker]

Hi Dave,

I am getting a "page not found" when I click on the link you posted above.

In any event, if that quote you posted is from an official source, it is more than merely annoying in my opinion - it borders on intentional disinformation. I am not trying to demean the accomplishment - and certainly selling 100,000 of a single in any market is impressive enough in its own right- but this being said, these would not be considered "major" awards in the US, and both qualifiers, International and Classical, have been left out of the description.

Overstating this only slightly for effect, one might also make the claim that Hayley is the largest selling female soloist in the world (in Tehran)

The accomplishments stand on their own right. But when you try to make them sound better than they are, I personally tend to dismiss them like a politician's campaign promise. In the end, in my opinion at least, that sort of press only tends to lessen the impact of what Hayley actually has accomplished

If I were in a restaurant, and I ordered beef tenderloin from the menu and actually got roast beef, my reaction would be something like "is that all there is?". There is nothing wrong with roast beef - the disppointment only sets in when it is depicted as something it is not.

Jon

[Dave]

Hi Jon,

Yes but these awards are significant in Japan and they help to explain Hayley's continuing presence in that market and why every one of her full albums and singles has charted there (with two albums in their top 200 last week). These are their main charts, not the 'International' versions; Japan is an important part of Hayley's International career (it's 3rd I think, in record sales). Just saying that Hayley "won two Japan Gold Disc Awards" is enough to get the attention of the man in the street, I hear. A bit like "she won two Grammys!" How many ordinary record buyers and concert goers are going to ask: "yeah yeah but which Grammys?"

I've fixed that broken link now - it's the old Proboards forum problem with long links (oops I should have tested it first). However, here is the direct link to the original story - see halfway down the page, so it's a "press report" not an official release.

I won't single out Decca for spinning their press releases as they sometimes do - making it easy for the media to misinterpret and misreport the details - because all major Record Companies do it, as I am sure you know. It just means that when reportting these stories, we have to look behind the spin and eke out the truth.

They don't always do it deliberately either, some of it is just sloppy research. I know this because I wrote to Bedlam Management and Decca records a couple of years (and had acknowledgements) pointing out an error in all the Decca reports of Hayley's NZ chart records. They were saying "Pure" topped the NZ album chart for 18 weeks. It was 19 weeks and I know that for a fact - subsequently it's been confirmed in the official NZ Charts book. Decca are wrong but they still say 18 weeks in press releases (including the official Treasure fact file) and concert flyers etc.

As Droopy would say: "You know what? That makes me mad!"

Cheers, Dave