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And that's why we miss out on some of the world's biggest stars. Sophie Heawood reports
Friday April 21, 2006
The Guardian
Light's on but no one's listening ... Juanes
Fathers are smiling, mothers are wide-eyed, children are running around excitedly. Girls are screaming in disbelief that their hero is here, in front of them. The object of their obsession at this gig in San Jose, California, is the multimillion selling pop star Juanes. The object of their obsession last month sold out a one-off gig at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire in an hour, and has won 12 Latin Grammies - but the chances are you have never heard of him.
A long-haired heart-throb, Juan Esteban, aka Juanes, mixes uptempo pop with traditional Latin rhythms and a dash of rock. It has made him the biggest-selling artist in Latin America - outstripping even Shakira, his fellow Colombian. Catchy, amenable, and political, he's more than a poster boy - several of his songs depart from love and heartbreak to address the drug wars and landmine nightmares of Colombia. Nor is his success limited to Spanish-speaking countries - his smash hit La Camisa Negra reached No 1 in seven European nations.
He's now trying to extend his popularity to the UK, with his album Mi Sangre (My Blood). His label, Polydor, has big plans for him, convinced our sceptical island is ready to welcome him as our continental neighbours have. But there's one thing Polydor seems to have forgotten - the British don't buy records not sung in English. Unlike Shakira or Ricky Martin, who prepare different albums for different markets, Juanes isn't prepared to compromise. He speaks fluent English, but as he explains the day after his concert: "I write those songs from my heart, in Spanish, and I just don't feel the same way when I sing in English. If it's not from my heart then it's not my music - and I don't want that, not for all the success in the world."
All very commendable - but will a major label allow him to stick to such sentimental guns? Apparently so. As Dr Eamonn Forde of the music marketing agency Frukt says: "Every few years the majors look for a crossover artist to bring across from one of their emerging markets. They use their regional offices, such as Latin America, as a talent base to identify them - but the success rate is pretty slim." Indeed, with only 15% of UK record sales going to acts from outside the UK or US, the window is barely open at all. William Luff, senior press officer at EMI, puts this down to the strength of Anglophone pop as much as our notoriously insular attitude. "In France you have the 40% domestic output rule [40% of radio stations' output has to be in French] - over here you don't need that because the domestic output is so strong," he says. "And the traditional language of rock'n'roll has been English - so to our lazy ears, pop music should be sung in English."
Of course, there have been foreign-language hits here. Joe le Taxi by Vanessa Paradis springs to mind. But when Spanish rears its head it's generally a bit of a joke - Geri Halliwell's Mi Chico Latino, or The Ketchup Song, the novelty summer hit that wasn't even sung in Spanish, just Spanish-sounding noises. Even Julio Iglesias has had to record English versions of his songs to find commercial success in this country.
The idea that Britons are, at heart, not interested in foreign pop is echoed by Daniel Robson, a British music journalist based in Japan, who says that most million-selling Japanese pop would sound wrong in the UK. "J-pop tends to use compressed guitars and a kind of electronic production that sounds old hat to the English." Japan, the world's second largest music market after the US, is dominated by homegrown acts. Utada Hikaru, at one point Japan's top-selling artist, worked with American producers Timbaland and the Neptunes to gear her up for a western market, but her album still flopped on both sides of the Atlantic. "It's a shame for Britain, because it means other artists who might have gone down better now won't try, but it doesn't really bother them," explains Robson. "People in Japan love and revere British music - go to any karaoke bar and you'll find Blur, Shampoo, even Monty Python songs. But in terms of needing British approval of their music - they're not prepared to bust a gut for one small country."
It's Japan's punk and indie bands, says Robson, that find more common ground in the UK than pop singers. Acts like Polysics, Bo Peep and My Puppy Pet, who aspire to an English sound, are beginning to make headway in the UK. "They would love to be pop in England because they love British music and aspire to the punk heritage."
Hikaru's success in Japan is now being eclipsed by Ayumi Hamasaki, who has released 40 singles in eight years, 26 of which went to No 1. She's not what you might expect from a Japanese star: with her upfront nature, lavish fur coats and tales of childhood neglect, there's a hint of Mary J Blige about her. Like Madonna, she reinvents her image, finding a new hair colour and a new product endorsement for each song. She sells in Madonna-sized quantities, too - around 50m records in eight years.
In Hong Kong, the Cantopop industry that arose out of saccharine TV and film theme songs is still booming, although piracy means the major labels cannot lavish money on their stars as they once did. Indeed, as a sign of its growing economy, much of the new talent is now being nurtured in Taiwan. Jay Chow is the leading exponent: a classically trained 28-year-old who has wowed his fans by claiming not to wear underwear. Chow won more than 20 Chinese music awards in 2005 alone and is the star of MTV, along with the girl band SHE (China's answer to Sugababes) and the female Twins. Chow's R&B-influenced sounds are more accessible to the western ear than most Cantopop. He happily recites the mantra that music is "a universal language that transcends all barriers" - just as well, as his song titles translate as Hair Like Snow and Romantic Mobile Phone.
But breaking the European market is usually seen as a step too far for Asian artists. Even in Russia, where Tatu were successful exports, it's accepted that their 19-year-old peer Glukoza will not make it in the UK. Tatu were an anomaly - whose teenage lesbian chic and English lyrics played to the gallery. Glukoza ("Sugar"), who outsells them at home and who won the 2003 MTV music award for best Russian act, may be equally young and even more glamorous, but she sings in a nasal Russian, and fills her videos with political animations and pig noises. That doesn't save the Muscovite from British levels of tabloid-style scrutiny though. Is she dating, ask the Russian press. Is she pregnant, they wonder aloud. And, most importantly of all, has she enlarged her breasts "to look like Marilyn Monroe"? Boys, babies and boobs. Some things in music are the same in any language.
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