Hopes are High for Record-Breaking BE:FIRST as They Release Their First Album ‘BE:1’

Katie Atkinson
·6 min read

2022 has breathed new life and vigor into the music business, both in Japan and overseas. It might even be safe to say that it’s racing faster than ever.

New platforms for listening to music, such as on-demand streaming, TikTok and YouTube, are even more popular than they were before the pandemic. In the Japanese music industry, there has been a stream of digital hits on different platforms, created using a wide range of methods. This approach has become mainstream, and it feels like it’s become a fixture of the industry.

More from Billboard

Digital hits aren’t the only successes. The world is also buzzing with talk of new records and milestones being achieved by conventional artists. Some readers may still think of music industry records as easy-to-grasp “hit” records, such as taking first place on the charts or being No. 1 in term of plays. Of course, there’s still plenty of news about these kinds of figures, which are generally accepted by the general public and which the music industry has always kept a close eye on. Reports of new sales, plays and chart records are common. Even this year, the global market has seen new streaming records and album sales records being broken by global artists that are also well-known in Japan, such as Ed Sheeran‘s = (“Equals”), Adele‘s 30, Beyoncé‘s Renaissance and The Weeknd‘s Dawn FM.

However, it feels like in the modern music scene, these kinds of records are being interpreted in more diverse ways. Of particular note is how people are interpreting milestones that indicate artists’ growth. In the past, the music industry was quite content with the creation of short-lived hits. However, they now need to take a longer-term view of digital hits. There’s a rising tide of evaluating artists not simply by their first week sales or plays, but by looking at their growth.

Thus, the focus of this article is the new generation of artists who are constantly hitting new milestones and breaking new records.

In Japan, BE:FIRST is emblematic of this shift. Their debut song, “Gifted.,” took the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 songs chart and have ranked in first place on 40 different music charts, a rarity for a new artist. They’ve shown no signs of slowing in 2022. On the contrary, they’ve grown even further.

In the short year since their debut, BE:FIRST has been a regular on the charts. Expectations are high for their first album, BE:1, which is scheduled for release on Aug. 31. “Scream,” one of the first singles from the album (available for streaming since July 25) hit No. 1 on the Japan Hot 100, with its music video also nabbing the top spot on YouTube’s Trending chart.

At the same time, they also have hit songs that are maintaining sustained momentum and they’re engaging in activities as artists that demonstrate steady growth over time. Their single “Bye-Good-Bye,” which has been available for streaming since March 7, is becoming a particularly long-lasting hit for the group. Its music video generated buzz for hitting 1 million views in just 12 days following the video’s release, but even now, five months after the song’s release, it’s stayed on the Japan Hot 100 for 23 consecutive weeks. It also helped the group break another record: 100 million global views. On the Apple Music Top 100: Japan weekly song ranking chart, “Bye-Good-Bye” came in 22nd place (for the week of March 7-13), and it took fourth place in Shazam’s Japan Top 200 chart, breaking new record after new record. This shows how the song’s popularity has spread through other platforms as well.

In June, BE:FIRST announced that their YouTube channel had hit 200 million views. Official YouTube channels are seen as the perfect place for building a foundation from the very first days of a group’s career, preparing the way for their future popularity. BE:FIRST hasn’t used its channel just to post music videos, but also to post videos of their dance practice, YouTube shorts, and more. The videos they upload provide a glimpse of a different side of BE:FIRST’s members than can be seen in their music videos, with their focus on fashion and energetic choreography. Thanks to the ripple effects of their videos and their continuous release of new content, they achieved a new milestone: 200 million total views.

Let’s take a step back and look at this record in the context of Japan’s music scene. According to Chartmetric, a dedicated data tool used for analyzing video streaming, music streaming, and artist social media accounts, looking at Japanese artists with no prior track records who debuted in the past 12 months, BE:FIRST is number one in both total YouTube channel views and new channel subscribers. In January 2022, their channel had a total of 85.3 million views. That means that the number of views rose by almost 150 million in just eight months. While the influence of their long-lived hit “Bye-Good-Bye” can’t be denied, their YouTube-focused video strategy seems to be the key to BE:FIRST’s growth strategy.

Even outside Japan, it’s rare to see a recently debuted artist that reaches 200 million YouTube views. This record is a major accomplishment even on the global scale. Special note should be made of Korea-based Kep1er, which recently debuted with “WA DA DA,” which has reached 100 million plays on both YouTube and Spotify. They’re exploding onto the scene, with their YouTube channel already having surpassed 400 million views.

When it comes to records, we can’t forget that BE:FIRST has played at all three of Japan’s major festivals — Fuji Rock, the Rock in Japan Festival, and Summer Sonic — within a year of their debut. At Fuji Rock, they made a guest appearance with British DJ and producer Jonas Blue, performing their collaboration “Don’t Wake Me Up feat. BE:FIRST.” You may remember “#JonasBlue” taking the number one place in the “Trending in Japan” ranking. For a freshly debuted artist to appear at all three of Japan’s main music festivals is almost unheard of, so BE:FIRST’s achievement is sure to bring a breath of fresh air to the post-COVID Japanese festival circuit, both for artists and promoters.

The music industry, and the rest of society, will continue to judge hits based on different platforms’ charts. People will keep making hits, from local hits to border-crossing international hits and global hits that span the globe. At the same time, the different indices used to identify artist growth are going to become more widespread. The most prominent examples are K-POP artists, but there are signs that this trend is going worldwide, as can be seen in the record growth being enjoyed by new artists in genres such as Latin music and Afropop. Many people may see the future of music as being in artists that are active in music scenes that have been off of the music industry radar in the past, sharing their growth milestones with their many fans.

–This article by Jay Kogami first appeared on Billboard Japan

Click here to read the full article.