The Sad Truth About Singaporeans Supporting Asian Artistes

We are a sad lot, that's what we are... as most of my friends would know, I move on from one obsession to the next in a matter of weeks/months... generally, it revolves around the same few items, but I seldom obsess about more than one item at the same time. So.. it is generally these few:

1. Reading Fantasies.. this goes on for weeks until I complete almost all that the author has along the same theme (you know, magical lands, knights, sorcerers, saving the world, etc)
2. Reading Manga.. if I start on one that is good, I end up collecting all, and will just obsessively read until I am done with the entire series, then I will start the hunt for the next good series until my next phase comes along
3. Watching Anime.. closely linked to the above obviously... I have loved cartoons since young and till now, I continue to watch them... and the occasional Scooby Doo and Tom&Jerry...
4. Watching Drama Serials.. and I am easy on this. Generally Asian, Taiwanese, Hong Kong TVB, Korean sob stories, Japanese cool flicks.. you name it, I have probably watched it. 
5. Following Asian Pop Idols.. admittedly, slightly less although music is a huge part of my life. Sometime back, wayyy back, I had the "Gackt" craze... Japanese dude who is cool as cucumber. And recently, it's the korean wave that's got me busy.. Shinee, 2PM, Super Junior... many many... 

And since my craze only started recently, I obviously have nobody to go to the Shinee concert with.. although I am contemplating the 2PM concert, since I do have friends who like them... so it would be fun.

AND... after all that meandering, back to the topic of why we S'poreans are a sad lot. When I am not being a screaming fan, the cynical side of me rears it's ugly head and these are thoughts that run through my head:

Where's the Profit?

Singapore is but this small island that makes up depressing album sales... there is this tiny pocket of super fans, but the numbers are depressing compared to other countries. So in our tiny Singapore, what they do is to price UP... so we have ridiculous ticket prices, sky high prices for memorabilia, and one-night concerts that I am not even sure they train or practice for. And I just feel like such a "vegetable head" (chinese translation for loser)... cuz there is an audience for it and whatever the price, if it sells, then it's profit for the band/group/artistes that came. Right? 

I can't quite blame them, when the numbers are small, you have to crunch the numbers and so, something has to give. You have to price up. Of course, since it's a one-night concert, or just an autograph session, I seriously wonder if they even remember what Singapore looks like, outside of Changi Airport! So moving on... 

If their time here is so short, do they even really know anything? Do they even care?

They all seem to give standard answers - Singapore is clean (seriously? Is that all you can say? Japan is clean too, but I never ever hear that comment on Japan!)

Singapore's chilli crab is delicious (I kid you not, they all seem to eat chilli crab when they are here.

We would love to come back to Singapore, the fans are so passionate (and seriously, I see them sweating buckets, cuz we are a hot hot country, and I wonder, you are not joking right? That you want to come back? When you have countries with better climates where you can sing and dance to without working up such a sweat, and you can tell me, without batting an eye, you want to come back to sweltering Singapore? and the fan thing, you see it being repeated in all reports about all the countries visited) I have lived here all my life, so I have no complaints. But I would imagine those from temperate countries would find it a tough pill to swallow.

Also, while I know, there is no point in hearing truths like, "Oh, the tour was done in such a haste, I can barely remember anything... there was this part in the concert when I thought I would faint from the heat, Singapore is so bloody hot, I would rethink another concert unless it's held at a skating rink!" aor how about "As an artiste, I have to watch my vocal chords and my weight, so I was lying about chilli crab. I actually eat only salads and chicken breasts. But the PR company said that it's a famous local dish, so I tried a mouthful and then answer in all interviews that the chilli crab was best"... and "You guys are so clean, it is ridiculous".. Well, actually that would be the only thing I would agree to is that yes, my country is truly a garden city and I have not really seen any other cities that is comparable in terms of cleanliness, other than Japan.

So yeah, nobody wants to hear the truth, but the PR answers sorta rubs me up the wrong way sometimes... seriously? You love coming back to Singapore? Then can I get you to agree that we are a key, important Asia stop (and not just cuz we are a good node to fly off from, so you might as well earn some spare change since you are transiting here?)

Japanese markets must yield the highest profit margins

All the korean bands/acts interviewed are learning Japanese and are looking to focus to break into the Japanese market. So I got to thinking, how come no one ever says they are looking to break into the Singapore market? The answer is, refer to point 1. We are not a high-yield profit generating country. 

If you were the recording company, would you bother to break into a market that doesn't need to be broken into? As a lot, we seem to be easily enamored  by any act that is non-Singapore (other than JJ and Stephanie Sun). So, we will pick up and find out more about the korean bands, there is no need for them to come down to do marketing (free viral marketing on youtube and popular kpop websites would suffice)... There is no CD sales to push.. not in this age of piracy... and it's not like you can tell them they have to pay $10 to queue to get your signature. Oh wait, I take that back since generally buying the album is a pre-req to these autograph sessions. Hey, I would do that to! If not, who's going to pay for the airfare down?

The way I see it, the manner in which these autographing sessions are arranged works like this. If you have that free slot in your schedule, and the record labels in Singapore push hard enough, you will schedule half your team to come down to do an autograph signing session... just to whet the appetite of the fans. I call it, the token appearance. It will push some sales, add some "visibility" to the stars, to show fans in the home market that hey, this "group" you are supporting is popular internationally (yeah, we are international! don't you know?)

And until you are sufficiently popular, you cannot even earn from concerts..

I did think it was kind of weird that even during the concerts here in Singapore, the questions will inevitably go to, "Yes, after this concert, we are focusing on breaking into the Japanese market"... with the unspoken 2nd half, "where the money really is"... Singapore is like pocket money, you drop by, earn some spare change, then move on to the next bigger and better player.

I wonder if any group would ever ever say, "Well, we had to push aside a lot of schedules that could potentially earn us bigger bucks as we wanted the Singaporean fans to know that, despite the small size of the country, we realize that there is a real and true fan base, and we really want to make the effort to come down, visit the country, get in touch with our fans, and give them a really smashing performance to thank them for their support"... 

Seriously... 

What am I griping about? Actually nothing. I just wanted to have an entry that acknowledges the fact that I know we are a sad lot, we are a "spare time slot" / "Earn some pocket money" country for these visiting artistes and that we will never have a big enough fan base for Singapore to be deemed as an important stop. There will not be a series of same concerts (with the exception of Jacky Cheung, I have never heard of a 5-night performance that is sold out) where the performers appreciate performing in Singapore. 

Weirdly, maybe due to population size, maybe due to our inherent dysfunctional thought process (hey, look at all that crap I just spewed), we almost never ever support any Singaporean artistes, and even if I do, it's just that 1/2 who have to prove to me that they are a success overseas before I would even consider buying their album. Why so?

I watch our local production and sometimes, I cringe. I wonder... why? What are we doing wrong? Why does it always feel like there is a mile and more to climb before we even achieve the success of our Asian counterparts? I used to watch our own productions a lot more, and I enjoyed them. Nowadays, I can barely watch half an episode without cringing. We fail at English programs, we somehow also fail at Chinese, our effective bilingualism doesn't seem to work on media... our English sounds like fake ang moh accents, our chinese sounds like ang moh speaking mandarin... we are doing something seriously wrong.

I don't have the answer, but I do know, I, for one, am shortchanging my own country's artistes, to pursue and spend on other country's artistes, who probably don't give two hoots about Singapore. And that, I hate to say, is the sad fact.