Billboard’s Ladies in Music occasion has celebrated artists, producers and executives who’ve made vital contributions to the music business and empowered girls by way of their work since 2007. In 2023, Noriko Ashizawa of Spotify Japan was acknowledged on this esteemed listing.
Billboard Japan launched its Ladies in Music initiative final 12 months, highlighting girls within the nation’s music business by way of initiatives together with interviews by main figures of their respective fields. As the following featured visitor on this collection, Ashizawa spoke about working to assist up-and-coming artists as Spotify’s Head of Music Planning and Operations in Japan. She additionally shared the corporate’s efforts to develop the attain of home artists and their work past borders to new listeners and followers. Because the one who has been concerned within the course of that the streaming service has turn into the mainstream approach of listening to music in Japan, how does she see the way forward for the music business?
Congratulations on making Billboard’s Ladies in Music listing for 2023. Might you inform us how you’re feeling about this honor?
Noriko Ashizawa: Actually, I used to be shocked to listen to the information as a result of I by no means anticipated to be chosen for such a prestigious award as somebody who works in Japan. It nonetheless feels type of unreal, but when it implies that Spotify’s varied efforts in Japan have been acknowledged, I really feel very honored about that.
Spotify encourages the actions of feminine creators in music by way of its world EQUAL undertaking. What have been the outcomes to this point?
Spotify’s EQUAL program has chosen 700 girls all over the world throughout varied genres as ambassador artists, and greater than 4,000 acts have been featured within the associated playlists. We launched the localized program, EQUAL Japan in 2021, constantly spotlighting the works of Japanese feminine artists and creators and their voices by way of playlists. Thus far, a various vary of feminine acts together with the all-women band CHAI, rapper Awich, and Utaha of WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA have been additionally highlighted as ambassador artists within the undertaking. Shifting ahead, we’d wish to additional elevate consciousness of this system itself and make it extra significant for artists to take part in it.
When a platform highlights that many artists, it positively creates extra alternatives for customers to find them. By the best way, the year-end Billboard Japan prime 100 chart for 2022 reveals a noticeable gender imbalance with 58 male artists, 27 feminine artists, and 15 combined teams. Spotify additionally has its personal annual rankings. What developments do you see?
Spotify releases varied annual rankings on the finish of every 12 months. final 12 months’s rating from the attitude of gender stability, there have been 11 feminine acts together with solo artists and teams on the “Prime 50 Most Streamed Home Artists in Japan” listing and three combined teams with girls as essential vocalists. The “Prime 50 Most Streamed Home Songs in Japan” tally noticed related outcomes, with 10 out of the 50 songs by feminine acts. The ratio of ladies introduced globally the 12 months EQUAL launched was one in 5, so it may very well be stated that gender imbalance nonetheless exists on a worldwide stage.
However there have been some main variations between the worldwide and home rankings. Wanting on the “Prime 5 Most Shared Artists” globally, feminine artists ranked within the higher tier with Taylor Swift at No. 1 and Lana Del Rey at No. 4. In Japan, the highest 3 have been boy bands — JO1, BE:FIRST, and INI — and the “Prime 10 Most Shared Songs” listing was dominated by tracks by these three teams.
That’s an fascinating outcome. Have you learnt the demographics of their followers?
The vast majority of listeners supporting these boy bands are girls. Supporting your favourite artist or act in a tangible approach is named “oshikatsu” in Japanese, and particularly through the pandemic, momentum rose to assist these artists by listening to their music on streaming after which sharing it proactively by way of social media. The truth is, when this rating was introduced, feminine followers of those teams posted many feedback on social media expressing their pleasure. Wanting over at Ok-pop, many feminine artists are additionally very talked-about amongst girls in Japan, however it appears that evidently in such circumstances, it’s extra of a “listening for themselves” type of mentality at work, encompassing emotions of empathy and admiration, relatively than actively expressing their assist for these artists.
It’s fascinating to listen to that males are dominating the charts fueled by the facility of ladies. How do you analyze the present state of affairs the place girls account for under one-fifth of essentially the most performed songs and artists on Spotify, each in Japan and globally?
I believe there’s in all probability a gender imbalance within the variety of creators to start with. Many next-generation artists aspiring to turn into stars like Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish are rising, however I believe it’ll nonetheless take a bit extra time to alter this case in a major approach.
What do you concentrate on the gender stability on the manufacturing aspect of the music and leisure business?
Many ladies work at Spotify and looking out across the office, not solely at Spotify but additionally at different corporations in Japan, I don’t see any vital lack within the variety of girls lately. However in the event you have a look at the business’s senior administration, it nonetheless feels prefer it’s largely males, and I believe there’s a distinction between the state of frontline employees and that of administration.
Might you share a few of your background? Did you envision a specific type of lady you wished to be rising up?
I don’t assume I’ve ever thought of women and men in a separate approach. I don’t personally share the view that being a lady must be given particular weight, so I respect the kind of lady who can assess any given state of affairs to comprehend her objectives as a person human being.
You’re definitely somebody who has caught to that worth of constructing selections as a person individual, transcending labels and current frameworks imposed on you by others. How did you come to work within the music business?
I’ve been loving music since I used to be a toddler, and all the time vaguely wished to make a profession of it. I listened to Western music (together with J-pop), so I turned curious about English and studied overseas throughout my faculty years. After becoming a member of Sony Music Leisure Japan and constructing my profession within the Worldwide music division, I progressively turned extra curious about manufacturing work, so I selected to maneuver to a home label the place I used to be in control of A&R for plenty of years. Then, after I acquired transferred to Sony Interactive Leisure in 2014, I turned concerned within the formation of the PlayStation Music. Till then, I’d solely been concerned with the artists and labels that created and delivered the music, however I had a chance for gaining a brand new perspective by engaged on the aspect of a digital platform for the primary time in my life.
That was simply on the time when folks in Japan have been beginning to assume that the methods of listening to music would possibly shift from bodily codecs to streaming. After some time, I used to be lucky to get entangled within the launch of Spotify in Japan as an exterior accomplice at PlayStation Music, and though I then needed to return to my earlier office as my switch interval got here to an finish, I made a decision to work at Spotify contemplating a lot potential in streaming as a game-changing platform for bringing extra alternatives to varied creators by enhancing discovery between listeners and artists.
Reaching out to a world viewers, which had been a excessive bar prior to now, is now comparatively simpler to realize by way of streaming. For example, Fujii Kaze’s “Shinunoga E-wa” hit No. 1 on Spotify’s viral chart in 23 markets exterior Japan final 12 months and unfold all through the world. The extra profitable circumstances of Japanese artists I really see, the extra I imagine there’s a number of potential within the Japanese music business and that we will work collectively to make unprecedented goals come true.
That should have been the interval when folks thought it’d be arduous for streaming to penetrate the Japanese market, but it surely seems you made a daring resolution. And since then, you and your group have supported quite a lot of artists to construct a profession in a approach that may not have been potential earlier than. Are there any feminine artists or acts you’d wish to shout out for the time being?
Rina Sawayama’s work has been significantly exceptional currently, and her message of inclusiveness of range has inspired many individuals. In 2020, she was chosen for Spotify’s “RADAR: Early Noise,” a year-round rising artist assist program in Japan, and now she’s a celebrity with a world following. Haru Nemuri is certainly one of this 12 months’s RADAR: Early Noise artists, and it’s actually encouraging to see Japanese artists like her who convey robust messages from varied angles being supported abroad much more so than in Japan, and I’d wish to see this motion unfold domestically as properly.
—This interview by Rio Hirai (SOW SWEET PUBLISHING) first appeared on Billboard Japan