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Viral Triumph or Tragedy? The Emotional Toll in the Age of Viral Music

2024.5.2

映画『バジーノイズ』

#PR #MOVIE

Capturing the Essence: ‘Buzzy Noise’ Reflects Today’s Music Industry

The phrase “Life Changed by a Single Video!” often used in promoting SNS-related content or introducing SNS-born artists/creators feels too conveniently abbreviated in the process. “Life changing in a single video” is frankly an illusion.

“The buzz” is nothing more than opening one door. In the next stage, one’s abilities, humanity, intellect, luck, and more are tested once again. Sometimes, while struggling with the dilemma of “continuing what you love is difficult” (a line from the movie), the only way to move forward in activities and life is to keep opening doors one by one and advancing the pieces. Artists who hit the mainstream from SNS have all continued to open doors one by one with their own efforts. What I first felt in ‘Buzzy Noise’ was the realism of not portraying a simplistic narrative like “a single video going viral changes your life.”

The protagonist, Kiyosumi, portrayed by Takumi Kawanishi (JO1), doesn’t need friends or lovers. He’s content with turning the music flowing in his head into tangible form. Kiyosumi spends his days immersing himself in composing and performing alone with DTM. All the songs originating from Kiyosumi in the movie are produced by renowned producers Yaffle, who also produced artists such as Fujii Kaze, iri, SIRUP, Awesome City Club, participates as the music concept designer.

Is “buzz” happy for artists and creators? For Kiyosumi, who was afraid of getting involved with other people and thought it was fine to just work with his hands alone, an unexpected buzz was not necessarily something to be happy about. Buzz also opens a different door to happiness for him. In the first place, the door may open when you don’t fully understand what happiness is for you.

Kiyosumi in the situation of “I wasn’t prepared to be on the stage, but I ended up being on the stage” also seemed very realistic. Nowadays, with the development of SNS algorithms, an unknown person can suddenly attract a great deal of attention, and even if the person is not ready for it, there are more and more cases that make them debut or release music before they are forgotten by the public. Unless an artist is ready to be on the stage and in the mainstream of the music scene while interacting with a large number of people, he or she cannot continue to produce good results and may even suffer from mental illness. I have actually seen talent in the industry that has withered away in this way, and talent that has been crushed by third-rate adults.

There are many artists in today’s music scene who posted videos on SNS with the idea of “I’m not confident in my singing, but I just tried to sing along,” and who have since gone on to become professional singers, struggling hard and refining their own ways of expression. Kiyosumi, who “just wanted to live a normal life and play music,” began to work and interact with people after the buzz, and the sight of her struggling with various problems and even trying her hand at singing seemed to overlap with the battles of such people.

Hiyori Sakurada, playing Ushio Kishimoto, has never had any passions or interests of her own. She’s lived her life chasing after others’ “likes.” It wasn’t until she heard the music of Kiyosumi, who expressed “lonely, yet warm” sentiments, drifting up from the room below that Ushio’s heart was moved for the first time.

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