Take our user survey and make your voice heard.
Disgraced music producer Tetsuya Komuro, 50, attended a book signing event at the Ginza branch of the Fukuya bookstore chain this week, to promote his latest piece of work – “Tsumi to Ongaku” (“Sin and Music”) – a book which details his life since his arrest in November last year for copyright fraud.
Komuro was found guilty in May this year for defrauding an investor of 500 million yen by contracting to transfer copyrights he did not own, but was granted a suspended sentence. Komuro said parts of the book were about him coming clean, and urged people to consider the work as a statement of his beliefs and his will to go on. He added that most of the royalties from sales would go to his creditors.
“Tsumi to Ongaku” is currently on sale for 1,365 yen. Komuro signed copies of the book for 120 fans who were lucky to get their hands on the limited tickets. Another 30 tickets were distributed to the media.
Komuro also commented on singer-actress Noriko Sakai’s recent misadventures, saying: “As an entertainer, there is no private or public. It doesn’t matter if there are cameras or no cameras, you have to take responsibility for your actions.”
© Japan Today
14 Comments
Login to comment
tkoind2
This guy is the Charles Manson of music. It is his greed centered approach to music that has left Japan infested with hoards of cute no-talent acts that fit into little neat market packages. It is his vision of music that has marginalized and killed off the very real talents of Japanese who had a rich pop music culture before his changes left us with screeching children posing as adult women.
It is a shame we cannot charge him with some kind of culture crime and use his book as an example to young people of what a culture criminal looks and thinks like.
TheDave
Oh stop with the bitter-interwebs-all-Japan-music sucks attitude. Cute no-talent acts existed long before Komuro came around. Not of his stuff was crap. trf, back in the day, was damn good stuff.
tkoind2
TheDave, but it was Komuro who defined the profit model that led most other major companies to shift to this format.
The point is exactly that not all Japanese music sucks. If you go out to the live house community there are thousands of acts in Tokyo alone that have considerable talent. Many doing music that has global potential. Yet these are not the bands that get picked up and distributed. They are not cute enough, or marketable enough as products so they don't get major attention.
Komoro's cookie cutter model of music has all but killed the creativity of popular music here and set the stage for the generic replication of same old same old bands with producer written music, image consultants and marketing staff to press it out on the public stage. Meanwhile the real talented artists, maybe not so young, maybe no so kawaii or image polished are languishing in pay to play clubs barely scraping by.
I have spent nearly 20 years on the music industry both here and in the US and I stand by my assertion that Komuro and his kind are killing real original music and talent in Japan by closing the doors to commercial access to all but the marketably cute and made up image bands.
Betting
It seems he has come up with a very good way to cash in (pay off his creditors I should say) on his on misfortune. Found guilty in May and already has this book out. Great idea!!
nath
TRF was pretty good. what happened to them? There is some great music here, but you got to go out and find it, as it will not be on radio usually , and most definitely not on the tube.
timorborder
Good to see he is actually dressed properly this time. Last time he was in the public eye (in the back of a paddy wagon), I seem to remember, a t-shirt, shorts and some sandals.
gogogo
I've toured with Tetsuya Komuro and some of his groups, I don't think he is one to comment on Nori-P, I've seen top Japanese groups where the leader singer has fallen off the stage because of what are on.
GW
wtf!
This twit is writing about his life after he was arrested, its like less than 1yr......what is this a 10page manga, surely any more than that wud be real filler crap!
GW
the above is 150% accurate, its really too bad all the small guys have to pay just to play & have little chance for some success
NeoJamal
dos, globe and TRF..these abominations are far cries in contrast to his original works such as GET WILD and BEYOND THE TIME.
POTUS
Kinda hard to top Motown.
nemoflow
You need a soul to make music.
tokyotom
the one chick in TRF had a killer body
everyone moans about other people's pop music i want to hold your hand, why is that such a classic? because it was the first bubble gum song, but still bubble gum