Dinosaur Jr. - How the Band made rock history without even knowing it all thanks to a popular Japanese TV Show, YouTube's Algorithm and Nostalgia.
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I cite my sources and they may differ than other people's accounts, so I don't guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos.
This is a fascinating news story that happened back in 2019. Out of the blue a 25 year old osbcure Dinosaur Jr song topped the song charts in Japan. At first nobody knew how this happened. It’s also not the first time weird things like this have happened on the song charts. If you guys remember Fleetwood Mac’s song “Dreams” rememerged on the billboard charts in America for the first time since 1977 all thanks to a meme. We’ll talk about that in another episode. But today let’s talk about how Dinosaur Jr topped the charts in Japan without even knowing or trying.
Released in 1994 Dinosaur Jr’s sixth album titled without a trace would be the group’s most commercially successful album, despite the fact that it featured one of three members. The last track of the album over your shoulder was never released as a single anywhere in the world, was never part of any reissue in Japan or hollywood movie or even a meme.It’s not even the best known song off the record. That goes to Feel The Pain. I still remember playing that song in rock band 2 and guitar hero.
But strangely enough in 2019, 25 years after the song was released, over your shoulder topped the Japanese Billboard hot overseas chart and peaked at number 18 on the country’s hot 100 chart surpassing western artists including Arianna Grande and rock band Queen..According to Gizmodo the explanation lies in and i quote involves “Japanese bad boys, reality TV piracy, and renegade algorithms”
The song on youtube quietly racked up 8 million streams and soon enough billboard magazine issued a statement that read “The likely answer is that some unknown user uploaded a video or videos using these songs, which were then viewed enough times for the songs to make significant inroads into the ranking, Chances are if you watch any youtube video with licensed music, you’ll likely see this below the description box. Regardless of whether the user who uploaded the content has permission to use the song or not, streams of the song count towards it’s billboard position. ”It was believed that if it was a popular youtube video they may have been region locked to Japan. The origin of the song’s rise in popularity can be attributed to an old japanese TV show named Gachinko which ran frrm 1999 to 2003. Gachinko was a relaity tv show that saw young punk contestants become kick boxers. The show frequently used Over my shoulder as a musical cue. . According to a Japanese media consultant who talked to Gizmodo the track was featured in most episodes to give a sense of increased “sentiment, distress and emotion.” During the show’s heyday it dominated the ratings with the consultant revealing.
“Highest rating was 32.3% of total household,”. “In terms of rating, 10% is good, 20% is great in Japan.”
The show had a bump in popularity in 2019 because one of the members of the Gachinko’s cast appeared on a more recent show called, “Tokio Kakeru,” Their appearance resulted in people searching for the old gachinko tv show episodes on YouTube and binge watching pirated episodes.. Since there were no streaming services in japan at the time who carried the show,YouTube was the only option. But it wasn’t just nostalgic users and pirated episodes that boosted streams of Over Your Shoulder episodes. YouTube’s algorithm soon started recommending the videos in people’s sidebar further streams of the song.
So why do YouTube views matter on the billboard charts? Well in 2013 Billboard changed how they calculate rankings on the music charts. Since people were mostly consuming music through streaming they started counting youtube views regardles of who posted the video.
Billboard magazine would issue a statement following the discovery revealing The Japan Hot 100 incorporates YouTube views within Japan of audio and video assigned with an ISRC code. This includes user-generated clips that utilize authorized audio.
We believe a recurring segment from an old terrestrial TV variety program—which prominently featured Dinosaur Jr.'s "Over Your Shoulder" as well as the non-Japanese tracks that mysteriously appeared on
