It’s the YouTube reviewers that contributed to it.
They also followed a very clever strategy: they didn’t make Venom available on Spotify etc. for a long time, so the only place to listen was to watch on YouTube.
Many of those views are the same people streaming the song via YouTube in order to listen to it.
Statistics don’t lie though. If you look on Spotify now that they made Venom available, their monthly listener count did go up but it didn’t drastically change.
In comparison, for example Immortal Disfigurement has only 14k less listener count and they only ever uploaded 3 tracks in total to Spotify.
So, did it drastically blew up internationally despite their strategy? Not sure.
I don’t really have a horse in this genre debate, they will always be one of my favorite bands, but I’m here to provide the numbers, which did go up massively. Also, the graph is a week old, so with the current monthly number, it’d look even better.
I have to disagree.
I don’t look at followers, I look at monthly listeners.
It’s the most important statistic, it’s the number of people who actively regularly listen to a band.
Unique listeners who stream songs during a time period matters most imo. Those are the people who stick around.
I don’t think I even follow the band myself, I don’t follow most of the bands I listen to. I follow those who rarely release new music, just in case I miss a release.
I just have my favourite bands in my likes and playlists, works perfectly.
And no, monthly listeners didn’t go up “massively” between late September when Venom was released and now. I guess we can argue that “massively” is subjective…
Yea, I’m sorry, I mixed the two up, but pre-Venom, if I recall correctly, they were just above 40k monthly and this is still a 50% increase. Of course “massively” is subjective, but for a band their size, yeah, I’d say it’s appropriate. If it sounds like it, sorry, it ain’t my intention to pull random numbers out of my ass.
Wrong. The most important statistic is concert attendance, not Spotify listeners. And that is what blew up in Japan. People prefer other streaming platforms over Spotify in Japan as well, such as Apple music.
I recall that they were close to 50k monthly listeners before Venom was released.
Btw. I’m pleased if they grow and succeed, and hopefully they will continue to do so, way too many people are missing out internationally by not knowing that this band even exists.
I get your point, but as I don’t live in Japan, I can only evaluate based on what I have access to.
As I said before, your insight was and is appreciated.
Oh I get that and I don’t judge you for it. We all support how we can. But I feel measuring a bands’ success or impact solely on essentially social media is not a real measure. Bands that aren’t that followed on Spotify sell out big venues while bands with tons of listeners and seeming popularity are in fact relying on a handful of high paying mitsus. VK is very relative like that unfortunately.
Jiluka is doing great in Japan though. Since BLVCK the fans doubled and they’re playing much bigger venues.
Thank you for sharing this. I’m very happy about their success in Japan.
Also, I’m not judging them for waiting to put Venom to streaming platforms in order to get more views on YouTube first. It’s actually a clever strategy. Given that the YouTube recommendation engine works to more likely to recommend something with higher ratings and views, it will pay off.
Seeing that they don’t even sell merch to abroad and one can’t even get tickets without a Japanese address and card (coincidentally I’m in Tokyo for a few weeks next April when they play, and I was looking into buying tickets but one needs a Japanese address and card ), meaning their primary stream of income is coming from Japan, so it’s most important that they are popular in Japan. But ofc I hope they also become more known internationally eventually
Their tickets having those restrictions has nothing to do with them gatekeeping but on basically how all Japanese ticketing system platforms work. Some will even implement an extra ID card as measure. I do not think they are aware of how restrictive those ticketing sites are for foreign fans tbh.
Thank you for explaining. I suspected that it’s something to do with eplus.jp and not the band.
It’s a shame that the ticketing platforms are limited like that over there. I don’t particularly like buying at the door, I like to plan and make sure that if I make the effort and hype myself up to go, I’ll definitely get in.
eplus.jp is so lame for not allowing international purchases.
For comparison, in the UK we can buy tickets via ticketmaster using any card or PayPal, load the page to pull the tickets of upcoming gigs I have tickets for, use the same for entry, and get updates via email if there are changes, looks like this very convenient:
It sucks, but it’s less about gatekeeping foreigners away and more about trying to prevent exploits in the ticketing system that domestic fans developed over the years.
Because “General Admission - First in line first in the venue” isn’t really a thing due to surrounding businesses not wanting fans loitering in front for hours on end, and not wanting to encourage underage fans skipping school to wait in line, they developed the numbered entry system.
The most dedicated Bangya would buy up a dozen tickets each, and pool the resources with their friends to guarantee that their friend group all got the earliest entry and occupied the saizen for every concert.
This must have happened over several different genres/scenes, because the ticket vendors started implementing things like not knowing your ticket number until a week before the show, sometimes requiring you to show ID, requiring payment for any tickets bought three days after you buy them online.
The good thing is that if you’re going solo to these shows, proxy buyers can still buy you individual tickets on eplus.jp and not have to link their IDs to your ticket (in most cases, at least).
I appreciate the detailed explanation. It makes sense.
In here, for general admission tickets, people go in and elbow their way to where they want to stand It’s only the very front that’s not approachable / held onto by people.
Definitely no Japanese politeness here. The only queuing is for the security checkpoint and for buying drinks. Oh, and wearing boots is a must, because people can end up stepping on your toes (not intentionally, but it’s an active crowd).
Yep, I’ve had my toes trodden on many a time on the edges of an enthusiastic post-hardcore pit.
Sometimes you get lucky in Japanese crowds, and someone hasn’t claimed a spot in the third row in front of the bassist, because he’s not their honmei, or whatever. So even if you’re 100th to enter, you could still end up pretty close. No bag, no one stopping you, that spot is up for grabs.
In my personal opinion these singles dont come close to literally anything they did before. Im not saying their new stuff is bad it just doesnt get me half as pumped as the earlier stuff so just seems less interesting to me. This is just my opinion not saying everyone has to agree. B side on Kuroi ame was pretty banging though actually.
), meaning their primary stream of income is coming from Japan, so it’s most important that they are popular in Japan. But ofc I hope they also become more known internationally eventually 
It’s only the very front that’s not approachable / held onto by people.