His Techno-Pop Is Big in Japan, but Will It Play Here?

By the thousands, Japanese teens and twentysomethings have strapped on the trademark platform knee-high boots and miniskirts of 20-year-old pop idol Namie Amuro.

They’ve copied her plucked, penciled eyebrows, her light-blue eye shadow, her surfer-girl salon tan and especially her bleached hair.

But who invented Amuro? She owes her fame to producer, songwriter and star maker Tetsuya Komuro, 38, Japan’s premier pop music tycoon.

For three years, Komuro’s music has dominated Japan’s pop charts and deluged its airwaves as the soundtrack for myriad TV ads. This year alone, he has produced three albums and five singles that have each sold more than a million copies.

As Japan’s fourth-highest taxpayer, he shelled out $8.2 million to the government in 1996, reportedly half his income. This year he may do even better. He has a three-year, $75-million contract with Avex DD, one of Japan’s leading music firms; a long-standing contract with Sony; his own record label, Orumok; a new joint venture with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.; and, oh yes, a Komuro Internet home page.

“There are only two kinds of music in Japan,” said Midori Kuroki, who covers the music industry for GB magazine. “Komuro music and non-Komuro music.”

Industry sources say he is now storming the gates of the international music establishment in search of worldwide fame.

This summer, he arrived on the American music scene as the producer of the theme song for the movie “Speed 2: Cruise Control.” That debut is just “one step,” Komuro said in an interview from Los Angeles, where he spends eight months of the year working in a Sony studio and living in a newly purchased Malibu home.

Associates describe him as a deft manipulator of the media and of the young women he turns into pop superstars. Some say he churns out songs that all sound the same.

“For listeners, it’s not, ‘This is so fantastic,’ it’s ‘Hmm . . . I’ve heard this somewhere before,’ ” said Yasushi Ishii of CD Data magazine.

He has even been described as a musical Bill Gates, accused of monopolizing an industry and locking competitors out. Norio Koyama, author of a Komuro biography, said the pop mogul has created a “de facto standard” in the music industry that has forced most other artists to copy him or see their careers languish. But even critics agree that his grasp of Japan’s hit-making machinery is unmatched.

Komuro’s joint venture with Murdoch--a Hong Kong-based music and multimedia company called TK News, after Komuro’s initials--was created to scout talent and create new stars to pump out what Komuro calls the “TK sound.” The effort has strengthened his popularity overseas, particularly in the Asian market.

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The TK sound is now advancing on the rest of Asia; Komuro said he has already sold more than a million albums in Taiwan, where his “TK News” weekly talent-search TV show is broadcast.

TK News “is just the beginning,” said Avex’s chairman, Tom Yoda. “In the long run, he’s aiming for the United States.”

TK News has already begun to help Komuro sell himself in the U.S. This spring, Komuro rearranged the original score of the hit action movie “Speed,” which was written by U.S. composer Mark Mancina, adding his own techno-pop sound for the theme song of the movie’s sequel.

Industry observers say Komuro’s signature is melding catchy melodies with a techno beat. This technique makes his songs as suitable for disco as for karaoke. Japanese fans buy his CDs and learn the lyrics--some of which are in English--so they can belt out the Komuro tunes that are found in nearly every karaoke bar.

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Komuro said he uses snatches of English to create catchy hooks that go better with Japanese dance music than the Japanese language. And with refrains such as Amuro’s, “Sweet, Sweet 19 Blues,” his songs hit home with a mostly female, teenage audience.

Komuro is a canny marketer who studies his target audience--the under-30 generation that makes up 80% of Japanese music buyers--before he even begins to write a song, said Yutaka Kitamura, Komuro’s “supervisor” and high school friend.

Komuro acknowledged he has been skillful at convincing the Japanese media that each of his creations is destined to become “the next big thing.”

“I created the story,” he said. “If you don’t get people to create a boom, it’s hard to have a mega-hit.”

Many Komuro songs have enjoyed extensive airplay as theme songs for at least eight Japanese TV shows, and more than 14 songs have been used to hawk TDK tapes, Kodak cameras, Honda cars, Coca-Cola and more.

In Japan, “if you don’t get a song on TV as a commercial or drama theme, you only have about a 20% chance of having a hit,” said CD Data’s Ishii.

One such advertising-boosted hit was “Departures.” Komuro wrote the song and plays keyboard on the track, which is sung by the group globe, one of his creations. Last winter, the song aired in a series of Japan Railway commercials featuring snowy, romantic scenes of young couples on vacation. “Departures” was the biggest royalty earner in Japan in fiscal 1996, according to JASRAC, an organization that tracks such data. (The royalty sum is secret.)

The thin and petite Komuro is said to keep tight control of his empire.

“People say he’s so cool his blood is green,” music critic Yuko Yoshimi said.

Although Komuro said he dislikes the idea of master-apprentice-style relationships, many of his Japanese employees address him as “Sensei,” a term of respect usually reserved for teachers, doctors or senior mentors.

“TK will not allow any of us to fail,” high school friend Kitamura said.

Komuro disputed media claims that he micro-manages his artists, saying he merely advises them at their request.

However, “as a producer, I’m very picky about details,” Komuro said. “When I’m specific, I’m extremely specific.”

The 38-year-old bachelor called his tendency to work with female teenage artists coincidence, but others say he has more affinity with malleable young women than with less pliant independent male talent.

“Men tend to have their own opinions,” Yoshimi said. “Women are more likely to go along with his ideas.”

Born and raised in Tokyo, Komuro started violin lessons at age 3 and began learning keyboards in elementary school. He entered the elite Waseda University, where he formed a rock band with some friends, but he later dropped out. In 1983 he joined the rock band TM Network. His first big producing success came in 1994, when his Euro-beat-based group trf hit the top of Japan’s pop charts.

Critics charge that Komuro’s production-line style of pumping out a new tune a week makes all his songs sound the same. But industry sources say his furious work pace is what has enabled him to hold sway over Japan’s ravenous, fast-moving music market.

Komuro uses computers to create all of his songs, and sources close to him say the composer at work resembles a jet pilot in a cockpit, surrounded by electronic equipment. Komuro calls himself an otaku, Japanese for someone lost in a world of animation, fantasy and science fiction.

He said new equipment often inspires him to compose. Several dedicated data lines between his studios allow him to record in Japan, mix the songs in L.A. and then send them back to Japan for CD production.

Komuro’s next step is to find a Western artist to produce his trademark sound for the U.S. market, Ishii said. He is already interviewing candidates, whose names he declined to disclose.

Despite his omnipresence in Japanese pop music and his reputed hunger for international fame, Komuro refused to be photographed for this article.

“Usually, when a Japanese debuts abroad, they’re in the papers. . . . But then you wonder, ‘What happened to them?’ ” Komuro said. “I’ve been trying to lay low and advertise after people have seen results.”