Big in Japan (phrase)

This article is about the phrase. For other uses, see Big in Japan.

Big in Japan is an expression that can describe Western (especially North American or European) musical groups who achieve success in Japan at higher levels than they do in other parts of the world (including their home nations). The phrase began to appear in several major Japanese foreign-rock magazines, especially Music Life magazine, in the late 1970s, though the phenomenon was noted prior to this. As a reference to this original usage, a modern, ironic use of the expression is to mean successful in a limited, potentially comical, oddly specific or possibly unverifiable way. Japan had been the world's second largest economy for decades, and still remains the second largest music market after the United States.


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