Nikkei Entertainment Talent Power Ranking 2021 Released

Nikkei Entertainment does a yearly release of their surveys on talent in Japan. The release includes 2 charts, one on male talent, and another on female talent, with a total of over 1280 artists. They take 2 values into consideration, public recognition and interest rate. BABYMETAL has been popular enough to be included since 2015.

BABYMETAL has risen on both public recognition and interest for this year’s Talent Power Ranking, bringing both their values to an all time record!

Find all the data for this year (and previous ones) below, along with my analysis, the known methodology, and sources.

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Data On BABYMETAL

The data shows that BABYMETAL is recognized by name and face by 28.5% of the Japanese population, and 19.5% of people have interest in them (listening to their music, want to know about them, etc.). Of those that recognize them, 68% have an interest in them.

These first 2 numbers represent all time records for BABYMETAL, where were at their height just last year after a very successful 2019 and start of 2020. The interest relative to recognition did fall, however, to 68%.

In regards to year-over-year, BABYMETAL’s public recognition has risen a whopping 19%, meanwhile the public interest rose and also impressive +13%.

These are all of BABYMETAL’s numbers since they started being measured in 2015, with their respective year-over-year changes:

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Not noted there (but used as the axis in the main chart) is the amount of interest of those that recognize them, which is as follows:

Note that the values represent the “performance” from the previous year, as the survey is done over the previous year and early in the year of release.

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BABYMETAL Data Analysis

Note that this is my analysis. Don’t take it as fact, just my opinion on reading the data.

In last year’s post I focused a lot on the drops from the previous 2 years. BABYMETAL had dropped or stagnated in these values between 2017 and 2019 after some great years. But in 2019 and 2020 they turned this around again, regaining all their lost recognition and interest. The 2021 numbers show that they have improved even further so, which is going to be the focus of this analysis.

Some people may think this may not make sense… 2020 was a terrible year for any band, no touring and very limited in most areas. Likewise in the case of BABYMETAL they didn’t release any new songs themselves. These things are true, but what they did do last year and the beginning of this year has been the perfect recipe to lift these numbers up.

For starters, with much less activity from musical artists than usual, BABYMETAL was still able to show themselves out there. They appeared on multiple TV music events, most importantly the biggest event of the year, Kōhaku Uta Gassen [Show Report], as well as in lots of magazines. They also got a big push thanks to the release of their collaboration song with Bring Me The Horizon, Kingslayer, even if this may have helped more overseas than in Japan. Another large help was the “10 BABYMETAL YEARS” compilation album PR push, as well as the “10 BABYMETAL BUDOKAN” shows.

The increase year-to-year, if great, is not as impressive to 2015 through 2017, but we must remember that many more people know about them now, so it’s harder to grow with such leaps. Considering this, and the fact the pandemic has severely curtailed most artists’s ability to tour, these are amazing results.

Hopefully this growth continues!

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Source Data

Note: the source chart has not surfaced online as I write this, I will share an image here when it comes out.

A kind person has grabbed the data and divided it into female idols exclusively:

Previous Years

Here is the 2020 post on BABYMETAL data, and here is the 2019 post.

Female Idol group data from previous years:

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Methodology

Note: the source for this is from 2018, and sadly the translator had part of the page cut off, which is why some of the methodology is not written here. But do know that more selection methods and questions are apparently asked.

• Survey: They conduct the survey via fax & web 4 times a year: Feb, May, Aug, and Nov. in regions across Japan (Tokyo, Chiba + others). Each time, they surveyed approximately 1200 people. They also use other selection methods.
• Recognition – They asked the respondents if they know the name and the face. If they do, then they recognized the talent.
• Interest – For the group that recognized the talent, they were further asked if they would listen, watch, or find out about the person. The possible answers are 1) very interested, 2) interested, 3) not interested, 4) absolutely not interested. The % is based on a weighted average of those who were very interested and interested.

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Sources

• All info: Nikkei Entertainment July 2021 Issue – Amazon Japan link
• Female idol chart: @seinedoru
• More charts from @seinedoru (none related to BABYMETAL)
• Methodology (2018) – More analysis on it (2015)