In, perhaps, a moot effort to keep this blog alive, I’d like to very briefly (as I’ve not much time) discuss the livelihood of Eurobeat; to wit, if it’s dying or still very alive. This discussion goes on rather heatedly on the Eurobeat Prime forums, pooling in very valid points on either side of the divide. Does avex’s choices damage or propel Eurobeat as a genre? What about increased piracy? Does FARM records have more power than we thought? These questions all only serve as smaller details to the question of if Eurobeat has much life left before a postulated “death”.

It is my take, then, that Eurobeat is quite alive as a genre, and will never fully “die” so much as fall into further obscurity. Eurobeat on a larger scale may not be doing very well, but on the small scales it is performing and adapting just as needed for a couple more years of success.

Exhibit A: Independent productions. We have never seen such an increase in independent projects as we have in the last couple of years. A corner originally occupied by only a few producers such as DJ Bouche and a fledgling DJ Command, we’ve now seen a slew of names appear on the scene: DTZ Project, #Infinity Productions, RainbowDragonEyes, Disko Warp, Sugano, and other names on which I’ve only scratched the surface.
These are not names I list meagerly; their participation in the Eurobeat world is not unnoticed. Disko Warp frequently makes their way into such big-name projects as Dance Dance Revolution, RainbowDragonEyes has gained a cult following for the appearance of two of its artists on Super Euro Freak vol. 1 (to fantastic reviews), and the artists appearing on Underground Eurobeat vol. 1 have also had sufficient fanfare to warrant another entry to the compilation, due some time this year.
In case you are unaware of the more famous works of the above-listed, a small sampling:

From DJ Bouche, his well-known Hare Hare Yukai remix:

And from DJ Command, “Can’t Beat Airman (Eurobeat Mix)”, perhaps his best-known track (sorry for the video, the originals are no longer on Youtube):

I’d be remiss to not showcase these productions as well:

And from the undefeatable Paradise Last:

Part two of exhibit A: Nico Nico Douga and the Vocaloids. Seeing as the vocaloids are very recent trends in Japan, one would suspect that their output in terms of music would nearly be restricted solely to recent genres. What we’ve received instead is a surge of Eurobeat production for our virtual-voiced friends. 2ch and NicoVideo seem to be happy hosts to large amounts of fan-made Eurobeat, nearly bursting at the seams with original Eurobeat creations and Eurobeat remixes of previous Vocaloid anthems.

Here’s one such medley of Hatsune Miku songs redone in Eurobeat:

And, a couple individual eurobeat mixes with other Vocaloids:

Exhibit B: Label count. It would only make sense that, if a genre were not profitable enough to continue being produced, it would not be produced and the number of labels would decrease (or simply change focuses), right?

The number of labels producing Eurobeat has only increased.

In the Avex/SEB camp ALONE we’ve seen increases; from what once was simply ABeatC, Delta, Time, Hi-NRG Attack, SCP, Vibration and BBB, we’ve now made the jump to ABeatC, Go Go’s Music, Delta, SinclaireStyle, Eurogrooves, Hi-NRG Attack, SCP, and Dima. If we consider Dima and Eurogrooves as replacements for Time and Vibration respectively, we have a two label increase (Go Go’s and SinclaireStyle). With an evident surge of the “Super Anime Remix” releases in Japan/Akiba, featuring remixes of popular songs from anime series, this increases the label count a great deal.

Part two coming when I have time~