The First Take

The First Take is a Japanese YouTube channel that invites singers to perform a song recorded in one take. Videos on The First Take are filmed in a studio, alternating between medium and close-up shots of only the performing singer and a microphone, set to a background that’s usually white. The footage is recorded in 4K resolution with high quality audio. According to creative director Keisuke Shimizu, singers are asked to treat the filming as a live performance, The Japan Times writer Patrick St. Michel notes that The First Take’s success demonstrates a shift in musical preferences in the public, suggesting that “slick, manicured pop is out and authenticity — or at least the veneer of authenticity — is in”. The First Take is a trademark of Sony Music Entertainment Japan. 

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On November 15, 2019, the channel published its first video featuring “Narratage” by Adieu. On December 6, LISA’s performance of “Gurenge” went viral and gained more views than the song’s original music video, and is credited with popularizing the channel. Several recordings on the channel are available digitally, and Dish’s performance of “Neko” peaked at 11th on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 and also placed 28th on the Billboard Japan Year-End Hot 100. As of September 2021, 192 videos and 109 individuals or groups have appeared on the channel; three videos have more than 100 million views: “Gurenge”, “Neko”, and “Yoru ni Kakeru” by Yoasobi. As a response to a state of emergency due to the COVID 19 pandemic, several videos in 2020 were filmed inside the singer’s home and titled “The Home Take”.

On YouTube The First Take has had a presence for already 3 years. The channel is called The First Take  and it was created back on November 5, 2019. Due to the quite unique, interesting and musical content, as of November 2021, The First Take’s YouTube channel has more than 5.41 million subscribers. On the channel there are already 284 uploaded videos and more than 1.5 billion total number of views.  The very first video that was uploaded on the YouTube channel of The First Take is called “ adieu – ナラタージュ / THE FIRST TAKE”. This video was uploaded about three years ago, on November 15, 2019 and it gained more than 5 million views, over 77K likes and 1692 comments. Besides Youtube, The First Take is also showing a certain level of activeness on other social media platforms which happen to be Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. On Instagram, the account is called the_firsttake. The audience of this platform exceeds 223K followers. The First Take uses this platform in order to post and share with people the photos, short videos, news and updates As for Twitter, The First Take joined this social media platform and created their channel back in November 2019. As for now, their channel is The First Take and here there are more than 210K followers. The last platform on which The First Take has a presence is TikTok. On TikTok, their channel is the_first_take and has over 848K followers.