/jp/ - Otaku Culture

YOM went on to achieve unparalleled success and popularity in Japan, China, and other Asian countries from its release in 1973 and continuing well after Karen Carpenter's death in 1983, and up to the present. It quickly reached No. 1 on the charts in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia in 1974, and the album on which it was the featured "bookend" song, Now and Then, reached No. 1 on the Japanese album chart (the single held No. 2 in Japan for several months). As evidenced by countless reports, articles, and Internet postings out of China, there is little doubt that YOM was the most popular and widely played Western song in China from its first openings to foreign music in the late 1970's until the current era of digitally accessible music on a world scale.

Considering YOM's prolonged primacy among popular songs in the world's most populous country; the range and duration (30 to 40 years) of its popularity not only in China, but in other populous East Asian countries like Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea; and the number and striking diversity of the countries in which it reached No. 1 (U.S., Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Venezuela, Belgium, and Israel, among others) or No. 2 (Japan and UK) on the national charts; taking all this into account, a credible case could be made that more persons have heard "Yesterday Once More" than any pop song in history, at least in the pre-Internet and pre-digital age.