POPULAR MUSIC IN MILLENNIAL JAPAN
Traditional Japanese music gagaku
BASIC AESTHETIC PRINCIPLES
AS RELATED TO TRADITIONAL JAPANESE MUSIC
• Meditative and spiritual
• Slow-paced music
• Contemplative, intuitive
• Imitating natural life sounds
• Bypassing individuality
• Individual ego must retreat at the expense of collective ego
• One writes music in the spirit of artistic school he belongs to
• Highly ritualized performance, strict compositional structure
• Maintaining aesthetic principles
• philosophical principle of naru: music as “becoming” (evolving through its own temporal movement)
• poetic principle of jo-ha-kyū: art as “flow of nature” (structured by Introduction-Development-Conclusion)
• sensory principle of ma: emphasizing the “space” of time (signified by silences between phrases or single notes)
THE ORIGINS AND TRANSFORMATIONS OF JAPANESE POPULAR MUSIC
• Nara period (553–794)
• Japanese monks brought music from China
• It became adopted as “refined music” (gagaku)
• Gagaku introduced first musical instruments on Japanese soil:
• percussion (taiko), string (biwa, koto, shamisen) and wind (hichiriki, shakuhachi, fue)
• Tokugawa period (1603–1868)
• Shoguns isolated the Japanese archipelago, but not entirely (e.g. the Dutch settlement on Dejima)
• Rise of the “townsman culture” (chōnin bunka) with its strong passion for music and theatrical arts
• Pleasure quarters (yūkaku) such as Yoshiwara were spaces where musical performance was flourishing
• The kabuki theater introduced by Izumo no Okuni (1574–1640) – the first Japanese “celebrity-entertainer”
THE ORIGINS AND TRANSFORMATIONS OF JAPANESE POPULAR MUSIC
• Meiji period (1868–1912)
• Traditional arts were (com)modified with the entry of foreign and Japanese capital
• “embracing the West” (Fukuzawa) versus “expelling the barbarians” (Tokutomi)
• Inculcating national sentiments through “national music” (kokugaku)
• Adopting Western ceremonial music for military purposes
• Taishō period (1912–1926)
• Popular culture including music performance was gradually commercialized and censored
• “modern girls” (moga) and their cosmopolitan “culture of taste” (e.g. devotion to jazz and dance)
• Establishing music revue Takarazuka (1914): all-female, cross-dressing, cross-gender performances
• Building new commercial ballrooms in the capital where moga can dance and entertain themselves
THE ORIGINS AND TRANSFORMATIONS OF JAPANESE POPULAR MUSIC
• Shōwa: (pre)war period (1926–1945)
• The cultural and political zeitgeist of “falling into a dark valley” (Akutagawa)
• Anti-Japan or anti-war music/lyrics avoided or heavily censored
• Performances of American and British music banned (1942)
• Steel guitars, ukuleles, and banjos outlawed (1944)
• Shōwa: postwar period (1945–1989)
• Japanese popular culture censored and Americanised during the US occupation (until 1952)
• The earliest popcultural exports were not music, but film/anime (Gojira, Astro Boy, Ultraman)
• Enka: sentimental romantic ballads in pentatonic minor scale (e.g. Kiyoshi Hikawa or Hibari Misora)
• The annual NHK TV music show Kōhaku Uta Gassen: maintaining the conservative musical status quo
ENKA
ELECTRIFYING JAPANESE POP
ELECTRIC GUITAR BOOM IN POSTWAR JAPAN:
• The first “electric boom” (ereki būmu) occurred between 1964 and 1967 (more than half million electric
guitars sold)
• Japan’s first rock LB is released in 1964 (Korezo Surfing by The Blue Jeans), introducing a new guitar
model (Mosrite Mark 1)
• Playing guitar covers and forming bands became a new cultural phenomenon, shaping lives of Japanese
high school/university students
• The Japanese “guitar heroes” of this period were musically too tied to Japan’s hierarchically structured,
largely conservative culture industry
• Japan as the leading consumer and imitator of postwar British/American pop-rock:
• 1960s: The Ventures, The Beatles (initiating a boom of “Beatlesque” copycat bands in Japan)
• 1970s: Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple (introducing lengthy guitar solos when touring Japan)
• 1980s: Kiss, Aerosmith, David Bowie (emphasizing both artistic performance and visual spectacle)
EREKI BOOM
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRIC BOOM
IN POSTWAR JAPANESE POPULAR MUSIC
• Origins of ereki būmu (1960s)
• Guitarists Takeshi Terauchi and Yūzō Kayama: strict forms of composition, spectacular virtuosity
• Coming from affluent/pedigreed families, studying at elite universities, even playing at military bases
• Differing from their idols, i.e. the British-led music revolutionaries with lower/middle-class background
• Emasculation of ereki būmu (1970s)
• The “founders” dismissed new anti-mainstream/countercultural forms of music during student upheavals
• Heavy-rock templates retreat at the expense of soft-rock and singer-songwriter pop (e.g. Yōsui Inoue)
• Emergence of Japanese pop-oriented bands (e.g. Southern All Stars) and electronic projects (e.g. YMO)
• Revival and retreat of ereki būmu (1980s)
• “Visual Kei” (bijuaru kei): Japanese heavy metal groups visually influenced by glitter rock of Bowie or Kiss
• Hide (from X-Japan) and Tak (from B’z) are among the most popular icons of Japanese pop-music history
• Eventually, the commercial blend of rock, blues and synth pop prevailed, paving the way for millennial J-pop
JAPANESE POP AND THE ROLE OF CULTURE INDUSTRY
• The 1990s as the fundamental shift in Japanese popular music more toward dance-oriented “idol pop”
• Preceded by the boy band Johnnys (1962–1967) which adopted the American style of good-looking
adolescents who can dance while singing
• Millennial J-Pop:
• pop divas (Ayumi Hamasaki, Hikaru Utada)
• boy bands (SMAP, Exile)
• idol groups (Morning Musume, AKB48)
• J-pop music and performance: basic features
• Singers must both dance and act while retaining their youthful looks even when becoming adults
• Songs are typical of short and repetitive refrains with minimalist and easy-to-follow lyrics
• Dance movements are synchronized and specific to each song, albeit stemming from one root template
• Managing entertainment agencies (jimusho)
• Strict training and managing of Japanese adolescents based on American models of music performance
• Agencies operate as hierarchical Japanese corporations (Kitagawa’s “Johnny and Associates” since 1962)
• Kitagawa’s marketing strategy: promotion via television, exploitative business practices, homoerotic styling
JAPANESE POP AND THE ROLE OF TRANSNATIONAL NETWORK
• Japanese pop was created globally and perpetuated in the feedback of transnational circulation
• The hybrid nature of Japanese pop-rock
• 1920s: Japanese-American jazz performances grows popular (along with Filipinos)
• 1960s: American-style musicals inform the performance of Japanese boy bands
• 1970s: Consuming and emulating British/American pop-rock (cf. ereki būmu)
• 2000s: Blending Japanese and American “cultures of taste” (e.g. Hikaru Utada)
• 2010s: Korean idol bands start gaining popularity in Japan (cf. K-pop boom)
• The issue of cultural exportation
• Foreign receptions of Japanese popular music usually exhibit their own form of agency
• “cultural feedback”: Japanese music as unintelligible-but-fascinating (cf. “Orientalism”)
• “cultural flavor”: the amount of cultural traits that make a popular text somewhat Japanese
• The process of cultural domestication
• American concepts must be localized and repackaged for the Japanese audiences (and vice versa)
• “reverse importation”: Japanese musicians become validated at home after gaining status abroad
• The “big in Japan” syndrome: foreign bands losing their popularity at home but succeeding in Japan
JAPANESE MUSIC IDOLS
AND THE ROLE OF AFFECTIVE ECONOMICS
• Contemporary Japan: structural dependency on idols, celebrities, and all things “cute” (kawaii)
• Cultivating J-pop singers as “idols” (aidoru), where exceptional talent is not essential (cf. tarento)
• Selling idols as “media darlings” that can generate income from both music and non-music sources
• Cute female idols first noted in Japan in the 1970s (e.g. Saori Minami, Momoe Yamaguchi, Pink Lady)
• The Japanese media were utilizing and popularizing the image of “(beautiful) young girl”, or (bi)shōjo
• Japanese idols correlate with cuteness, innocence and sublime eroticism (cf. the 1980s’ rorikon boom)
• “affective economics”
• building and maintaining relationships to shape desires and impact purchasing decisions (Jenkins)
• Affect (moe): change in body/mind resulting from encountering another body/mind (cf. maid cafes)
• Moe usually represents an intensive affective response to fictional characters and/or factual celebrities
• “suspension of disbelief” is essential for moe, while idol is a common object of affective desire (cf. otaku)
THE DIVERSITY OF KAWAII IN J-POP
Single-kawaii (Yuria Kizaki)
Mass-kawaii (AKB48)
Gothic-kawaii (Babymetal)
Hyper-kawaii (Kyari Pamyu Pamyu)
AKIHABARA AND AKB48
• Place: Akihabara
• a space for hyperreal escapism, cuteness syndrome, information fetishism, and infantile capitalism
• Originally an “electronic town” (denkigai), but since 2000s “the holy land of otaku” (otaku no seichi)
• Now the ”showcase”” for the governmental project Cool Japan, and the birthplace of AKB48
• Band: AKB48
• On of the most successful J-pop acts ever
• Originally an underground music act, whose members soon became “national idols” (kokuminteki aidoru)
• Originally marginal subcultures, the AKB fans (otaku) are being (ab)used for political and commercial agendas
•
• Concept: AKB Business
• The culture industry of capitalizing on relations between idols and fans (AKB shōhō)
• Fans not observers, but participants who more or less directly interact with idols (cf. the “handshake events”)
• Idols not stars but servants who appeal for further support (e.g. fans buying more copies of the same record)
J-POP AND BEYOND: THE VIRTUAL IDOL
• The shift of Japanese characters and idols from 2D to 2.5D, and eventually to 3D
• The popularity of transhumanism in Japanese popular culture (androids, dystopia)
• Miku Hatsune: Japan’s leading virtual idol
• 2007: inventing a voice synth software (Vocaloid by Crypton)
• 2007–2010: developing a dancing “vocal character”
• 2010: First performance of Miku in Zepp Tokyo
• The kawaii style was adapted from AKB48: between pure innocence and youthful eroticism
• Miku as part of dōjin culture: fans create derivative works or send feedback to the producers
• Miku as a socio-economic assemblage that emerges from both fan and business activities
MIKU HATSUNE
• Age: 16
• Height: 158 cm
• Weight: 42 kg
• Favorite genre: J-Pop, dance pop
• Favorite tempo: 70-150 BPM
• Best voice range: A3–A5
MIKU HATSUNE LIVE (cf. the Plato’s Cave metaphor)