Traditional Pop Music of Japan
After the Meiji revitalization brought into the western musical instruction, a bureaucrat known as Izawa Shuji compiled songs like Auld La...
http://worldhitz4u.blogspot.com/2014/01/traditional-pop-music-of-japan.html
After
the Meiji revitalization brought into the western musical instruction, a
bureaucrat known as Izawa Shuji compiled songs like Auld Lang Syne and
commissioned songs using a pentatonic melody. The western music, especially the
military marches, soon became famous in Japan. Two major types of music that
established during this era were shoka, which was composed to bring western
music to schools, and gunka which are military marches with some Japanese
elements.
source of picture: www.pacific.edu
As
Japan stirred towards representative democracy in the late 19th
century, leaders employed singers to sell copies of songs that aired their
messages, since the leaders themselves were usually prohibited from speaking in
public. The street artists were known as enka-shi, also at the end of the 19th
century, an Osakan form of street corner singing became famous, this was called
rokyoku, and this includes the two Japanese musicians such as Yoshida Naramaru
and Tochuken Kumoemon.
Westernized
pop music is known as kayokyoku, which is said to have and first emerged in a
dramatization of resurrection by Tolstoy. The song Kachusha no Uta, composed by
Shinpei Nakayama was sung by Sumako Matsui in the year 1914. The song became a
hit among the enka-shi and was one of the first major best-selling records in
Japan. Ryukoka, which adopted the western classical music, made waves across
the country during the prewar era, Ichiro Fujiyama became famous in the prewar
era, but war songs later became famous when the World War II arose.
Kayokyoku
became a major industry, especially after the arrival of the superstar Misora
Hibari, in the 1950s, tango and other types of Latin music, especially Cuban
music, became very well-known in Japan. A distinctively Japanese type of tango
is known as dodompa which is also established. Kayokyoku became associated entirely
with the traditional Japanese structures, while more western-style music was
known as Japanese pop or simply called Jpop. Enka music, adopting the Japanese
traditional structures, became quite famous in the postwar era; however its popilarity
has waned since the 1970s and enjoys little favour with the current youth. The
popular enka singers include Hibari Misora, Kiyoshi Hikawa, Ikuzo Yoshi, and
Kitajima Saburo.
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