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8 July , 2002
JPOP - THE SOUND OF YOUNG JAPAN
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Mainstream American pop fans have long ignored Japanese music. For all most rock fans know, Japanese music is still rooted in the traditional sounds of the koto, shamisen and shakuhachi, and is best listened to as accompaniment to zen meditation or a ritualistic tea ceremony.
| Finally, though, Japanese rock seems poised to make a bigger impact on the US scene -- without the help of record companies and their marketing schemes, without TV exposure and even radio airplay. |
Mostly, that's because American pop music fans have very little patience or interest in music that is sung in a foreign language. The occasional exception will get attention in the US - Kyu Sakamoto's "Ue O Muite Aruko" (better known here in the West as "Sukiyaki") is the best-known example of a Japanese song that became a hit in America. It overcame the language barrier with the name change and was a number-one hit in 1963 on the strength of its mournful, hummable melody.
But these exceptions have been cultural flukes at best - blips on the radar screen, nothing planned or expected. I'm sure Japanese music in Japan has the same full range of styles and artists as we do here - from older pop crooners and jazz musicians to folkies, big-haired rockers and leather-clad punks. But we'd never know it from the few musicians who've managed to cross the Pacific.
Japan's first attempted
invasion of the US pop charts since Sakamoto was in the late 1970s, in
the form of Pink Lady, the duo of Mie Nemoto and Kei Masuda who had a
huge hit in Japan with a remake of the American disco song "In the Navy."
The two were cute enough to be noticed by a TV executive in the US, who
made the ill-fated decision to create a variety show around the women
as a summer filler series. Although the show had an American co-host who
tossed ethnic humor around in an attempt to keep viewers interested, the
women couldn't speak English very well (they sang phonetically), and the
series didn't even last a month. Pink Lady barely cracked the US charts
in 1979 with "Kiss in the Dark," but never made a lasting impression.
They broke up in 1981 after returning to Japan and trying to re-spark
their careers.
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Japanese musicians haven't made it on the US hit charts since then. But outside of the mainstream, Japanese music has thrived.
As young Japanese discovered punk rock and turned up their guitars, their noisy thrashing caught the attention of some cutting-edge American rock fans. In the early 1990s, a Seattle label tried to import and make popular a Tokyo punk band called Blue Hearts that made music as energetic and catchy as the Clash. They failed, but another Japanese punk group, a much smoother sounding female trio (now duo) called Shonen Knife, became underground sensations when US avant-garde groups such as Sonic Youth and Nirvana proclaimed them the best thing since sliced bread. Their songs had a twist - they were about whimsical topics like buffalo and tomato heads, and sung with absolutely no irony. The approach was somewhat one-dimensional, though, and they group never built a larger fan base than the ones along the cutting-edge (and a handful of rock critics), despite the efforts of their US label.
A more recent attempt by an American company to import a Japanese group was Pizzicato Five, a duo of Yasuharu Konishi and Maki Nomiya. Konishi, a musician and record producer with an obsessive knowledge of American disco and R&B of the 1970s, created catchy sonic soundscapes for singer Nomiya to dance across. The duo was popular on the dance club circuit, but never made it big. Other groups from Japan that played dance-club music based on '70s R&B have made some inroads, like Fantastic Plastic Machine, but they've been cult favorites at best, and mostly unknown bto the general public.
The group Dreams Come True has made a strong attempt at breaking through to the US with its slick, soulful pop - their toe-tapping brassy sound and mellow ballads would appeal to fans of Earth, Wind and Fire or Luther Vandross -- but they still remain virtually unknown despite wider distribution in the West than most Japanese artists.
Finally, though, Japanese rock seems poised to make a bigger impact on the US scene -- without the help of record companies and their marketing schemes, without TV exposure and even radio airplay. Thanks in large part to the Internet with its ability to let fans sprout spontaneous Web sites and its ability to allow fans to share music files with each other, "Jpop," as the genre is now called, is catching on.
Jpop artists actually cover a lot of stylistic ground - the love of '70s R&B is still there, but so are hard-rock guitars, the currently hip underground dance sound of techno and trance. I'd known about Jpop for some time - Web sites devoted to Jpop seem to spring up all the time, and any fan of anime, or Japanese animation, which has also become quite popular with a growing base of Americans, seems to also be interested in Jpop (because of the movies' soundtracks).
My stepson Jared is into Jpop now, thanks to his friend P.J., who's in the Navy and has picked up a stack of Jpop discs overseas both in Japan and at various stops in Asia while on duty. The stuff is somewhat hard to find stateside, at least here in the heartland. If you're on the West Coast, you can find imported Jpop CDs easily enough. But in Colorado, we have to special-order titles through neighborhood shops or hit the Web and click to Amazon.com or other sites. I've suggested that Pacific Mercantile, Denver's Japanese supermarket, start stocking Jpop.
I've recently even discovered an Internet radio show that plays nothing but Jpop - it's a great way to introduce yourself to the music without spending any money.
I'm just a novice, but my favorite Jpop artists include the eclectic duo Puffy (Yumi Yoshimura and Ami Onuki, who are currently touring the US), the more traditional pop star Ayumi Hamasaki and the edgier Utada Hikaru (who was born in New York and educated in the US).
For now, listening to Jpop is like tuning in to early rock and roll - a cultish appreciation shared by a small, but growing group of fans. But I doubt it'll stay that way for much longer. Some of these artists deserve worldwide attention. Thanks to the Internet, they're getting it.
But given time, the rest of the world will sit up and listen too.
NOTE: You can listen to Hardcore J, the Internet Jpop radio show, online. And, you can purchase Jpop titles at CD Japan or through Amazon.com.