| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Western Music in Japan

Page history last edited by Robert Joe Shotkus 13 years, 6 months ago

When Japan (forcibly) opened its ports to the western world and it's influences, it allowed for the first time since closing it's door, access to outside music. From combining classical with their own to making lounge jazz even more obnoxious, the Japanese have taken  everything we've thrown at them in the music world and, with a brush, completely marked it over as something very Japanese, or at least perceptibly Japanese from, well, an outsider's perspective (did you see what I did there? I think you did.) 

Origin- Our, ehm... Occupation(s)
     So, after a very long stint of isolationism from foreign influence, Japan, in 1853, opened it's borders to outsiders for the first time since 1633. Granted, it was at canon point from Commodore Perry. Western music was first brought over to Japan in 1880, when Japan was quickly seeking to modernize after it's Sakoku policy (no foreign influence) and learned (forcibly) the anhemitonic pentatonic scales (do re mi fa so la). Many aspects of the binary process of western world music making were borrowed, and the modernization of music began.

So, when did it become popular though?
    
Well, it was taught but not really popularized, like, really, really popularized until the American Jazz era. Jazz has always been very popular in Japan, and has been adopted in very many ways, so much so that it was hidden underground during WWII when nationalism was lawfully enforced. Jazz, being western music, was all but outlawed, though it's effects on the music of Japan could not be pulled from it's strings, especially in patriotic/military band tunes at the time. The more obvious jazz influenced tunes were referred to as "light music".  

     Such awesome acts as Fumio Nanri came around and made some of the best early Japanese Jazzmen, producing very western style big band hits in Tokyo dance clubs
     

 

YouTube plugin error

 

The same musical trends in the West can be followed in Japan, and after traditional jazz came bebop and the big band madness. Tokyo Boogie Woogie was a large hit, and outside of swing a new arise in free jazz began to take effect.

YouTube plugin error   

Contrast this with Enka music, another style of music from the 1960's which is culturally Japanese and was heavily inspired by Japanese folk (min'yo) and various Japanese vocal styles, not so jazzy, though does operate in a Jazz-line and take advantage of jazz instruments.

YouTube plugin error

So there was history, here is now.

Jazz never seemed to quit in Japan. With the modernization of Jazz with electronic music, and the prevalence of this fast-paced style of jazz music in big night clubs comes a more intense style of Jazz playing.  Take this for example- Soil&Pimp Sessions

Soil&Pimp Sessions began with a group of underground Tokyo DJ's began having live jam sessions during their sets, finally forming a uniform lineup and eventually coming to release their first pimped album Pimpin' after much trouble finding a label. What makes this band, to me, seem like a very centrally Japanese experience is their high-octane performances and, well, strange arrangement. In addition to their music arrangement, they have Shacho, the band's Agitator. As Agitator, Shacho has been known to run around the band, while they play, yelling at them to get them pumped, or standing around in his sophisticated uniform, getting the audience pumped and keeping them on their toes.


YouTube plugin error

 

 

I do wish to rock
     There are so many genres of rock music, all of which are acknowledged and expanded upon in Japanese culture, from traditional rock and roll, to pop music and punk rock-- but nothing beats Japanese in experimental metal. Nothing.
    Like most rock music in the sixties/seventies, a lot of psychedelic music sprouted throughout Japan, taking large notice from Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles.

This is the group Flower Traverin' Band

YouTube plugin error

and The Spider's, one of the many group-sounds bands

YouTube plugin error

The eighties brought us industrial music, punk rock, new wave and so much more awesome music, and Japan took note. Here is P-Model. It carries the New wave/industrial sounds as good as any.

YouTube plugin error


One of my favorite Japanese bands is the funk band Jagatara. They are kind of like Japan's Talking Heads


YouTube plugin error


GISM strangely rocked the American punk scene in the 1980s. This violent, punk/metal infusion influenced a lot of American bands, and blows my mind. Thanks, 1983, you broke a lot of noses.

YouTube plugin error

Unlike in America, hair metal in Japan never really died. It just got bigger and bigger

YouTube plugin error

In the modern age, we have jrock, jpunk, j-everything and it is all pretty good. Check out C. Daniel's page for a lot of really great noise music. I'm going to end this page with my all time favorite band who happens to be out of Japan- Boris. Listen to it all, listen to it in order, alone, with the lights off.

YouTube plugin error   YouTube plugin error    YouTube plugin error


Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.