¶ … Japanese music around the world, as well as the impact of world music on the evolution of Japanese culture focusing on the post-war period. Using Web searches and Google Scholar searches related to post-war Japanese music, including specific search terms like "enka" and "Beatles in Japan," the researchers collected a series of primary and secondary sources showing how music in Japan evolved throughout the 20th century like a dramatically changing kaleidoscope of clashing cultures. Music and culture evolve concurrently, often paralleling and mirroring each other and echoing each other's politics, values, and aesthetics. In the generation immediately following the end of World War Two, enka and the introduction of the Beatles music to Japan represented the dichotomies between conservative and progressive, between old and young, between past and future.
Evolution of Enka
Even though enka has changed over time, the musical style has always had a strong political and cultural connotation. Enka, which literally translates to "performance song," traces its roots to the prewar Meiji Era (Cahoon 1). It was a style of singing that used lyrics to convey political messages, during a time when political parties were starting to communicate their platforms in public but were restrained by laws prohibiting speeches (Cahoon 1). Therefore, enka became a way for Japanese politicians to subvert the Meiji reform policies, and it also showcased the way Japan was changing.
Enka was and still is characterized by its fusion of western and Japanese elements. Yet through blending western instrumentation with classical Japanese vocal styles and some Japanese instrumentation and scales, enka has been called one of the "musical markers of Japaneseness," (Shamoon 113). It retains a sentimental value in the culture today, mainly among the older generation that came of age around the 1960s. Enka is mainly a ballad genre, but its style has changed considerably since it first evolved out of kayokyoku styles but then started to take on different forms in the 1960s (Shamoon 113). The closest American parallel to enka would be country music, due to the ballad format and the conservative nature of the genre, which has evolved but still has strict stylistic rules (Cahoon 1). In fact, enka has been called "rigid and concerned with nostalgia for a 'pure' Japanese past," even while significantly...
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