2005 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
The Generic Study on Styles of Japanese Songs
| Project/Area Number |
15320020
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Aesthetics/Art history
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| Research Institution | The University of Tokyo |
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Principal Investigator |
SATO Yoshiaki The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Professor (00126278)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
IWASA Tetsuo The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Professor (50203360)
KIMURA Hideo The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Professor (10153206)
MATSUOKA Shinpei The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Professor (70173812)
DEVOS Patrick The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Associate Professor (00242032)
CHOKI Seiji The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Associate Professor (50292842)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2003 – 2005
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| Keywords | Japan / popular culture / popular music / performance / culture contact |
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| Research Abstract |
By analyzing thousands of collected songs, we have arrived at a clear picture of how Japanese popular songs in the periods 1880s-1960s reflect the reactions of its people under the pressure of modernization cum Westernization. The old premise that there are some unchanging "national" or cultural characteristics that continue to manifest themselves in the songs enjoyed by a populace no longer holds. Rather, the changing styles of popular songs reflect, among others, positive and negative attitudes of people toward the currently respectable music and toward the tradition. The dialectics of aspiration and repulsion, of acclimation and resistance, are clearly observable in Japan's hit songs especially during 1930s-1960s, after which period, the infusion of rock elements--themselves dominantly African-American products earned against the ruling cultural hegemony of the modern elite--into Japanese pop songs complicates the dialectic structure.
It is to be emphasized that only through the awareness of such cultural dynamics will it become possible to explain cohesively the processes of evolution in Japanese popular songs in its modern era. A systematic account of the birth and flowering of enka as a music genre embodying the whole span of the nation's musical experiences, is then called for. Also, such an evolutionary study must take into account the "other side of the story": the history or J-Pop. We have reached the point of being able to provide both the theoretical framework and the database of recorded songs for more work to proceed.
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