, an abbreviation for
Japanese pop, is a loosely-defined musical genre that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1990s. Modern J-pop has its roots in 1960s music such as
The Beatles and is derived from the
Eurobeat genre, it replaced ''
kayōkyoku'' ("Lyric Singing Music", a term for Japanese pop music from the 1920s to the 1980s) in the Japanese music scene. The term was coined by the Japanese media to distinguish Japanese music from foreign music, and now refers to most Japanese popular music. According to 2010
global music industry market share data from the
International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, Japan has the second largest market for recorded music in the world, behind the
United States.
Form and definition
The origin of modern J-pop is said to be Japanese-language rock music inspired by
The Beatles. Unlike the Japanese music genre called ''
kayōkyoku'', J-pop uses a special kind of pronunciation, which is similar to that of
English. One notable singer to do so is
Keisuke Kuwata, who pronounced the Japanese word ''karada'' ("body") as ''kyerada''. Additionally, unlike Western music, the
major second (''sol'' and ''la'') was usually not used in Japanese music, except
art music, before rock music became popular in Japan. When the
Group Sounds genre, which was inspired by Western rock, became popular, Japanese pop music adopted the major second, which was used in the final sounds of The Beatles' song "
I Want to Hold Your Hand" and
The Rolling Stones' song "
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction". Although Japanese pop music changed from music based on Japanese
pentatonic scale and distortional
tetrachord to the more occidental music over time, music that drew from the traditional Japanese singing style remained popular (such as that of
Ringo Shiina).
At first, the term ''J-pop'' was used only for Western-style musicians in Japan, such as Pizzicato Five and Flipper's Guitar, just after Japanese radio station J-Wave was established. However, the term became a blanket term, covering other music genres—such as the majority of Japanese rock music of the 1990s.
In 1990, Tower Records Japan defined J-pop as all Japanese music belonging to the Recording Industry Association of Japan except Japanese independent music (also known as "J-indie"); they began to use additional classifications, such as J-club, J-punk, J-hip-hop, J-reggae, J-anime, and Visual kei by 2008, after independent musicians started to release works via major labels. Ito Music City, a Japanese record store, adopted expanded classifications including Group Sounds, idol of 1970s–1980s, enka, folk and established musicians of 1970s–1980s, in addition to the main J-pop genres.
Whereas rock musicians in Japan usually hate the term "pop", Taro Kato, a member of pop punk band Beat Crusaders, pointed out that the encoded pop music, like pop art, was catchier than "J-pop" and he also said that J-pop was the music, memorable for its frequency of airplay, in an interview when the band completed their first full-length studio album under a major label, ''P.O.A.: Pop on Arrival'', in 2005. Because the band did not want to perform J-pop music, their album featured the 1980s Pop of MTV. According to his fellow band member Toru Hidaka, the 1990s music that influenced him (such as Nirvana, Hi-Standard, and Flipper's Guitar) was not listened to by fans of other music in Japan at that time.
In contrast to this, although many Japanese rock musicians until the late 1980s disrespected the ''kayōkyoku'' music, many of Japanese rock bands of the 1990s—such as Glay—assimilated ''kayōkyoku'' into their music. After the late 1980s, breakbeat and samplers also changed the Japanese music scene, where expert drummers had played good rhythm because traditional Japanese music did not have the rhythm based on rock or blues.
Hide of Greeeen openly described their music genre as J-pop. He said, "I also love rock, hip hop and breakbeats, but my field is consistently J-pop. For example, hip hop musicians learn 'the culture of hip hop' when they begin their career. We are not like those musicians and we love the music as sounds very much. Those professional people may say 'What are you doing?' but I think that our musical style is cool after all. The good thing is good."
History
1920s–1950s: Ryūkōka
Japanese popular music, called ''
ryūkōka'' before being split into ''
enka'' and ''poppusu'',
has origins in the
Meiji period, but most Japanese scholars consider the
Taishō period to be the actual starting point of ''ryūkōka'', as it is the era in which the genre first gained nationwide popularity. By the Taishō period, Western musical techniques and instruments, which had been
introduced to Japan in the Meiji period, were widely used. Influenced by Western genres such as
jazz and
blues, ''ryūkōka'' incorporated Western instruments such as the
violin,
harmonica, and
guitar. However, the melodies were often written according to the traditional Japanese
pentatonic scale. In 1930s,
Ichiro Fujiyama released popular songs with his
tenor voice. Fujiyama sang songs with a lower volume than
opera through the
microphone (the technique is sometimes called ''
crooning'').
Jazz musician Ryoichi Hattori attempted to produce Japanese native music which had a "flavor" of blues.
He composed Noriko Awaya's hit song "Wakare no Blues" (lit. "Farewell Blues"). Awaya became a famous popular singer and was called "Queen of Blues" in Japan. Due to pressure from the Imperial Army during the war, the performance of jazz music was temporarily halted in Japan. Hattori, who stayed in Shanghai at the end of the war, produced hit songs such as Shizuko Kasagi's "Tokyo Boogie-Woogie" and Ichiro Fujiyama's "Aoi Sanmyaku" (lit. "Blue Mountain Range"). Hattori later became known as the "Father of Japanese ''poppusu''". The United States soldiers—who were occupying Japan at the time—and the Far East Network introduced a number of new musical styles to the country. Boogie-woogie, Mambo, Blues, and Country music were performed by Japanese musicians for the American troops. Chiemi Eri's cover song "Tennessee Waltz" (1952), Hibari Misora's "Omatsuri Mambo" (1952), and Izumi Yukimura's cover song "Till I Waltz Again with You" (1953) also became popular. Foreign musicians and groups, including JATP and Louis Armstrong, visited Japan to perform. In the mid-1950s, became a popular venue for live jazz music. Jazz had a large impact on Japanese ''poppusu'', though "authentic" jazz did not become the mainstream genre of music in Japan. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Japanese pop was polarized between urban ''kayō'' and modern ''enka''.
1960s: Origin of modern style
Rokabirī Boom and Wasei pops
During the 1950s and 60s, many Kayōkyoku groups and singers gained experience performing on US military bases in Japan. Around the same time,
Yakuza manager
Kazuo Taoka reorganized the concert touring industry by treating the performers as professionals. Many of these performers later became key participants in the J-pop genre.
In 1956, Japan's rock and roll craze began, due to the country music group known as Kosaka Kazuya and the Wagon Masters; their rendition of Elvis Presley's song "Heartbreak Hotel" helped to fuel the trend. The music was called "rockabilly" (or ''rokabirī'') by the Japanese media. Performers learned to play the music and translate the lyrics of popular American songs, resulting in the birth of . The rockabilly movement would reach its peak when 45,000 people saw the performances by Japanese singers at the first Nichigeki Western Carnival in one week of February 1958.
Kyu Sakamoto, a fan of Elvis, made his stage début as a member of the band The Drifters at the Nichigeki Western Carnival in 1958. His 1961 song "Ue wo Muite Arukō" ("Let's Look Up and Walk"), known in other parts of the world as "Sukiyaki", was released to the United States in 1963. It was the first Japanese song to reach the Number One position in the United States, spending four weeks in ''Cash Box'' and three weeks in ''Billboard''. It also received a gold record for selling one million copies. During this period, female duo The Peanuts also became popular, singing a song in the movie ''Mothra''. Their songs, such as "Furimukanaide" ("Don't Turn Around") were later covered by Candies on their album ''Candy Label''. Artists like Kyu Sakamoto and The Peanuts were called .
After frequently changing members, Chosuke Ikariya re-formed The Drifters in 1964 under the same name. At a Beatles concert in 1966, they acted as curtain raisers, but the audience generally objected. Eventually, The Drifters became popular in Japan, releasing "Zundoko-Bushi" ("Echoic word tune") in 1969. Along with ''enka'' singer Keiko Fuji, they won "the award for mass popularity" at the 12th Japan Record Awards in 1970. Keiko Fuji's 1970 album ''Shinjuku no Onna/'Enka no Hoshi' Fuji Keiko no Subete'' ("Woman in Shinjuku/'Star of ''Enka'' All of Keiko Fuji") established an all-time record in the history of the Japanese Oricon chart by staying in the Number One spot for 20 consecutive weeks. The Drifters later came to be known as television personalities and invited idols such as Momoe Yamaguchi and Candies to their television program.
Eleki Boom and Group Sounds
The Ventures visited Japan in 1962, causing the widespread embrace of the
electric guitar called the "''Eleki'' Boom".
Yūzō Kayama and
Takeshi Terauchi became famous players of electric guitar. In 1966,
the Beatles came to Japan and sang their songs at the
Nippon Budokan, becoming the first
rock music band to perform a concert there. The public believed that the Beatles would cause
juvenile delinquency. The Japanese government deployed
riot police against young rock fans at the Nippon Budokan.
John Lennon felt that they were not well regarded in Japan, but
Beatlemania has never really died there. The Beatles inspired Japanese bands, creating the
Group Sounds genre in Japan.
Most Japanese musicians felt that they could not sing rock in Japanese, so the popularity of Japanese rock gradually declined. As a result, there were debates such as "Should we sing rock music in Japanese?" and "Should we sing in English?" between Happy End and Yuya Uchida about Japanese rock music. This confrontation was called . Happy End proved that rock music could be sung in Japanese, and one theory holds that their music became one of the origins of modern J-pop. The Beatles also inspired Eikichi Yazawa, who grew up in an underprivileged family, his father dying when he was a child. Keisuke Kuwata, who grew up in a dual-income family, was influenced by the Beatles through his older sister, then an avid fan. Yōsui Inoue was also a fan of The Beatles, but he said that his music style was not particularly related to them. After Happy End disbanded in 1973, Haruomi Hosono, a former member, began a solo career and later formed Yellow Magic Orchestra.
1970s: Development of "New Music"
''Fōku'' and New Music
In the early 1960s, some Japanese music became influenced by the
American folk music revival; this was called , although the genre of music was mostly covers of original songs. In the late 1960s,
The Folk Crusaders became famous and the underground music around that time became called ''fōku''. As with ''enka'', Japanese ''fōku'' singers
Wataru Takada performed social satires.
In the early 1970s, the emphasis shifted from ''fōku''s simple songs with a single guitar accompaniment to more complex musical arrangements known as . Instead of social messages, the songs focused on more personal messages, such as love. In 1972, singer-songwriter Takuro Yoshida produced a hit song "Kekkon Shiyouyo" ("Let's marry") without decent television promotion, though fans of ''fōku'' music became very angry because his music seemed to be a mersh music. The highest-selling single of the year was the ''enka'' song by Shiro Miya and the Pinkara Trio, "Onna no Michi". The song eventually sold over 3.25 million copies. On December 1, 1973, Yōsui Inoue released the album ''Kōri no Sekai'', which topped the Oricon charts and remained in Top 10 for 113 weeks. It spent 13 consecutive weeks in the number-one spot, and eventually established a still-standing record of a total 35 weeks at the number-one position on the Oricon charts. Yumi Matsutoya, formerly known by her maiden name Yumi Arai, also became a notable singer/songwriter during this period In October 1975, she released a single "Ano Hi ni Kaeritai" ("I want to return to that day"), making it her first number-one single on the Oricon charts. Miyuki Nakajima, Amii Ozaki, and Junko Yagami were also popular singer-songwriters during this period. At first, only Yumi Matsutoya was commonly called a New Music artist, but the concept of Japanese ''fōku'' music changed around that time. In 1979, Chage and Aska made their debut, and folk band Off Course (with singer Kazumasa Oda) released a hit song "Sayonara" ("Good-bye").
Emergence of Japanese rock and electronic music
Rock music remained a relatively
underground music genre in the 1970s in Japan. Several Japanese musicians began experimenting with
electronic music, including
electronic rock. The most notable was the internationally renowned
Isao Tomita, whose 1972 album ''Electric Samurai: Switched on Rock'' featured electronic
synthesizer renditions of contemporary rock and
pop songs. Other early examples of electronic rock records include
Inoue Yousui's
folk rock and
pop rock album ''Ice World'' (1973) and
Osamu Kitajima's
progressive psychadelic rock album ''
Benzaiten'' (1974), both of which involved contributions from Haruomi Hosono, who later started the electronic music group "Yellow Magic Band" (later known as Yellow Magic Orchestra) in 1977.
In 1978, Eikichi Yazawa's rock single "Toki yo Tomare" ("Time, Stop") became a smash hit that sold over 639,000 copies. He is regarded as one of the pioneers of Japanese rock. He sought worldwide success, and in 1980 he signed a contract with the Warner Pioneer record company and moved to the West Coast of the United States. He recorded the albums ''Yazawa'', ''It's Just Rock n' Roll'', and ''Flash in Japan'', all of which were released worldwide, but were not very commercially successful. Keisuke Kuwata formed the rock band Southern All Stars (SAS), which made their debut in 1978. Southern All Stars remains very popular in Japan today.
In the same year, Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) also made their official debut with their self-titled album. The band, whose members were Haruomi Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi and Ryuichi Sakamoto, developed electropop, or technopop as it is known in Japan, in addition to pioneering synthpop and electro music. Their 1979 album ''Solid State Survivor'' reached number one on the Oricon charts in July 1980, and went on to sell two million records worldwide. At around the same time, the YMO albums ''Solid State Survivor'' and ''X∞Multiplies'' held both the top two spots on the Oricon charts for seven consecutive weeks, making YMO the only band in Japanese chart history to achieve this feat. Young fans of their music during this period became known as the . YMO had a significant impact on Japanese pop music, which started becoming increasingly dominated by electronic music due to their influence, and they had an equally large impact on electronic music across the world. Southern All Stars and Yellow Magic Orchestra symbolized the end of New Music and paved the way for the emergence of the J-pop genre in the 1980s. Both bands, SAS and YMO, would later be ranked at the top of HMV Japan's list of top 100 Japanese musicians of all time.
1980s: Fusion with "kayōkyoku"
City Pop
In the early 1980s, when
car stereo became widespread, the term was used to describe a type of popular music that had a big city theme.
Tokyo in particular inspired many songs of this form. During this time frame, music fans and artists in Japan were influenced by
album-oriented rock (especially
Adult contemporary) and
crossover (especially
Jazz fusion). Although City Pop was affected by New Music, rock band
Happy End was considered one of its originators.
Akira Terao and Anri became famous during this period. Akira Terao's 1981 album ''Reflections'' became the best-selling album of the 1980s in Japan, selling about 1.65 million copies.
Tatsuro Yamashita and his wife Mariya Takeuchi also became popular in this period. Yamashita's 1983 song "Christmas Eve" finally reached number one on the Oricon weekly single charts on December 25, 1989. In 1989, Ryuichi Sakamoto won the Best Album of Original Instrumental Background Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television for his contribution to the movie ''The Last Emperor''.
However, the popularity of City Pop declined when the Japanese asset price bubble disintegrated in 1990, and its musical characteristics (except its "cultural background") were inherited by Shibuya-kei musicians such as Pizzicato Five and Flipper's Guitar.
Growth of the Japanese rock industry
Throughout the 1980s, rock bands such as
Southern All Stars,
RC Succession,
Anzen Chitai,
The Checkers,
The Alfee, and
The Blue Hearts became popular. Anzen Chitai came from
Yosui Inoue's backup band. On December 1, 1983, rock singer
Yutaka Ozaki debuted at the age of 18. In 1986, The Alfee became the first artists to play a concert in front of an audience of 100,000 people in Japan. Some Japanese musicians, such as
Boøwy,
TM Network, and
Buck-Tick, were influenced by
New Romanticism.
Boøwy became an especially influential rock band, whose members included singer Kyosuke Himuro and guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei. Their three albums reached number one in 1988, making them the first male artists to have three number-ones within a single year. Subsequent Japanese rock bands were modeled on this band. Guitarist Tak Matsumoto, who supported TM Network's concerts, formed rock duo B'z with singer Koshi Inaba in 1988.
In the late 1980s, girl band Princess Princess became a successful pop-rock band. Their singles "Diamonds" and "Sekai de Ichiban Atsui Natsu" ("World's Hottest Summer") were ranked at the number-one and number-two spots, respectively, on the 1989 Oricon Yearly Single Charts.
In the late 1980s, a new trend also emerged in Japanese rock music: the ''visual kei'', a movement notable by male bands who wore makeup, extravagant hair styles, and androgynous costumes. The most successful representatives of the movement are X Japan (formerly known as "X") and Buck-Tick. X Japan released their first album ''Vanishing Vision'' on the indie label Extasy Records in 1988; their album ''Blue Blood'' was released on CBS Sony in 1989. ''Blue Blood'' sold 712,000 copies, and their 1991 album ''Jealousy'' sold over 1.11 million copies. X Japan was originally influenced by heavy metal music, but guitarist Hide came under the influence of alternative rock, releasing his first solo album ''Hide Your Face'' in 1994.
Golden age, decline and transfiguration of Idols
In 1970s, the popularity of female idol singers such as Mari Amachi, Saori Minami, Momoe Yamaguchi, and Candies increased. Momoe Yamaguchi was one of first ''kayōkyoku'' singers to use the special pronunciation characteristic of J-pop. In 1972, Hiromi Go made his debut with the song "Otokonoko Onnanoko" ("Boy and Girl"). Hiromi Go originally came from Johnny & Associates.
In 1976, female duo Pink Lady made their debut with the single "Pepper Keibu". Pink Lady released a record nine consecutive number-one singles.
In the 1980s, Japanese idols inherited New Music, though the term fell out of usage. Seiko Matsuda especially adopted song producers of previous generations. In 1980, her third single "Kaze wa Aki Iro" ("Wind is autumn color") reached the number-one spot on the Oricon charts. Haruomi Hosono also joined the production of her music. She eventually became the first artist to make 24 consecutive number-one singles, breaking Pink Lady's record.
Other female idol singers achieved significant popularity in the 1980s, such as Akina Nakamori, Yukiko Okada, Kyōko Koizumi, Yoko Minamino, Momoko Kikuchi, Yōko Oginome, Miho Nakayama, Minako Honda, and Chisato Moritaka. Okada received the Best New Artist award from the Japan Record Awards in 1984. Nakamori won the Grand Prix award for two consecutive years (1985 and 1986), also at the Japan Record Awards; she made a suicide attempt in 1989.
Japanese idol band Onyanko Club made their debut in 1985, and produced popular singer Shizuka Kudō. They changed the image of Japanese idols.
Around 1985, however, people began to be disenchanted with the system for creating idols. In 1986, idol singer Yukiko Okada's song "Kuchibiru Network" ("Lips' Network"), written by Seiko Matsuda and composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, became a hit song, but she committed suicide immediately after that.
Hikaru Genji, one of the Johnny & Associates bands, made their debut in 1987. They became a highly influential rollerskating boy band, with some of their members gaining their own fame as they got older. Their song "Paradise Ginga", written by Aska, won the Grand Prix award at the 30th Japan Record Awards in 1988. Some of the group's backing dancers later formed SMAP.
The late 1980s also saw the rise of the female duo Wink. They didn't laugh, unlike Japanese idols of former eras. Wink debuted in 1988, surpassing the popularity of the then-most popular female duo, BaBe. Wink's song "Samishii Nettaigyo" won the grand prix award at the 31st Japan Record Awards in 1989.
Popular singer Hibari Misora died in 1989, and many ''kayōkyoku'' programs, such as ''The Best Ten'', were closed.
CoCo made their hit debut with the 1989 single "Equal Romance" for the hit anime series ''Ranma ½''. Tetsuya Komuro, a member of TM Network, broke Seiko Matsuda's streak of 25 consecutive number-ones by making his single "Gravity of Love" to debut at number-one in November 1989.
1990s: Coining of the term "J-pop"
1990–1997: Growing market
In the 1990s, the term
J-pop came to refer to all Japanese popular songs except ''
enka''.
During this period, the Japanese music industry sought marketing effectiveness. Notable examples of commercial music from the era were the tie-in music from the agency Being and the follow-on, Tetsuya Komuro's disco music.
The period between around 1990 and 1993 was dominated by artists from the Being agency, including B'z, Tube, B.B.Queens, T-Bolan, Zard, Wands, Maki Ohguro, Deen, and Field of View. They were called the . Many of those artists topped the charts and established new records, notably B'z, which eventually established a new record for consecutive number-one singles, surpassing Seiko Matsuda's record. B'z is, at present, the biggest selling artist of all time, according to Oricon charts. On the other hand, Wands, regarded as a pioneer of the "J-pop Boom" of the 1990s, had trouble because member Show Wesugi wanted to play alternative rock/grunge.
Many artists surpassed the two-million-copy mark in the 1990s. Kazumasa Oda's 1991 single "Oh! Yeah!/Love Story wa Totsuzen ni", Chage and Aska's 1991 single "Say Yes" and 1993 single "Yah Yah Yah", Kome Kome Club's 1992 single "Kimi ga Iru Dake de", Mr. Children's 1994 single "Tomorrow Never Knows" and 1996 single "Namonaki Uta", and Globe's 1996 single "Departures" are examples of songs that sold more than 2 million copies. Dreams Come True's 1992 album ''The Swinging Star'' became the first album to sell over 3 million copies in Japan. Mr. Children's 1994 album ''Atomic Heart'' established a new record, selling 3.43 million copies on Oricon charts.
The duo Chage and Aska, who started recording in late 1979, became very popular during this period. They released a string of consecutive hits throughout the early 1990s; in 1996, they took part in MTV Unplugged, making them the first Asian group to do so.
After TM Network disbanded in 1994, Tetsuya Komuro became a serious song producer. The period between 1994 and 1997 was dominated by dance and techno acts from the , such as TRF, Ryoko Shinohara, Yuki Uchida, Namie Amuro, Hitomi, Globe, Tomomi Kahala, and Ami Suzuki. In that time, Komuro was responsible for 20 hit songs, each selling more than a million copies. While Globe's 1996 album ''Globe'' sold 4.13 million copies, establishing a record at the time, Namie Amuro's 1997 song "Can You Celebrate?" sold 2.29 million copies. His total sales as a song producer reached 170 million copies. By 1998, Komuro's songs had become less popular. By the middle part of the first decade of the 21st century, Komuro's debt lead him to attempt the sale of his song catalog—which he didn't actually own—to an investor. When the investor found out and sued, Komuro tried to sell the catalog to ''another'' investor in order to pay the judgement he owed the first investor.
Namie Amuro, who was arguably the most popular solo singer in the period, came from the "Okinawa Actors School", which also incubated the bands MAX and Speed. At first, while still a part of the Komuro Family, Amuro remained in the dance music genre, but she slowly changed her music style to contemporary R&B; and ended her partnership with Tetsuya Komuro.
Komuro's band Globe became a trance band after their 2001 album ''Outernet''.
1997–1999: Commercial peak
The sales in the Japanese music market continued to increase. In October 1997,
Glay released their album ''
Review -The Best of Glay'', which sold 4.87 million copies, breaking Globe's earlier record. However, it was surpassed in the next year by
B'z's album ''
B'z The Best "Pleasure"'', which sold 5.12 million copies. The Japanese market for physical music sales peaked in 1998, recording sales of |JPY}}. In March 1999,
Hikaru Utada released her first Japanese album, ''
First Love'', which sold 7.65 million copies, making it the best-selling album in
Oricon history.
The late 1990s saw the popularity of rock bands, such as Glay, Luna Sea, and L'Arc-en-Ciel, most of them related to the ''visual kei'' movement, though they later changed their style. At the time, rock musicians in Japan were absorbing ''kayōkyoku'' music after the genre vanished. Glay became especially successful, with massive exposure in the media, comparable to that of the most popular pop singers produced by Tetsuya Komuro. In July 1999, Glay played a concert to a record audience of 200,000 people at the Makuhari Messe, certified by Guinness World Records as the biggest solo concert in Japan. In July 1999, L'Arc-en-Ciel released two albums, ''Arc'' and ''Ray'', at the same time; they sold over 3.02 million combined copies in the first week of release.
X Japan announced their disbandment in September 1997; guitarist Hide died in May 1998. His musical funeral had a record attendance of 50,000 people, breaking the record of Hibari Misora, whose funeral was attended by 42,000 people. After his death, his single "Pink Spider" and album ''Ja, Zoo'' were certified million-sellers by the Recording Industry Association of Japan.
Johnny & Associates produced many boy bands: SMAP, Tokio, V6, KinKi Kids and Arashi. SMAP hit the J-pop scene in a major way in the 1990s through a combination of TV "Tarento" shows and singles, with one of its singers, Takuya Kimura, becoming a popular actor commonly known as "Kimutaku" in later years.
By the late 1990s, the girl group Speed was very popular; they announced their disbandment in 1999. The group returned to the music scene in 2008. Another all-female band, Morning Musume, produced by Tsunku, former leader of band Sharam Q became very popular, with a string of releases that were sales hits before even being released. The group's popularity gave origin to the Hello! Project. Following the pattern set a decade before by the 1980s all-female Onyanko Club, Morning Musume spawned several splinter bands.
In the late 1990s and early 21st century, female singers such as Hikaru Utada, Ayumi Hamasaki, Misia, Mai Kuraki, and Ringo Shiina became chart-toppers who write their own songs or their own lyrics. Hikaru Utada is the daughter of Keiko Fuji, a popular singer of the 1970s. Ayumi Hamasaki was made Utada's contemporary rival, though both women claimed the "competition" was merely a creation of their record companies and the media.
Zeebra introduced hip hop music to Japanese mainstream music. In 1999, Zeebra was featured by Dragon Ash in their song titled "Grateful Days", which topped the Oricon charts.
2000s: Diversification
Avex group
Ayumi Hamasaki won Grand Prix awards for three consecutive years—the first time in
Japan Record Award history—between 2001 and 2003. Although Hamasaki became very famous,
Tom Yoda, then-chairman of her record company
Avex Group, argued that her tactics were risky, because Avex disregarded the
modern portfolio theory. This concern disappeared when the company's other singers (such as
Ai Otsuka,
Kumi Koda, and
Exile) also reached a certain level of popularity in the mid-2000s under Yoda's management policy.
''Chaku-uta''
In December 2002, the digital-download market for was created by mobile-phone company
au. The market for digital downloads grew rapidly, and
Hikaru Utada's 2007 song "
Flavor of Life" sold over 7 million downloaded copies. In October 2007,
EMI Music Japan announced that Utada was the world's first artist to have 10 million digital sales in one year. According to the
International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's 2009 digital music report,
Thelma Aoyama's digital single "
Soba ni Iru ne" and
Greeeen's digital single "
Kiseki" sold 8.2 million copies and 6.2 million copies, respectively, in the 2008 download rankings.
Japanese hip hop and urban pop
In the first decade of the 21st century,
hip hop music and
contemporary R&B; influences in Japanese music started to gain attention in popular mainstream music. In November 2001, R&B; duo
Chemistry's debut album ''
The Way We Are'' sold over 1.14 million copies in the first week, and debuted at the number-one position on the Oricon weekly album charts. Hip hop bands such as
Rip Slyme and
Ketsumeishi were also at the top of the
Oricon charts.
Rock band Orange Range featured several elements of hip hop in their music. Orange Range's album ''musiQ'' sold over 2.6 million copies, making it the number one album of 2005 on the Oricon charts.
Pop/R&B; singer Ken Hirai topped the Oricon yearly album chart in 2006 with the release of his greatest hits album ''10th Anniversary Complete Single Collection '95-'05 Utabaka'', selling over 2 million copies.
Exile, the dance-vocal group under Avex's sublabel Rhythm Zone, had several million-seller albums. Their album ''Exile Love'' topped the Oricon yearly album chart in 2008.
Veteran rapper Dohzi-T collaborated with popular singers such as Shota Shimizu, Hiromi Go, Miliyah Kato, and Thelma Aoyama in his successful 2008 album ''12 Love Stories''.
Although there were only 132 new artists in Japan in 2001, according to the Recording Industry Association of Japan, the number increased to 512 in 2008. In 2008, 14 new artists, such as Thelma Aoyama, attended the NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen for the first time.
Popularity of live performances and veteran musicians
Rock musicians such as Mr. Children, B'z, Southern All Stars, and Glay still topped the charts in the first decade of the 21st century. Mr. Children's song "Sign" won the Grand Prix award at the 46th Japan Record Awards in 2004. When the group released their album ''Home'' in 2007, they passed 50 million albums and singles sold, making them the second-highest selling artist of all time in Japan since the origin of Oricon—just behind B'z, who hold the number-one position with more than 75 million records sold. ''Home'' topped the 2007 Oricon yearly album charts.
The sales of physical CDs declined, but audiences to see live performances increased. Eikichi Yazawa took part in rock festivals, and, in 2007, he became the first artist to have performed 100 concerts at the Nippon Budokan.
Other artists, such as Namie Amuro, also continued their long-running careers with successful releases in this period. Her live tour, Namie Amuro Best Fiction tour 2008-2009, not only became the biggest live tour by a Japanese solo female artist—attended by 450,000 fans in Japan—but was also attended by 50,000 fans in Taiwan and Shanghai. While Kazumasa Oda's 2005 album ''Sōkana'' topped the Oricon weekly album charts, his 2007 single "Kokoro" reached the weekly single charts, breaking Yujiro Ishihara's record and making him the then-oldest singer to top the single charts. Mariya Takeuchi's greatest hits album ''Expressions'' topped the Oricon album chart in 2008, making her the oldest female singer with the longest active career to reach the number-one position.
Johnny & Associates
Johnny & Associates's boy bands remained well-known. In 2001,
SMAP released their greatest-hits album ''SMAP Vest'', which sold over a million copies in the first week. In November 2001, Johnny & Associates established the label
J Storm for their band
Arashi. SMAP's 2003 single "Sekai ni hitotsu dake no hana" sold more than two million copies, being the number-one single in the Oricon yearly single charts for that year. In 2007, Guinness World Records honored
KinKi Kids for holding a world record for the number of singles debuting at the number-one position since their debut: 25. SMAP was said to fight a lonely battle at the
Kōhaku Uta Gassen, as seen from the viewpoint of its audience share. In 2008, male musicians established a record of four consecutive wins at the Kōhaku Uta Gassen. Arashi's greatest hits album ''
All the Best! 1999–2009'' topped the 2009 Oricon yearly album charts.
Johnny & Associates also produced new boy bands such as Tackey & Tsubasa, NEWS, Kanjani Eight, KAT-TUN, and Hey! Say! JUMP. In 2006, KAT-TUN's debut single "Real Face", composed by Tak Matsumoto, sold over one million copies and topped the Oricon Yearly Charts. In 2007, temporary Johnny's Jr. group Hey! Say! 7 broke a record as the youngest male group to ever top Oricon charts, with an average age of 14.8 years. On the 2008 yearly singles charts, only one single ranked in the top 30 was sung by a female (Namie Amuro's single "60s 70s 80s") except gender-mixed groups, partly because the boy bands enjoyed an advantage in physical single sales. In 2009, Johnny's Jr. artist Yuma Nakayama w/B.I.Shadow became the youngest artist to have their first single to debut at the number-one spot, as the band had an average age of 14.6 years, breaking the former record set by female group Minimoni, 14.8 years.
Cover versions and classical pop
In February 2001,
Ulfuls released their
cover version of
Kyu Sakamoto's 1963 song "
Ashita Ga Arusa". Their cover version debuted at the number-five position, behind Utada, Kinki Kids, Hamasaki and Hirai. In March,
Yoshimoto Kogyo's special band "Re: Japan" also released their cover version of "Ashita Ga Arusa". When Ulfuls's cover version of this song remained at number eight, Re: Japan's version topped the Oricon weekly single charts.
In 2003, Man Arai released the single "Sen no Kaze ni Natte" ("As A Thousand Winds") based on the Western poem ''Do not stand at my grave and weep''. In Japan, the poem was known for Rokusuke Ei's reading at the funeral of Kyu Sakamoto in 1985. Japanese tenor singer Masafumi Akikawa covered the song in 2006. Akikawa's cover version of the song became the first classical music single to top the Oricon charts, and sold over one million copies. On the 2007 Oricon Yearly Charts, the single became the best-selling physical single, scoring a victory over Utada's "Flavor of Life". Oricon claimed that the song was not J-pop. On the other hand, sheet music from the Zen-On Music Company Ltd classified the song as J-pop.
Hideaki Tokunaga covered many female songs on his cover album series, ''Vocalist''. He released ''Vocalist'', ''Vocalist 2'', ''Vocalist 3'' and ''Vocaloist 4'' in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2010 respectively. In August 2007, ''Vocalist 3'' became his first Oricon weekly number-one album, 15 years and 10 months after his previous number-one album, 1991's ''Revolution''.
In 2010, other singers also released cover albums of Japanese songs such as Juju's ''Request'' and Kumi Koda's ''Eternity: Love & Songs''. Superfly released a single that came with a cover album of Western rock songs, titled ''Wildflower & Cover Songs: Complete Best 'Track 3''', ultimately becoming the band's third consecutive album to debut at number one on the Oricon weekly album charts.
Influence from Neo Fōku and Neo Shibuya-kei
Folk duos, such as
19,
Yuzu, and
Kobukuro, became popular during the period. Their music was called "Neo Fōku". In October 2007, Kobukuro's double-album ''All Singles Best'' became the first male album to ship three million copies in the 21st century in Japan. In January 2008, their album ''
5296'' beat out Ayumi Hamasaki's album ''
Guilty'' on the Oricon charts, though she previously had eight consecutive number-one studio albums.
Electronic music bands such as Plus-Tech Squeeze Box and Capsule were called "Neo Shibuya-kei". Yasutaka Nakata, a member of Capsule, became the song producer for the technopop band Perfume. In April 2008, for the first time as an technopop band in 25 years since Yellow Magic Orchestra's 1983 album ''Naughty Boys'', Perfume achieved a number-one album ''Game'' on the Oricon charts. In July 2008, their single "Love the World" debuted at number one, making it the first technopop song to reach number one in Oricon history. Other Japanese female technopop artists soon followed, including Aira Mitsuki, immi, Mizca, SAWA, Saori@destiny, and Sweet Vacation.
2010s
Anime music, image song and Vocaloid
During the late 2000s and the early 2010s, the
anime music industry, such as voice actors (or ''seiyū'') and
image songs, added weight to Japanese music. Though anime music was formerly influenced by J-pop and ''visual kei'' music, Japanese indie music apparently influenced the genre at the 2006
FanimeCon. In 2007, after
sampling voice actress
Saki Fujita's voice to develop it,
Vocaloid Hatsune Miku was released, and many songs featuring Hatsune Miku were shown on the
Nico Nico Douga. Some of the musicians featuring Hatsune Miku, such as
Livetune and
Supercell, joined large record companies in Japan. Livetune released ''Re: Package'' on
Victor Entertainment on August 27, 2008, and Supercell released ''
Supercell'' on
Sony Music on March 4, 2009. The albums ''Re: Package'' and ''Supercell'' were not brought under the control of the
copyright system of the
Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC), breaking the tradition that the musicians under the major labels affiliated with the system.
In June 2009, voice actress Nana Mizuki's album ''Ultimate Diamond'' became the first ''seiyū'' album to reach number one on the Oricon weekly charts. The fictional all female band Ho-kago Tea Time, from the anime series ''K-On!'', released the mini-album ''Ho-kago Tea Time'' on July 22, 2009. The mini-album debuted at number one on the Oricon weekly album charts, becoming the first album by anime characters to reach number one. In May 2010, ''Exit Tunes Presents Vocalogenesis feat. Hatsune Miku'' became the first album featuring Vocaloids to reach number one on the Oricon weekly charts, replacing Hideaki Tokunaga's ''Vocalist 4'', which had topped the charts for four consecutive weeks.
Impact and international fanbase
J-pop is an integral part of
Japanese popular culture, being found in
anime, commercials, movies, TV shows, and video games and other forms of
Japanese entertainment. Some television news programs even run a J-pop song during their end credits. In anime and
television shows, particularly
dramas, opening and closing songs are changed up to four times per year. Because most programs have a combination of both opening and closing songs, it is possible for one show to use eight tracks for a single season.
Over the past decade, J-pop has continually gained fans worldwide through video games and anime. Many video game fans import games from Japan well before they are released in their respective countries. The theme songs and soundtracks from these games and anime can be a gateway to further interest in J-pop and other genres of Japanese music. One example is the ''Kingdom Hearts'' game series, in which popular J-pop singer Hikaru Utada performs the main theme songs. Her single "Easy Breezy" was also used to promote the Nintendo DS. The ''Ouendan'' Series and ''Band Brothers'' for the Nintendo DS both feature a lot of J-Pop songs. In the case of anime, shows are normally sold in the West with their original soundtracks untouched, affording more direct exposure. Some shows aired on television in the United States, for example, have seen their themes go so far as to become commercially available as ringtones through mainstream vendors in that country.
With changing music trends in India and Bangladesh, J-pop has gained some ground..After the channel Animax was introduced, the knowledge and popularity of J-Pop further spread among the youth of Asia.
Pop duo Puffy, one of the Japanese acts that have their material released on the United States market, had their own animated series on Cartoon Network—''Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi'', which premiered in 2004 and ran for three seasons. Prior to that, the duo recorded the theme song to another cartoon on the same channel, ''Teen Titans''. Because of the success of their show, video clips of Puffy, who are known as Puffy AmiYumi in the United States, were shown several times during the channel's programing.
Artists
Some Japanese pop artists are extremely popular in Japan, and some also have fanbases in other countries—especially in Asia, but also in Western countries. They influence not only music, but also fashion. As of 2007, the top five best-selling artists in the Japanese Oricon charts history are B'z, Mr. Children, Ayumi Hamasaki, Southern All Stars, and Dreams Come True.
See also
Culture of Japan
Enka
Group Sounds
J-ska
List of best-selling albums in Japan
List of best-selling singles in Japan
Music of Japan
Ryūkōka
Cool Japan
References
Bibliography
External links
Oricon
Recording Industry of Japan
J-Pop at SKY.FM - A free J-Pop radio channel
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