Introduction

Popular music in Japan has been under the overwhelming influence of American, Latin American and European popular music remarkably since 1945, when Japan was defeated in World War II. Beginning with gunka and enka at the turn of the century, tracing the birth of hit songs in the record industry in the years preceding the War, and ranging to the adoption of Western genres after the War--the rise of Japanese folk and rock, domestic exoticism as a new trend and J-Pop--Popular Music in Japan is a comprehensive discussion of the evolution of popular music in Japan.

In eight revised and updated essays written in English by renowned Japanese scholar Toru Mitsui, this book tells the story of popular music in Japan since the late 19th century when Japan began positively embracing the West.