The Day It Was Named J-POP — The Band Boom and Komuro's Magic

There was a time when the word ‘kayokyoku’ quietly faded from everyday speech. A new dividing line, ‘J-POP,’ appeared on the shelves of record shops, and young people came to speak those three letters quite naturally as the name of their own music. This was from the end of the 1980s into the 1990s. The change of name was not merely a passing exchange of buzzwords. The place where songs were made, the vessel that delivered them, and the very relationship between songs and the people who listened were all being rearranged on a grand scale. Amateur bands gathered in Harajuku’s pedestrian paradise, the fervor broadcast by late-night television, and a single producer who repainted the charts with programmed rhythms. J-POP was born where many currents flowed together.

Hokoten and Ikaten — Bands Overflowed the Streets

In the latter half of the 1980s, on Omotesando in Harajuku, Tokyo, young people carrying instruments began to gather on the ‘hokoten’ (pedestrian paradise) where, on holidays, the road was opened to foot traffic. The sight of amateur bands hauling in amplifiers and playing in the street is said to have swelled, at its height, to seventy or even ninety groups. For bands wanting to announce their existence to the world, the hokoten became an indispensable stage.

What spread this heat across the nation was the TBS late-night program ‘Yuji Miyake’s Ikasu Band Tengoku,’ commonly called ‘Ikaten,’ which began in 1989. In this program, amateur bands challenged a panel of judges in head-to-head matchups, sending one distinctive band after another into the spotlight that had until then been denied to them. Despite its late-night slot, it became a topic of conversation, and young people are said to have flocked to instrument shops to buy guitars — a spread that could be called a social phenomenon.

Beneath the band boom lay the influence left by earlier rock bands as well. BOØWY, which disbanded in 1988, drew many young people with its refined stagecraft and is said to have inspired them to pick up instruments. THE BLUE HEARTS, known for their unadorned words and racing sound, are also spoken of as a presence that symbolized the air of the era. Anyone could move to the side of the performers — that very sensation lay at the core of the boom.

Being and the Komuro Sound — The Makers Become the Stars

While bands overflowed the streets, the early 1990s saw the rise of a current that swept the charts through meticulously designed music. One was the mass production of hits centered on the creative collective ‘Being.’ Artists such as B’z, ZARD, and WANDS occupied the upper ranks one after another, deftly using ties to television dramas and commercials to capture the public with calculated sound. An age was beginning in which how and by whom a song was made mattered as much as who sang it.

The figure who symbolized that current of ‘the makers becoming the stars’ was Tetsuya Komuro. Having formed TM NETWORK with Takashi Utsunomiya and Naoto Kine in 1983, he became known for a sound that made full use of synthesizers and programming. ‘My Revolution,’ written for Misato Watanabe in 1986, became a hit, and in 1987 TM NETWORK’s ‘Get Wild’ caused a great stir. Before long, he strengthened his face as a producer who handled other artists, rather than one who stood and sang himself.

What is regarded as the turning point was the dance unit trf, which debuted in 1993. Built around a concept of dancers and DJs who could make the venue itself boil like a discotheque, Komuro pushed dance music to the leading role on the charts. Afterward, artists he handled — Ryoko Shinohara, Namie Amuro, Tomomi Kahala, globe and others — recorded hit after hit. In the spring of 1996, it was reported that works connected to Komuro occupied the upper ranks of the singles chart, and the ‘Komuro sound’ became a tone representative of the era.

The Vessel Called the CD, and the Name ‘J-POP’

Behind the spread of this music lay a changing of the media. The compact disc (CD), which appeared in the 1980s, spread rapidly for its ease of handling and clarity of sound, and became the leading medium in place of the analog record. The new vessel of the CD suited the glittering, programming-based sound well, and supported a wider range of expression for the makers. The song, changing the shape of its disc, returned once more to the nearness of daily life.

And in this period, a new name took hold. The name ‘J-POP’ is said to have been first used around the end of the 1980s by a certain broadcasting station to distinguish contemporary Japanese pop from Western music, and that is said to be how it spread. Casting off the somewhat old-fashioned ring that ‘kayokyoku’ had carried, these three letters held a quiet pride: a polished Japanese music, continuous with Western music. In time, the shelves of record shops and the names of the charts were replaced by this word.

That said, there are many views on what exactly counts as J-POP, and there is no clear dividing line. The heat of the band boom, the design skill of Being and the Komuro sound, and the vessel of the CD. As these overlapped, people felt, ‘this is no longer kayokyoku — it is our new music,’ and gave that sensation a name. To name is also an act by which an era confirms itself.

Thus, from the end of the 1980s into the 1990s, the songs of Japan changed their name, newly rearranging makers and vessels alike, and stored up an unprecedented momentum. Bands overflowed the streets, hit after hit was born on the charts, and CDs began to sell as if they would fly off the shelves. That heat would in time lead to the unprecedented summit at which music would sell more than at any other point in Japan’s history.