Oshi, Hatsune Miku, and Out into the World — Japan's Songs Today

Last time, we watched a decade-plus in which music stopped being a ‘thing’ and, losing its shape, went searching for a new vessel. From ownership, to download, and beyond—just as the leading role was about to change hands once more, the story paused for a moment. What we look at in this final chapter is the path along which music, which should have lost its shape, found a new master in an unexpected form and at last crossed the sea. An electronic singing voice, the oshi on the far side of the screen, a world of all-you-can-listen at a flat rate, and Japan’s songs reaching the world. The century-long journey draws near to the point where we now stand.

The Fire Lit by the Electronic Diva — Hatsune Miku and Vocaloid Culture

In the latter half of the 2000s, a kind of voice never seen before in Japanese music’s history was added. In 2007, the voice-synthesis software ‘Hatsune Miku,’ released by a certain company, could make a non-human voice sing once you input lyrics and a melody.

Its true innovation lay less in the voice itself than in the ‘chain of creation’ it gave rise to. Countless people who got their hands on the software began making their own songs sing, and posting them to video-sharing services. People who composed songs, people who added illustrations to them, people who choreographed dances, people who re-sang them as ‘singers’ in their own voices—starting from a single track, creators with different roles joined one after another, and the work grew while branching out. The fact that rights guidelines encouraged non-commercial creation is also said to have supported this explosive spread. Without going through a professional production company, a song that a single individual put before the world could draw in many people—the culture called ‘Vocaloid’ gently dissolved the very boundary between maker and listener.

Handshake Tickets and All-You-Can-Listen — Two Worlds Coexisted

Meanwhile, the world of selling the CD as a ‘thing’ was also trying to survive by changing its form.

Around 2010, a method of selling CDs bundled with perks—handshake-event tickets, voting tickets, and the like—spread. Value was placed less on the audio itself than on the experience of meeting an artist in person or the act of showing one’s support, and devoted fans sometimes bought multiple copies. Because of this, even as the CD rapidly became a thing of the past worldwide, package sales in Japan are said to have held up for a comparatively long time. Music being ‘audio’ and at the same time ‘fan goods’—such a way of receiving it is also said to have remained deeply rooted in this country.

As the flip side of that, Japan is reported to have fallen somewhat behind the world in the spread of flat-rate streaming services. The distinctive success experience of the mobile-phone ringtone song, and the package-centric business customs typified by the handshake ticket, are said to have made the shift to a new system cautious. Even so, by the mid-2010s streaming services spread in earnest within Japan as well, and people could touch a vast number of tracks for a monthly fee. A world of buying and owning, and a world of streaming at a flat rate. For a while, Japanese music advanced while letting these two styles coexist.

The New Way of Relating Called Oshi-katsu — And from Across the Sea

As streaming spread, the very way people related to music also changed. Its symbol was the word ‘oshi-katsu.’

Calling a particular artist or idol one’s ‘oshi,’ supporting their activities, collecting goods, going to live shows, and sharing that joy with friends—music broadened from something you merely listened to into an act that colored your life and expressed who you were. One of the things that planted this feeling firmly in Japan is said to have been the presence of K-pop, which had crossed the sea. Meticulously designed visuals, mechanisms that connected two-way with fans, a strategy that eyed the world market from the very start—that new style is said to have given a great stimulus to Japanese fans and makers as well. Just as the black ships once carried Western music, a wave from a neighboring country moved the landscape of this country’s music once more.

Japan’s Songs Crossing the Sea

And music that should have lost its shape, precisely because it had no shape, crossed borders with ease.

Flat-rate streaming and video services lined up people from all over the world atop the same platform. The wall of language is still high, but through distribution charts and recommendation mechanisms, Japan’s songs came to reach listeners in unexpected countries. Like YOASOBI—whose ‘Yoru ni Kakeru,’ released on a video site in 2019, is reported to have later recorded a worldwide number of plays—makers appeared who placed distribution at the core from the start, made English versions too, and opened themselves to the world. There were also surveys reported to show that a considerable portion of their listeners were overseas. Names like Kenshi Yonezu and Ado, too, became known through performances and distribution abroad. It is worth noting that many of these makers are continuous with the earlier Vocaloid culture and the flow of net-born creation.

What is interesting is that their music is influenced by the very shape of the vessel called distribution. Shortening the intro to grab listeners in the first few dozen seconds, or reproducing in a human voice a fast, densely packed way of singing that evokes a synthesized voice—the change in technology and vessel quietly altered even how songs were made. Just as, a hundred years ago, Western instruments and sheet music changed Japan’s songs, the new vessel of distribution, too, is remaking the shape of songs from the inside.

At the End of a Century-Long Journey

From the Western sounds the black ships carried, to the popular songs that rode on records, the military songs mobilized by the state, the boogie-woogie of the burnt-out ruins, the folk in which the young rebelled, the dazzling idols and the golden age of kayōkyoku, the birth of J-pop, the era of millions when the whole nation sang the same songs, and music that lost its shape and was opened once more to the world—we have raced through a hundred years of Japan’s songs.

Looking back on this long journey, we can see that songs have always remained a mirror reflecting the society of their time. Abundance and poverty, freedom and unfreedom, hope and bewilderment—all have been carved into songs. Even as technology changed, as the vessel changed, as the way of listening changed, the wish of people to convey something to someone, to connect with someone, has not changed in the least. Each time the vessel changed, there were voices mourning what was lost, and at the same time, there were songs born precisely because of the new vessel. Both of these were this country’s musical history.

So let us refrain here from drawing an easy conclusion about where today’s music is headed. Whether music that has lost its shape is happy or unhappy, what songs opened to the world will bring to this country—the answer is something that the makers who will live the days ahead, and you yourself as a listener, will verify from now on, singing as you go. Just as the people of a hundred years ago could not know how they would receive the sound of the black ships, we too may not yet know today’s sound well enough.

Thank you for accompanying us on this long journey. The song you next find yourself humming without thinking will someday become, for someone, ‘a song of that era.’ Japan’s songs will go on ringing from here too.

【Songs of Japan: A Century Reflected in Music — End】