Series ・ 10 parts

Songs of Japan: A Century Reflected in Music

In the final years of the shogunate, what came ashore with the Black Ships was not only the footfall of soldiers but the sound of Western music played on unfamiliar instruments. Young men of Satsuma learned the bugle, and Izawa Shuji brought school songs into the classroom. This first episode traces how East met West and Japan's modern music drew its first breath.

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01 The Sound the Black Ships Brought ― Western Music Arrives In the final years of the shogunate, what came ashore with the Black Ships was not only the footfall of soldiers but the sound of Western music played on unfamiliar instruments. Young men of Satsuma learned the bugle, and Izawa Shuji brought school songs into the classroom. This first episode traces how East met West and Japan's modern music drew its first breath.
02 The Record Begins to Sing ― The Day the Popular Song Was Born Lower a needle onto the black disc, and the voice of a singer you have never met fills the room. From the Taisho era into early Showa, SP records and radio spread across Japan, and song changed from the possession of a few into that of the masses. From 'The Song of Katyusha' to 'Tokyo March,' this second episode traces the age in which the popular song was born.
03 Songs They Were Made to Sing — When the State Mobilized Music Songs that records had made the property of the masses began to lose their freedom along with the coming of war. The boom in military songs, the controls that branded jazz as 'enemy music,' the body that bound musicians together, and the visits to the front lines — this is a neutral look, from both light and shadow, at the era when song was mobilized by the state.
04 Boogie-Woogie in the Ruins — A Too-Bright Rhythm Echoing Through the Rubble The freedom of song that war had taken away came rushing back, as if a dam had burst, with defeat. The plain hope of 'Ringo no Uta,' the sense of liberation set bursting by Kasagi Shizuko's boogie, and the appearance of the twelve-year-old Misora Hibari. Episode 4 traces, on a factual basis and neutrally, the dawn of postwar popular song, when a bright rhythm rang out through the burnt-out streets.
05 The Young Rebel — The Freedom Sounded by Electric Guitars and Folk If the songs of the ashes belonged to grown-ups, the sounds of the late 1960s belonged to the young. The Group Sounds bands plugging in their electric guitars, the folk singers questioning society with a single guitar, and the first buds of self-written, self-performed New Music. This is a fact-based portrait of a season in which song became the language of rebellion and self-expression.
06 Idols and New Music — Popular Song's Last Golden Age Yamaguchi Momoe, Pink Lady, and Matsuda Seiko, who shone in the glow of television. Beside them, the New Music and City Pop that competed with their own words and melodies were quietly causing a shift in the ground. This sixth episode traces the 1970s–80s, when popular song reached its last golden age, neutrally from both sides of light and shadow.
07 The Day It Was Named J-POP — The Band Boom and Komuro's Magic At the end of the 1980s, a band boom erupted from the pedestrian paradise of Harajuku and the TV program 'Ikaten,' while the sounds of Being and Tetsuya Komuro repainted the era. Carried on the new vessel of the CD, the songs of Japan changed their name from 'kayokyoku' to 'J-POP.' Episode 7 traces the moment of that birth.
08 The Golden Age of the Million — The Nights a Nation Sang the Same Song In the 1990s, Japanese music sold more than at any time in history. More than a dozen million-sellers were born each year, drama theme-song tie-ins all but guaranteed a hit, and in karaoke boxes everyone sang the same chorus. Episode 8 traces the brilliance of the summit known as the CD bubble, and the quiet omen of the fall that awaited beyond it.
09 Music Loses Its Shape — The Day the Ringtone Sang Beneath an industry at its peak, the CD quietly stopped selling. The ringtone songs that rang from mobile phones, the iTunes store that crossed the ocean, the countless videos flowing on YouTube, and a long battle against illegal downloading. Music gave up being a 'thing,' and, losing its shape, went searching for its next leading role.
10 Oshi, Hatsune Miku, and Out into the World — Japan's Songs Today Music that had lost its shape—whose did it become? The chain of creation lit by the electronic diva Hatsune Miku, the tug-of-war between handshake-ticket culture and subscription streaming, the new way of relating called oshi-katsu, the shock of K-pop, and the YOASOBIs crossing the sea. At the destination of a century-long journey, the final chapter looks at Japan's songs today, and what lies ahead.