Miso Soup for the Ears: Contemporary Japanese Popular Music and its Relation to the Genres Familiar to the Anglophonic Audience

Abstract

This essay looks at Japanese popular music in the 2000s. It compares and contrasts Japanese musical stylistics with that of the corresponding Anglophonic stylistics by looking at four genres. It argues that while Japanese hip hop and rock are affinitive to Anglophonic hip hop and rock, this affinity is due to both Japanese and Anglophonic artists' conformity to a stylistic formula, rather than Japanese artists being clones of their Anglophonic counterparts. It also argues that visual kei and “cutesy” music are two genres that are unique to Japan, the former for its emphasis on the visual sensory, and the latter for its reliance on the Japanese cultural notion of “cuteness” (kawaisa).

Notes

1. The spelling for Japanese words in this paper utilizes the Hepburn system of romaji (Romanized Japanese). Where Japanese names are mentioned, they are written in the first name‐last name system familiar to Western readers. Where artists' names are capitalized, this means that they mean for that name to be known as either a stage name or an Anglicized name. I wish to thank Ayano Kabaya for checking my translations.