Contemporary Japanese Popular Culture: Understanding Japanese Society through Enka

Today's session:
What is enka? What does it sound and look like?
How did enka become a music genre? How did it get its "unique flavour"?
Who listens to (and sings) enka now? Where? What do they get out of it?
What can we learn about Japan and Japanese society through enka?

What is enka?
What are some words or phrases that you would use to describe an enka performance?
According to Christine Yano, enka can be described in the following manner:
"Kata": Lyrical, compositional, performative
Structure of production, circulation and consumption
Enka represents "traditional Japanese musical identity"
How did Yano arrive at her understanding of enka and "Japaneseness"? Structural homology's influences on cultural studies and Japanese Studies.
But, Yano has problems answering this question: How do some enka singers and songs become more popular than others (if it speaks to an "innate Japaneseness)"?
How are songs and singers made popular in the enka music industry? We should probably look at the actual people, and their activities in engaging in producing, distributing and consuming enka (interactionism).

How did enka become "traditionally Japanese"?
Looking at the genealogy of enka, we can understand how music producers and critics have been influential in gradually constructing the meanings associated with the genre label "enka".
Meiji era enka: 演歌（演説の歌） 艶歌
Establishment of Japanese music recording industry in 1920s (early Showa period). Some distinctive characteristics of the Japanese recording process:
Licensees of American/Western recording companies
In-house musical production of kayōkyoku/ryukōka (歌謡曲/流行歌): songwriters, composers and singers were contracted to work exclusively for one company
Strict hierarchical relationships in a highly compartmentalised and devolved song production process
Separate labels in charge of handling kayōkyoku (hōgaku/"Japanese music") and foreign covers/releases (yōgaku/"Western music")
However, electric guitar and American political folk music styles began entering Japan in the early 1960s. They influenced the formation of "Group Sounds" music around 1966, and eventually the first fully-fledged rock bands and folk singers a few years later. They claimed an individualistic and anti-establishment ideology in their self-written songs.
How did producers, songwriters and singers engaged in these different genres play off each other in the 1960s and 1970s?
An organisational struggle between different factions of record music producers: kayōkyoku production under hōgaku labels against GS/rock's production under yōgaku labels
Entry of music critics into the dispute: Japanese neo-leftist intellectuals in the 1960s (such as Yamaori Tetsuo and Takenaka Tsutomu) and their cultural nationalist critique of in-house produced music. Misora Hibari as a prominent figure of analysis.
Itsuki Hiroyuki's 1966 novel, "Enka"
Debut of Fuji Keiko in 1969
"Enka" was thus established as a musical genre term that presented a certain kind of cultural ideology in musical performance (and product). The discursive evolution of the meaning of "enka" did not end in 1969, however.
"Sanitising the genre" to emphasise a more wholesome (especially rural and family oriented) kind of nostalgia for "traditional Japanese ideals": More enka songs and promoting domestic travel.
"Standardising the genre" to appeal to an established consumer demographic, which particularly took to the new entertainment form of karaoke in bars [snacks] and cafes [kissas].
Blurring of genre distinction between kayōkyoku and enka (and other genres of the 60s and 70s) into Showa Kayō
Other more "contemporary" genres aimed at successively younger audiences have dominated the Japanese recording industry since the 80s. Enka stars continue to debut and establish their appeal, but into an increasingly smaller and ageing segment of the music consumer market, and with little avenues for mass exposure.

Who listens to (and sings) enka now? Understanding enka consumption
Division of musical tastes among consumers from the 1960s onwards:
Yōgaku fans (jazz, boogie-woogie, rockabilly, etc.) were mainly urban youth, who celebrated the musical images of modernity, urban life and American/Western popular culture.
Hōgaku fans (enka, kayōkyoku) were slightly older, with many belonging to the war-time or late 1940s baby-boomer generation. Many of these fans also originated from rural areas, and only listened to music through NHK radio programming. They found enka's glorification of "traditional rural" values more nostalgically appealing.
It seems that this segment of enka fans has become highly generation-specific, as nationwide surveys of musical preferences by NHK and Yamaha in 1981 and 2006 have shown.
Music consumption is not just simply an act of listening: in Japan, amateur performances/covers of songs at karaoke is a vital component of the enjoyment of music (and source of royalties for music producers).
Karaoke is also a largely social activity, so looking at karaoke venues provides a good avenue into understanding enka's importance to the actual Japanese people who consume it.
There are different kinds of karaoke establishments in Japan:
Karaoke snacks are bars fitted with karaoke systems that operate in the evenings. These are usually favoured by older males, particularly of the baby-boomer generation. These customers typically sing songs from the 1960s to early 1980s. Even older customers may frequent these places, singing even older songs, but younger customers almost unheard of.
Karaoke kissas are mostly karaoke snacks that operate in the day. Their main clientele are elderly females and retired males from the baby-boomer generation. These customers typically prefer enka and kayōkyoku songs from the 1960s to 1980s.
Karaoke classrooms are singing schools set up by individual singing teachers. These teachers are often professional singers themselves, and the classrooms are affiliated to a particular record company as a talent breeding ground. Students pay a fee to attend classes, where they receive instruction on general voice training and specialised practice for particular songs, many of which are the latest enka releases. The vast majority of students are elderly females. They perform the fruits of their training at karaoke recitals.
Karaoke boxes are establishments that allow customers to sing in compact booths/rooms. They are frequented mostly by younger crowds, who mainly sing more recent songs and genres.
The split in these kinds of karaoke establishments came about due to the expansion of the karaoke industry occurring firstly along gender lines in the 1970s (Snacks to kissas), before considerations of age also became important in the advent of karaoke boxes in the 1980s.
I will look at karaoke kissas and classrooms as a way to understand the wider social relevance of enka in Japan, since these are places where enka enthusiasts gather. I ask the following questions about their listening and singing of enka at these venues:
What kinds of places are karaoke kissas and classrooms?
Why do they come to these places specifically?
How do they interact with and through the music?
What does singing enka reveal about participants' social lives, bodily perceptions and sense of identity?

What kinds of places are karaoke kissas and classrooms?
What are some of the keywords to describe the interior and exterior? Does it look like a place very open and welcoming to first-time guests?
Usually located in working-class residential neighbourhoods, slightly off major thoroughfares like shopping streets. Their prices are very affordable, even for pensioners.
They do not house many people. Mostly elderly females in the day, and many of them promptly leave at around 5pm. Elderly males grow in number in the evening, as does alcohol consumption. Most females come in small groups of twos and threes, while males enter alone often.
The choice of song is predominantly enka and kayōkyoku. Kissa customers sing in turn, as the microphone is shared by all of them. This also means that one sings to the entire clientele. Students of karaoke classrooms may also be asked to sing in front of the entire class.


Why do they come to these places specifically?
As a place to enjoy enka: Many regular customers and students complain about having nowhere else to listen to the music openly with others. A main gripe is that their children and grandchildren do not share their love for enka.
As an affordable place to spend time at: Unlimited non-alcohol drinks and songs. The total cost rarely comes to over 1500yen. School fees are also inexpensive, although there are other financial commitments for recitals and other events.
As an accessible place to spend time at: The vast majority of regular customers are from the surrounding neighbourhoods. These places are hence not too far away for them to commute from home or other daily amenities.
As a place to sing: Customers are not obliged to sing, and some actually do not. But the vast majority do sing in front of the other customers. Their love of music is accompanied by the love of the act of singing itself.
Friendships: Regular customers and students speak of having made friends with fellow customers and students over the course of their visits to the kissa or classroom. But these friendships are also mainly contained to these specific venues and activities. Some come back even though they live far away.
How do they interact with and through the music?
Stress relief: Quite a few regular customers and students talk about coming to the kissas and classrooms to sing as a good escape from the everyday life of an elderly housewife. Some of these homes are less than ideal families.
Remembering loved ones: Many regular customers and students have already lost their spouses. Singing the enka numbers that used to be their spouses' favourites.
Knowing each other through song: Especially important for first-time visitors. Customers almost always got to know each other first through the songs they sing. Much of the casual conversation in these places also revolve around their knowledge of songs, and discussions of the periods in which songs and singers were popular.
Flirting and romance: Songs provided a humorous and subtle way to flirt with other customers. Male-female duets provide an especially interesting occasion for an intensification of such flirting. Romantic couples visit the karaoke kissa together sometimes.
Learning: Karaoke classrooms are an important venue in which these elderly students can continue to learn. Many do not have prior musical training. Mastering a song and becoming a better singer are a great source of pride for students. The school also provides an opportunity to know other people with similar musical tastes.
What does singing enka reveal participants' social lives, bodily perceptions and sense of identity?
Enka as a tool for socialisation: Song selections and performance provide a way for these customers and students to know others with similar musical taste. The song selections and performances also maintain these friendly relationships, and even evolve them into other relations of romance and companionship. These forms of socialisation seem to be rather similar to other forms of leisure, but can we understand it as just being "play", especially in the drastically reduced importance of "work" at this late stage in life?
Understanding the bodily perceptions of Japanese elderly through enka: Many students have reported that singing enka frequently has had positive effects on their health. On the other hand, singing enka at karaoke kissas sometimes also involves copious amounts of alcohol and smoking. Layman medical science aside, these elderly are highly conscious of their body and health. From what they tell me and each other about their current health (and aches), what can we understand about how the Japanese elderly body is perceived, and how these customers and students negotiate such perceptions?
Enka's involvement in identity-work: Coming to these kissas and classrooms to sing enka reinforces their self-recognition and value of being working-class elderly women and men. It also provides opportunities to build identities beyond the family and work, although many also simultaneously tie in family and work into their song selections and interactions with others. As a genre premised upon nostalgia catering to an ageing demographic, identity-work involving enka invariably involves mobilising narratives about the past. How does enka figure in shaping present understandings of the self through time, in both an auto-biographical and socially-contextualised manner?

What can we learn about Japan and Japanese society through enka?
Enka is not a simple "representation" of "Japanese traditional identity". Instead, it has been and still is a site of discursive and social contestations. What can we learn about Japan through these contestations?
The history of enka tells us of:
The organisational conflicts and ideological struggles that came to a head in the 1960s, amidst the increasing global spread of Euro-American popular culture.
The ways in which the pre-war past was being re-imagined in the post-war period.
The divides that stood between urban and rural Japan in the 1960s, and how urban migration did not demolish such divides, but only made them even more painfully apparent to those who moved to the cities.
How a musical idiom was greatly influenced by business and even technological change.
Looking at today's enka enthusiasts that gather at karaoke kissas and classrooms, we can also understand or ask questions about:
The generation gap between today's elderly, and their children and grandchildren that does not show any sign of abating.
The use of music as a means for elderly socialisation, which provides interesting questions about understanding issues of gender, friendship, romance, etc. in old age.
The ways in which music can tell us how the elderly Japanese body is perceived, both by others and the elderly themselves, and how music also provides an avenue for the elderly to contest such bodily perceptions.
The importance of music as a means to build and maintain narratives about the self through time.
These understandings allow us a much richer and nuanced understanding of the actual people and activities that constitute everyday cultural life in Japan than a simple account of "representation".


18 October 2016
Benny Tong
Guest Lecture
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