The Generic Study on Styles of Japanese Songs

通过对收集的数千首歌曲的分析，我们可以清楚地看到19世纪80-60年代的日本流行歌曲是如何反映日本人民在现代化和西方化压力下的反应的。有一些不变的“民族”或文化特征会继续在大众喜爱的歌曲中表现出来，这一古老的前提不再成立。相反，流行歌曲风格的变化反映了人们对目前受人尊敬的音乐和传统的积极和消极态度。渴望与排斥、适应与抵抗的辩证法在日本的流行歌曲中清晰可见，特别是在20世纪30-60年代，在这一时期，摇滚乐元素--本身主要是非裔美国人产品，反对现代精英统治的文化霸权--融入到日本流行歌曲中，使辩证结构复杂化。需要强调的是，只有意识到这种文化动态，才有可能连贯地解释日本流行歌曲在现代的演变过程。然后，需要系统地描述恩卡作为一种音乐体裁的诞生和发展，它体现了这个国家音乐经历的整个跨度。此外，这样的进化论研究必须考虑到“故事的另一面”：历史或J-Pop。我们已经能够提供理论框架和录制歌曲的数据库，以便进行更多的工作。

By analyzing thousands of collected songs, we have arrived at a clear picture of how Japanese popular songs in the periods 1880s-1960s reflect the reactions of its people under the pressure of modernization cum Westernization. The old premise that there are some unchanging "national" or cultural characteristics that continue to manifest themselves in the songs enjoyed by a populace no longer holds. Rather, the changing styles of popular songs reflect, among others, positive and negative attitudes of people toward the currently respectable music and toward the tradition. The dialectics of aspiration and repulsion, of acclimation and resistance, are clearly observable in Japan's hit songs especially during 1930s-1960s, after which period, the infusion of rock elements--themselves dominantly African-American products earned against the ruling cultural hegemony of the modern elite--into Japanese pop songs complicates the dialectic structure.It is to be emphasized that only through the awareness of such cultural dynamics will it become possible to explain cohesively the processes of evolution in Japanese popular songs in its modern era. A systematic account of the birth and flowering of enka as a music genre embodying the whole span of the nation's musical experiences, is then called for. Also, such an evolutionary study must take into account the "other side of the story": the history or J-Pop. We have reached the point of being able to provide both the theoretical framework and the database of recorded songs for more work to proceed.