8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
1/147
i
ENKA AS A MARKER OF SOCIAL DIFFERENCE:
UNDERSTANDING ‘TRADITION’ AS ‘TASTE’
TONG KOON FUNG
( B.A. ( Hons.) , NUS )
A THESIS SUBMITTED
FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS
DEPARTMENT OF JAPANESE STUDIES
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE
2014
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
2/147
ii
DECLARATION
I hereby declare that this thesis is my original work and has been written by
me in its entirety. I have duly acknowledged all the sources of information
which have been used in the thesis.
This thesis has also not been submitted for any degree in any university
previously.
Tong Koon Fung
13 January 2014
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
3/147
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Although many graduate students and advisors have described the
thesis writing process as a lonely one, a large number of individuals and
groups have in various ways throughout the course of this research provided
crucial information and assistance, without which this thesis would not have
been possible. I have incurred large debts of kindness, and this note of
acknowledgement only begins to scratch the surface of my gratitude towards
everybody who has helped me through the research and writing process.
I have been immensely fortunate to work under the supervision of Dr.
Timothy David Amos, who provided extremely valuable ideas and comments
on every part of the research and writing process, even though its theoretical
and disciplinary leanings were not in his area of academic specialisation. By
placing rigorous standards, from the crafting of the research topic to the
eventual writing of the thesis, and granting me much intellectual freedom and
autonomy, I have been able to research and write in the most highly
challenging yet stimulating environment. His prompt reviews of my drafts and
other academic assignments have also allowed me to carry out my work in the
most efficient manner possible.
Other faculty of the Japanese Studies Department of the National
University of Singapore also contributed greatly in the conduct of my research.
Participating in Dr. Lim Beng Choo‟s graduate research seminar pushed me
towards consistent research on theoretical and methodological frameworks to
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
4/147
iv
use in the research. Dr. Lim also provided much advice on the conduct of the
research, and important information about grants and scholarships that allowed
me to make considered financial decisions throughout my candidature and
field research. Dr. Morita Emi and Dr. Nakano Ryoko helped greatly in
crafting invitation letters and questionnaires used in the field research. Thanks
to their patient vetting of my initial document drafts, I was eventually able to
enlist the help of many research participants in the field. Other faculty
members, such as Dr. Hendrik Meyer-Ohle, Dr. Thang Leng Leng, Dr.
Deborah Shamoon and Dr. Christopher Michael McMorran, also provided
important critiques of my field research data and interpretations. Outside the
Department, I am grateful to Dr. Chua Beng Huat, who provided insightful
comments while I took part in his Cultural Studies in Asia course, and kindly
maintained an interest in my research even after my participation. Dr. Vineeta
Sinha‟s Reading Ethnographies course also introduced me to much of the
methodological framework that I eventually utilised for my field research and
thesis writing.
Also providing much crucial intellectual critique and emotional
support were the graduate students and alumni of the Department. I was
fortunate enough to go through the research and writing process together with
Huijun, who provided much intellectual discussion and emotional support
through our chats in and outside class. I also have to thank Eve, who
introduced me to some very important contacts in Japan, and Edwin, who
shared with me whatever he found on the Internet that could help with my
research. Finally, I am very grateful to Noel, who graciously offered to read
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
5/147
v
through and critique drafts of this thesis within his busy schedule, and allowed
me to tap upon his brilliance to make it better.
Fieldwork is always a group undertaking, with many people coming
together to make knowledge possible. In the course of my field research, I was
fortunate to be helped along by many people both within and outside academia.
Firstly, much of the research would not have been possible without the
fantastic guidance of Professor Fujii Hidetada at Rikkyo University‟s Japanese
Literature Department. His expertise on Japanese nostalgia and the utilisation
of journal and magazine resources were essential in my documentary research.
Professor Fujii and his graduate class also graciously provided me with the
chance to present my research findings before I returned to Singapore. Also, I
am hugely grateful to Professor Mōri Yoshitaka, Matsuoka-san and the rest of
the Musical Creativity and the Environment seminar class, for also providing
me with the chance to take part in their classes and present my research
findings. Professor Mōri also provided opportunities to take part in the
conferences held by the Japanese Association for the Study of Popular Music
(JASPM), where I was able to receive critiques of my data and analysis, and
was introduced to a large number of Japanese cultural studies scholars,
including Professor Minamida Katsuya and Wajima Yūsuke, and their works.
Finally, I am indebted to Mio, who patiently worked with me in drafting up
research documents and interview questionnaires. That I could conduct my
observations and interviews without any real issues is a testament to her
expertise at conducting field research.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
6/147
vi
Just as crucial were the many people who agreed to take part in the
field research: without them I would not have been able to learn anything
about how they enjoyed music. Firstly, I am truly grateful to the Friday
afternoon regulars at the karaoke kissa SC, who took me in warmly and
participated enthusiastically in the ethnographic research, even though I came
from a totally different cultural and generational background, and left so soon
after we had started to get to know each other deeply. The same can be said
for the participants at the Internet karaoke clubs K-club and NSK, who also
graciously gave me their time during our interviews and karaoke sessions. I
can only hope that I have done justice to their experiences through my
narrative in this thesis. I would also like to thank Shiraishi Takaaki from Guan
Barl Co. Ltd., Jero‟s management agency, and Fukuo-san from Victor
Entertainment Co. Ltd., for their kind assistance in allowing me to utilise some
of the singer‟s copyrighted images in this thesis, and even setting up an
opportunity to talk with Jero‟s management staff that I had to unfortunately
turn down due to scheduling conflicts.
The field research was carried out around the Tokyo area from March
to July 2013, and funded by the Graduate Student Exchange Programme Grant
from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. My candidature from January
2012 to December 2013 has also been supported by the National University of
Singapore Graduate Research Scholarship. I am truly grateful for the
University‟s and Faculty‟s financial support that has made this research
possible.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
7/147
vii
Finally, I would also like to thank my family, Mio and God for being
so supportive and understanding, and providing much needed peace of mind
throughout the research and writing process to make it all happen. But, of
course, all shortcomings of this thesis are mine and mine only.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
8/147
viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page i
Declaration ii
Acknowledgements iii
Table of Contents viii
Summary ix
List of Figures x
Note on Translations and Use of Names and Pictures xi
Introduction: Enka, „Japan‟ and Fandom 1
Chapter One: Enka, a National Musical Tradition? 24
Chapter Two: The Socio-Historical Development
of Musical Taste for Enka 41
Chapter Three: Appreciating Popular Music through Karaoke 61
Chapter Four: Performing Enka in Various Karaoke Settings:
The Ethnographer as Observer and Observed 78
Conclusion: Enka as a Marker of Social Difference 111
Bibliography 118
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
9/147
ix
SUMMARY
In being labelled „the sound of Japanese tradition‟ and „the heart and
soul of the Japanese‟, the popular music genre of enka has been discussed in
both popular and academic discourse as a representative of an essential and
authentic Japanese traditional identity. However, such an understanding is
insufficient in explaining its marginal position within the Japanese music
industry and audience. Instead, I argue that musical preference for enka serves
as a marker of social difference. Utilising sociological frameworks of musical
taste, community and „musicking‟ rather than culturally essentialist
understandings, I show how enka marked off a unique musical space
populated by a specific social demographic in its infancy in the later 1960s,
via a socio-historical investigation of the genre‟s development. I also show
how such demarcation continues today via an ethnographic study of three
karaoke settings in the Greater Tokyo area.
(141 words)
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
10/147
x
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Cover photo for „Umiyuki‟ 30
Figure 2: Cover photos for „Yakusoku‟, „Serenade‟ and „Covers 6‟ 33
Figure 3: Floor plan of SC 65
Figure 4: Karaoke participants at SC 67
Figure 5: Floor plan of karaoke box for K-club gatherings 70
Figure 6: Floor plan of large karaoke box used for NSK gatherings 74
Figure 7: Some participants at NSK gatherings 75
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
11/147
xi
NOTE ON TRANSLATIONS AND USE NAMES AND FIGURES
All translations, photos and diagrams in this thesis belong to me,
unless where otherwise stated.
All European and American names in this thesis are presented in the
Western style (ie. first names before last names), while East Asian names are
presented in the East Asian style (ie. last names before first names). Also, the
names of field research participants and venues have been changed to
pseudonyms in order to protect their privacy.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
12/147
1
Introduction
Enka , ‘Japan’ and Fandom
The Japanese popular music genre known as enka has been roughly
described as a genre of „Japanese-sounding songs‟.1 Although such a broad
definition does more to express the ambiguity within the genre than signify a
concretised musical form, singers, composers, intellectuals and fans have
labelled it „the heart and soul of the Japanese‟ [„nihonjin no kokoro‟ ], „the
song of Japan‟ [„nihon no uta‟ ] and „the sound of Japanese tradition‟ [„dentō
no oto‟ ].2 Its sorrowful ballad melodies and lyrics evoking days and places
gone by has held fans in an imagination of „Japaneseness‟ rooted in a yearning
for an idealised past. 3 Enka has thus been coupled with ideas of Japanese
traditional identity and culture in Japanese musical discourse. Ideas of
traditional culture have also been equated with Japanese national, ethnic and
racial identity, in contemporary discussions of a homogenous and timeless
Japanese identity that have taken great hold in Japan and elsewhere,
particularly in the post-Second World War (hereafter referred to as the
„postwar‟) period.
1
Alan Tansman, „Misora Hibari: The Postwar Myth of Mournful Tears and Sake‟, AnneWalthall (ed.), The Human Tradition in Modern Japan, (Wilmington: SR Books, 2002), p.223.I use such a provisional definition in this section as a compromise between various texts that
provide a number of ways to define enka, but nevertheless agree that it at least signifies a
sense of „Japaneseness‟ through its sound, within the Japanese postwar musical context.2 Christine R. Yano, „Raising the ante of desire: Foreign female singers in a Japanese pop
music world‟, Allen Chun, Ned Rossiter and Brian Shoesmith (eds.), Refashioning pop musicin Asia: Cosmopolitan flows, political tempos and aesthetic industries, (London and New
York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), p.161. See also Wajima Yūsuke, Tsukurareta „Nihon no Kokoro‟ Shinwa: „Enka‟ wo Meguru Sengo Taishū Ongakushi [The Created Myth of „TheHeart of Japan‟: A History of Postwar Popular Music Focusing on Enka], (Tokyo: KōbunshaShinsho, 2010), pp.8-9 and Aikawa Yumi, Enka no Susume [On Enka], (Tokyo: Bungei
Shunjū, 2002), p.185. 3
Christine R. Yano, Tears of Longing: Nostalgia and the Nation in Japanese Popular Song,(Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 2002), pp.14-17,
Tansman, „Misora Hibari‟, p.227.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
13/147
2
Thus, enka has generally been discussed within a culturally essentialist
framework of musical understanding, which assumes that the genre‟s musical
form and practices (such as consumption, performance and consumption) is
grounded in and expresses an essence of „Japaneseness‟.4 Such a framework of
understanding posits enka as a source of cultural authenticity. Of course,
competent performances by non-Japanese enka performers complicate these
claims towards cultural tradition. But even without such glaring juxtapositions
of „cultures‟, essentialist portraits of enka that claim that it is a traditional
Japanese genre already present serious problems for cultural studies scholars
in understanding the genre‟s position within the Japanese cultural soundscape.
If enka possesses some inherent „Japanese‟ essence, why and how do some
sectors of the Japanese music audience express disdain for it, while
simultaneously claiming their own identities as „Japanese‟? How does it
reconcile with descriptions of the Japanese music market as being highly
segregated? Who exactly are these enka fans (and non-fans)? What are the
emotional connections that fans and non-fans make with the music? How, and
by whom, is „Japaneseness‟ determined?
In this thesis, I answer the first four of the above questions. I argue that
enka‟s appeals towards „Japaneseness‟ are ultimately built upon specific
musical and social discourses developed during Japan‟s period of high
economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s. This period saw a schism occur
4 Ralph Grillo uses the term „cultural essentialism‟ to mean „a system of belief grounded in a
conception of human beings as “cultural”…subjects, i.e. bearers of a culture, located within a boundaried world, which defines them and differentiates them from others. For example, Chua
Beng Huat deconstructs ideologically-driven assumptions of shared essential „Confucianvalues‟ to assert a common identity among East Asian states and their difference from other„cultures‟. Ralph D. Grillo, „Cultural essentialism and cultural anxiety‟, Anthropological
Theory, Vol.3 No.2, (2003), p.158.; Chua Beng Huat, „Conceptualising an East Asian popularculture‟, Chen Kuan-Hsing and Chua Beng Huat (eds.), Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Reader,(London: Routledge, 2007), pp.115-7.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
14/147
3
within both Japanese music producers and audiences, in which enka producers
and fans coalesced around an idealised nostalgic longing of a pre-modern
Japan. Enka thus effectively marked off a unique musical space populated by a
specific social demographic. In fact, as my field research of various karaoke
settings from March to July 2013 in the Greater Tokyo area shows, enka
consumption continues to demarcate an exclusive demographic. By
understanding enka fans and non-fans‟ behaviour surrounding karaoke
participation through the conceptual lenses of taste, community and
„musicking‟, I argue that the two groups, in their exclusive spaces of
communal „musicking‟, continue to build divergent musical tastes. Enka
should thus be understood as a musical marker of social differences based on
age, education, locale and family wealth.
As such, through this argument I suggest that the fifth question, „How,
and by whom, is „Japaneseness‟ determined?‟ is a complex and difficult
question to answer. The highly diverse nature of Japanese music listeners I
introduce in this thesis already greatly problematizes this question, but is only
the tip of the iceberg, as similar diversities of people and influences are also at
work within contemporary production of enka. The discussion of production
issues in enka is indeed another highly interesting field of research on
contemporary conceptualisations of Japanese musical tradition and identity,
but unfortunately it is an area into which I was unable to gain in-depth access,
and is hence out of this thesis‟s scope of discussion.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
15/147
4
Paths towards studying fandom
My original interest in enka was sparked by African-American-
Japanese singer Jero‟s debut in early 2008. Born on 4 September 1981 as
Jerome Charles White, Jr. in Pittsburgh, USA, Jero initially made headlines as
an unlikely enka success. Extensively promoted by media outlets as
simultaneously a perfect grandson to his Japanese grandmother Takiko and a
„foreign intruder‟ of enka looking to shake up the genre with his racial
background and flashy hip-hop attire, Jero‟s debut single „Umiyuki‟ [„Ocean
Snow‟] entered the Oricon charts (Japan‟s counterpart to the American
Billboard charts) in fourth place and eventually sold over 300,000 copies,
numbers unprecedented in enka.5 His debut year culminated in an invitation to
perform at the prestigious year-end music extravaganza, „ Kōhaku Uta Gassen‟
[„Red-White Song Battle‟].
Jero‟s early performances provided much food for thought about prior
assumptions of enka‟ s „Japaneseness‟. Many academic and popular analyses
of his performances have analysed how Jero‟s African-American heritage
negotiates the „Japanese‟ musical soundscape of enka. 6 But while
5 „ Jero: Shijō Hatsu no Kokujin Enka Kashu ga Kataru “Enka no Kokoro”: “Ichigo Ichie” de
Kōhaku Mezasu‟ [„Jero: The First Black Enka Singer Explains “The Spirit of Enka”: Aiming
for Kōhaku as “Once in a Lifetime”‟], Mainichi Shimbun, (14 March 2008),http://mainichi.jp/enta/geinou/graph/200803/14_5/?inb=yt., Accessed on 10 March 2011;Oricon, Inc., Enka no Kurofune, Tsui ni Debyū: „Yume wa Kōhaku‟ [The Black Ship of Enka Finally Debuts: „My Dream is to appear on Kōhaku‟], (2008),http://www.oricon.co.jp/news/music/52167/full/, Accessed on 22 November 2012. I explain in
more detail the connotations of cultural collision/invasion that the term „black ship‟ on page36.6 See Kosakai Masaki, Enka wa Kokkyō wo Koeta: Kokujin Kashu Jero no Kazoku Sandai no
Monogatari [ Enka Crossed National Borders: A Three-Generation Acount of Black Singer
Jero‟s Family], (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2011); Shelley D. Brunt, „When Black Tears Fall:Image-Making and Cultural Identity in a Case Study of the Hip-Hop/Enka Singer Jero‟,Catherine Strong and Michelle Phillipov (eds.), Stuck in the Middle: The Mainstream and its
Discontents: Selected Proceedings of the 2008 IASPM-ANZ Conference, (Auckland: UTAS,
2009), pp.58-67; Kiuchi Yuya, „An Alternative American Image in Japan: Jero as the Cross -Generational Bridge between Japan and the United States‟, Journal of Popular Culture, Vol.42 No.3, (2009), pp.515-29; and Christine R. Yano, Marketing Black Tears: Jero as African
http://www.oricon.co.jp/news/music/52167/full/http://www.oricon.co.jp/news/music/52167/full/
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
16/147
5
deconstructing Jero‟s performances and enka according to culturally
essentialist imaginations of race and music highlights important questions
about the assumed „Japaneseness‟ of enka, it does not provide any insight into
the actual ways in which the Japanese music audience appraise Jero and enka.
There has been little effort to profile Jero‟s, or more crucially enka‟s, fanbase
utilising theories of musical consumption, in order to understand how music
audiences enjoy music.
Indeed, such research has rarely been attempted in studies about the
genre in general. Even Christine Yano‟s seminal text, „Tears of Longing:
Nostalgia and the Nation in Japanese Popular Song‟, focuses mainly on
analysing the content of enka songs and performances, with its sole chapter on
consumptive practices not displaying the same in-depth analysis. 7 Other
ethnomusicologists have concentrated solely on textual analyses to prove
enka‟s links to traditional, pre-modern Japanese musical forms.8 Meanwhile,
another strand of enka research has adopted a genealogical approach to
investigate the socio-historical and musical influences behind songwriters and
performers. 9 These approaches, however, are inadequate in understanding
enka‟s cultural positioning among both fans and non-fans within the Japanese
American National Singer in Japan, (Working Paper: 2010). I discuss these works in greater
detail in my analysis of Jero‟s enka career in Chapter One. I also thank Professor Yano forgraciously sharing her ongoing research with me.7 Yano, Tears of Longing, pp.124-47.
8 See Aikawa, Enka no Susume, Koizumi Fumio, Kayōkyoku no Kōzō [The Structure of
Kayōkyoku], (Tokyo, Japan: Heibonsha, 1996).9
See Mitsutomi Toshir ō, Media Nihonjinron: Enka kara Kurashikku Made [Media Nihonnjinron: From Enka to Classical Music], (Tokyo, Japan: Shinchōsha, 1987); Ben Okano, Enka Genryū Kō: Nikkan Taishū Kayō no Sōi to Sōni [Thoughts on Enka‟s Origins:Similarities and Differences between Japanese and Korean Popular Music], (Tokyo, Japan:
Gakugei Shorin, 1988); Deborah Shamoon, „Recreating traditional music in postwar Japan: a prehistory of enka‟, Japan Forum, (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2013.824019, Accessed on 4 September 2013; and Wajima, Tsukurareta.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2013.824019http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2013.824019
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
17/147
6
music audience, even as they contribute to our understanding of the forms and
history of its production.
I argue that the study of enka‟s relationship to Japanese national
identity and tradition must involve enka consumption, because of the
importance of everyday social practice in the construction of identities at all
levels, including the national. As Montserrat Guibernau argues via a wide-
ranging study of various nationalisms in Europe and North America, national
identity is a shared collective sentiment of similarity and belonging to the
same nation and difference from other nations. 10 Eric Hobsbawm has
discussed how such a shared sense of national identity has been created
(particularly in the era of European imperialism) by socio-political elites
through the manipulation of national memory to invent new traditions as a
focal point of shared national sentiment and identification.11 In this model of
national memory and identity, Hobsbawm clearly situates creative agency
firmly in the hands of these elites, whom Gibernau suggests have greater
access and control over mass media and political institutions. 12 But these
structures of meaning, memory and identity cannot be created or circulated
without social interactions, as Maurice Halbwachs argues through his concept
of collective memory.13 Recent scholars on nationalism such as Guibernau and
Jackie Hogan argue that these social interactions are not exclusively top-down.
Guibernau notes that „elites had to make concessions and incorporate certain
10 Montserrat Guibernau, The Identity of Nations, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007), p.9.
11 Eric J. Hobsbawm, “Introduction: Inventing Traditions”, Eric J. Hobsbawm and Terence O.
Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition, (Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University
Press, 1983), p.6.12
Guibernau, The Identity of Nations, p.18.13
Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, Lewis Coser (trans.), (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1992). Cited in Astrid Erll, Memory in Culture, Sara B. Young (trans.), (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p.16.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
18/147
7
elements of popular culture into what was to be designed as national culture,
in order for the masses to identify and recognise the elite‟s constructed
national culture as their own‟. 14 And in Hogan‟s study of contemporary
nationalism in Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom and United States, she
argues that for the masses, social negotiation and contestation of national
identity and memory occurs most frequently (and crucially) at the level of the
mundane and quotidian.15
Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss and C. Lee Harrington have described
fandom as one site for such everyday-level social negotiations and
contestations, „as part of the fabric of our everyday lives‟ that is inextricably
linked with the cultural practice and structures people are situated in. 16
Fandom, as Sandvoss and Daniel Cavicchi argue, can be defined at its very
base as „the regular, emotionally involved consumption‟ of cultural texts.17
Through such a mode of cultural consumption, which is always contextually
situated, „fandom is an aspect of how we make sense of the world, in relation
to mass media, and in relation to our historical, social, cultural location‟, and a
way through which fans negotiate and construct identities. 18 My choice of
studying enka fandom to understand the genre‟s links to national identity is
14
Guibernau, The Identity of Nations, p.18.15 Jackie Hogan, Gender, Race and National Identity: Nations of Flesh and Blood, (New York:
Routledge, 2009), p.2.16
Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss and C. Lee Harrington, „Introduction: Why Study Fans?‟,Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss and C. Lee Harrington (eds.), Fandom: Identities and
Communities in a Mediated World, (New York and London: New York University Press,
2007), p.9.17
Cornel Sandvoss, Fans: The Mirror of Consumption, (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2005), p.8.
See also Daniel Cavicchi, „Loving Music: Listeners, Entertainments, and the Origins of MusicFandom in Nineteenth-Century America‟, Gray, Sandvoss and Harrington (eds.), Fandom,
pp.248-9.18
Joli Jensen, „Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterisation‟, Lisa A. Lewis(ed.), The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, (New York: Routledge, 1992),
p.27. See also John Fiske, „The Cultural Economy of Fandom‟, Lewis (ed.), The AdoringAudience, pp.46-48; and Lawrence Grossberg, „Is There a Fan in the House? The AffectiveSensibility of Fandom‟, Lewis (ed.), The Adoring Audience, pp.64-65.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
19/147
8
thus motivated by such links, both conceptually and in praxis, between
identity and fandom.
Enka fandom as a ‘taste community’
Particularly, I look towards sociological and ethnographic approaches
in understanding enka from audiences‟ perspectives. The concepts of taste,
community and „musicking‟ provide a productive framework for
understanding fans‟ and non-fans‟ attitudes towards and utilisation of enka, in
terms of their individual agency within social settings, by highlighting the role
that the genre plays in generating individual and collective identities. This
understanding is crucial in considering enka‟ s claims to an authentic Japanese
identity.
In „Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste‟, Pierre
Bourdieu uses the results of two large-scale questionnaire surveys conducted
in 1963 and 1967-8 to show how cultural tastes (including music) among the
French public were stratified according to social distinctions based largely
upon the kind of educational training received, which was in turn dependent
on possession of economic, social and cultural capital. 19 He argues that
differences in cultural tastes are self-perpetuated through class distinctions
made by the various class groups:
„Through the economic and social conditions which they
presuppose, the different ways of relating to realities and
fictions, …with more or less distance and detachment, are very
19 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Richard Nice
(trans.), (London, Melbourne and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984), pp.13-18.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
20/147
9
closely linked to the different possible positions in social space
and, consequently, bound up with the systems of dispositions
(habitus) characteristic of the different classes and class
fractions. Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social
subjects, classified by their classifications, distinguish
themselves by the distinctions they make…in which their
position in the objective classifications is expressed or
betrayed.‟20
Later studies on taste have criticised Bourdieu‟s overly-deterministic
use of class to explain taste differences. For example, Michèle Lamont, by
investigating American and French upper-middle classes‟ cultural
consumption in the 1980s, argues that factors such as wider access to higher
education and increased lower middle-class and upper working-class incomes
have dismantled older class-based status distinctions. 21 Meanwhile, social
markers such as gender, ethnicity and age have become as important as class
in understanding cultural consumption differences. 22 However, these
criticisms have not taken away the importance of understanding the habitus in
which cultural consumers are situated to explain how they arrive at their
consumption choices.23 As such, in Chapters Two to Four I discuss the kinds
20 Ibid., pp.5-6. Brackets in original.
21 Michèle Lamont, Money, Morals, Manners: The Culture of the French and American
Upper-Middle Classes, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).22
Michèle Lamont and Marcel Fournier (eds.), Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries
and the Making of Inequality, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).23
I use „habitus‟ in the manner defined by Bourdieu: „systems of durable, transposabledispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as
principles which generate and organise practices and representations that can be objectively
adapted to their outcomes without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an expressmastery of the operations necessary in order to attain them‟. Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic ofPractice, Richard Nice (trans.), (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), p.53.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
21/147
10
of social differences, such as age, education, family income and location,
which can be observed between enka fans and non-fans. Such audience
segregation is most observable in the various types of settings that have
developed in the karaoke industry, as socialisation processes at each setting
involving music have created and maintained divergent musical tastes.
On the other hand, within cultural studies there was growing discontent
with Stuart Hall‟s, John Fiske‟s and David Morley‟s early critical works on
media consumption. These argue for audiences‟ individual agency (via the
„active audience‟ concept) in interpreting and creating meaning out of media
texts, and the socio-discursive possibilities and constraints that shape the ways
in which these could be done.24 However, the heavily theoretically-centred
analyses led scholars in the 1980s, such as Phil Cohen, to lament them as
„simply the site of a multiplicity of conflicting discourses…[with] no reality
outside its representation‟.25 Such discontent led later scholars to look towards
ethnographic methods of conducting empirically- based research on audiences‟
relationship with media texts.
Particularly, Simon Frith asks, „how is it that people…can say, quite
confidently, that some popular music is better than others?‟26 Examining such
value judgements as expressions of individual choices and preferences (even if
24 Kagimoto Yū, „Ōdiensuron Saikō: Oto wo Fureru Keiken Kara [Rethinking Audience
Theory: From the Experience of Encountering Music]‟, Soshioroji [Sociology], Vol.48 No.3,(2004) , pp.5-6. See also Stuart Hall, „Encoding/Decoding‟, Simon During (ed.), The CulturalStudies Reader (Second Edition), (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), pp.507-17; John
Fiske, Reading the Popular,(London and New York: Routledge, 1991); David Morley,Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies, (London: Routledge, 1992); Nicholas
Abercrombie and Brian Longhurst, Audiences: A Sociological Theory of Performance and
Imagination, (London: Sage, 1998).25
Phil Cohen, Rethinking the Youth Question, (London: Post 16 Education Centre, Institute of
Education, 1986), p.20. Cited in Andy Bennett, „Researching youth culture and popularmusic‟, British Journal of Sociology, Vol.53 No.3, (2002), p.455. Brackets in Bennett (2002).26
Simon Frith, „Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music‟, Simon Frith (ed.), Popular Music:Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies: Volume IV: Music and Identity, (London
and New York: Routledge, 2004), p.42.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
22/147
11
they may be socially shaped), Frith views „taste‟ as a marker of difference.
Explaining preferences and tastes, he notes:
„”Personal” preferences are themselves socially constructed.
Individual tastes are, in fact, examples of collective taste and
reflect consumers‟ gender, class and ethnic backgrounds...But I
do believe that this derivation of pop meaning from collective
experience is not sufficient…we still need to explain why some
music is better able than others to have such collective effects,
why these effects are different, anyway, for different genres,
different audiences, and different circumstances.‟27
Through taste, Frith is pointing at the „highly nuanced, localised and
subjective ways in which music and cultural practice align in everyday
contexts‟.28 For Frith, the value of popular music is derived from „how well
(or badly), for specific listeners, songs and performances fulfil (social)
functions‟. 29 These functions, performed via the „experience of music as
something which can be possessed‟, are namely: the creation of both
individual and collective identity, managing the relationship between private
and public emotions, and shaping popular memory by acting as a marker in the
organisation of time through remembrance.30
Thus, Frith locates musical meaning away from the musical text itself,
and within music‟s social functions and the settings in which it is consumed.
27 Frith, „Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music‟, p.46.
28 Andy Bennett, „Towards a cultural sociology of popular music‟, Journal of Sociology,
Vol.44 No.4, (2008), p.429.29 Frith, „Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music‟, p.42. Brackets mine.
30 Ibid., pp.38-41.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
23/147
12
Musicologist Christopher Small, in describing „the act of musicking‟, further
discusses the sociality of music:
„The act of musicking establishes in the place where it is
happening a set of relationships, and it is in those relationships
that the meaning of the act lies. They are to be found not only
between those organised sounds which are conventionally
thought of as being the stuff of musical meaning but also
between the people who are taking part, in whatever capacity,
in the performance; and they model, or stand as metaphor for,
ideal relationships as the participants in the performance
imagine them to be: relationships between person and person,
between individual and society, between humanity and the
natural world and even perhaps the supernatural world.‟31
In other words, „musicking‟ defines music and its meaning as being
derived socially, as it describes how musical meanings are made through
audiences‟ interaction with musical texts, and with each other through musical
texts. Such a view of music‟s sociality thus also questions how it is utilised in
allowing people to make associations with each other, putting the concept of
community into relevance. Community, as noted by Jernej Prodnik, is a
notoriously difficult concept to define. 32 However, I draw attention to his
objection of a clear dichotomy between „real‟ communities based on
31 Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening, (Middletown,
Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1998), p.13.32
Jernej Prodnik, „Post-Fordist Communities and Cyberspace : A Critical Approach‟ , HarrisBreslow and Aris Mousoutzanis (eds.), Cybercultures: Mediations of Community, Culture,
Politics, (Amsterdam, New York: Rodolpi: 2012), p.77.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
24/147
13
relationships structured in the material world, and „virtual‟ communities based
on interactions mediated by cyberspace.33
Prodnik cites Benedict Anderson‟s argument that since all
communities are imagined, they should not be distinguished in terms of
authenticity, but rather in the style in which they are imagined. 34 This means
that rather than dismissing associations built upon Internet communication as
not being „communal‟, such forms of interaction should be seen as one of
many other avenues through which community ties can be built and
sustained.35 Anderson‟s argument also supports the relevance of community as
a concept to study human associations of not just the place-based, group-
focused and emotionally intimate Gemeinschaft type, but also of the more
interest-based, self-centred and emotionally distant Gesellschaft type.36
Jose van Dijck, studying anime and heavy metal fans on YouTube who
share their cultural preferences with other anonymous users, combines the
concepts of taste and interest- based community into the term „taste community‟
to denote „groups with a communal preference in music, movies and books‟.37
He draws this definition from Antoine Hennion‟s discussion on the importance
33 Ibid., pp.77-78.
34 Ibid., pp.78-79. See also Benedict R.O‟G. Anderson, Imagined Communities, (London:
Verso, 1991), p.6.35 This discussion is important, given the importance of the Internet as a medium through
which the Internet karaoke clubs I investigated as part of my field research congregated (see
next section and Chapters Three and Four).36
For the Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft analytical dichotomy, see Ferdinand Tönnies,
Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft [„Community and Society‟], (Darmstadt: WissenschaftlicheBuchgesellschaft, 2005), (reprinted from Leipzig: Fues's Verlag, 2nd ed. 1912; 8th edition,Leipzig: Buske, 1935). For discussions on communities of place, see Jerry W. Robinson, Jr.
and Gary Paul Green, „Developing Communities‟, Jerry W. Robinson and Gary Paul Green(eds.), Introduction to Community Development: Theory, Practice and Service-Learning, (Los
Angeles, CA, London, Delhi, Singapore: SAGE Publications, 2010), p.2. For discussions on
communities of interest, see France Henri and Béatrice Pudelko, „Understanding andanalyzing activity and learning in virtual communities‟, Journal of Computer Assisted
Learning, Vol.19, (2003), p.478.37 Jose van Dijck, „Users like you? Theorizing agency in user -generated content‟, Media
Culture Society, Vol.31 No.1, (2009), p.46.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
25/147
14
of taste-building in community life and communal participation to build
taste.38 This discussion brings us back to Frith, Bourdieu, Lamont and Small,
who suggest the sociality of cultural products such as music through their
various arguments. Thus, the study of musical taste should be grounded in
investigations into communal settings of consumption, in which musical and
communal meanings are negotiated by participants. It is within such a
framework of the „taste community‟, focusing on communal taste-building,
that I approach the study of enka consumption by fans and non-fans in Chapter
Four.
Such approaches have already been suggested by scholars working on
popular music in Japan. For example, Minamida Katsuya, Tsuji Izumi and
Tōya Mamoru champion approaches that pay attention not only to theoretical
interpretations of song texts.39 Of particular importance is Kagimoto Yū‟s
suggestion that a focus on the actual experience of audiences‟ interaction with
music is important in analysing how music gains meaning.40
Crucially, scholars researching on enka, such as Christine Yano,
Wajima Yūsuke, Mitsui Toru, Mitsutomi Toshir ō and others, recognise that
the genre is essentially a form of popular music: songs are circulated and
consumed through mass media such as the CD, cassette tape, television, radio
and karaoke. This recognition provides justification for a sociological and
ethnographic investigation of enka consumption driven by the latest
38 Antoine Hennion, „Those Things That Hold Us Together: Taste and Sociology‟, Martha
Poon (trans.), Cultural Sociology, Vol.1 No.1, (2007), p.103, 111-2.39
Minamida Katsuya and Tsuji Izumi (eds.), Bunka Shakaigaku no Shiza: Nomerikomu Media
to Soko ni Aru Nichijō no Bunka [Viewpoints on the Sociology of Culture: The All-Encompassing Media and The Everyday Culture Within It], (Tokyo, Japan: Minerva Shobo,
2008); Tōya Mamoru (ed.), Kakusan Suru Ongaku Bunka wa Dou Toraeru ka? [How Do WeStudy the Expanding Music Culture?], (Tokyo, Japan: Keisō Shobo, 2008). pp. i-ii.40
Kagimoto, „Ōdiensuron Saikō‟, pp.3-18.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
26/147
15
theoretical concerns in popular music research. This thesis thus focuses on
investigating activities of „musicking‟ and communal taste building through
karaoke. Particularly, I ask the following questions: Who are these enka fans?
How did they come to develop their taste for enka? How do they identify with
each other through enka? On what terms do they make connections with and
generate meaning for enka? How are ideas of tradition and „Japaneseness‟
expressed, negotiated, rejected and/or reaffirmed in their consumption
behaviour? Are these mechanisms specific only to enka and its fans? These
questions will allow us to better understand the cultural position that enka
occupies in contemporary Japanese music, and how enka fans and non-fans
create and sustain musical tastes through communal consumption.
Karaoke ethnography: Transgressions of the ethnographer
To investigate actual practices of „musicking‟ and communal taste
building for both enka fans and non-fans, I conducted participant-observation
studies of behaviour surrounding musical preferences in various karaoke
settings from March to July 2013, although my initial interactions with one of
the communities stretched back to 2010. Karaoke provided a logical fieldsite,
because firstly karaoke participation performs a major role in enka
consumption, with many songs being released with karaoke versions,
mark eted as „easy to sing‟ [„utaiyasui‟ ] and urging listeners to „try singing the
songs at karaoke‟ [„chōsen shite mitekudasai‟ ]. Furthermore, as a
predominantly social activity (although there is a recent phenomenon of
„hitori-karaoke‟ [„karaoke alone‟]), it allows music fans to partake in musical
consumption and amateur performance within a communal setting. In fact,
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
27/147
16
entire books on rules of karaoke conduct, listing out taboos such as
monopolising the microphone and selecting the „wrong‟ songs, among others,
highlight the communal nature of karaoke participation by discussing
socialisation processes, such as regulation of behaviour, that occur during
karaoke.41
Other methodological and epistemological concerns directed the
selection of specific karaoke settings as my research fieldsites. During the
course of the ethnographic research, I participated in and observed the
activities of three karaoke settings: SC, a karaoke kissa situated in Asaka City
on the north-western outskirts of Tokyo, and two Internet karaoke clubs, K-
club and NSK, which organised monthly gatherings in cramped rooms inside
karaoke box establishments near Kawasaki Station just south of Tokyo.42 The
choice of a karaoke kissa was influenced by popular accounts from the Enka
Renaissance Association and Tsuzuki Kyōichi, who point out the integral roles
of karaoke kissas as a venue where enka fans gather to enjoy and perform their
favourite music.43 In contrast to the kissa is the karaoke box, which attracts a
largely non-enka demographic.44 NSK and K-club provided box settings which
41 See Maruyama Keizaburo, Hito wa Naze Utaunoka [Why Do Humans Sing?], (Tokyo:
Asuka-shinsha, 1991); Miyake Mitsuei, Karaoke Kokoroe Chō: Karaoke Enka Bunkaron
[„Lessons from Karaoke: Karaoke and Enka Culturalism], (Tokyo: Hakushoin, 2004); Ueno Naoki, Karaoke wo Motto-motto Umaku Miseru Hon [Book for Singing Karaoke MuchBetter], (Tokyo: KK Longsellers, 1993).42
A kissa can roughly be translated as „café‟, although kissas are typically olderestablishments located away from trendy neighbourhoods serving an older clientele. Kissas
may also provide other kinds of services besides food and drinks, such as communal karaoke
or manga. Boxes are establishments that contain many smaller rooms in which customers can participate in karaoke in more private and intimate spaces. See Chapter Three for an in-depth
comparison between these two kinds of establishments.43
Enka Runesansu no Kai [ Enka Renaissance Association] (ed.), Enka wa Fumetsu da [ Enka
Will Not Perish], (Tokyo: Sony Magazines Shinsho, 2008), pp.126-9, Tsuzuki Kyōichi, Enka yo Konya mo Arigatou: Shirarezaru Indīzu Enka no Sekai [Thank You For Tonight Again, Enka: The Unknown World of Indies Enka], (Tokyo, Japan: Heibonsha, 2011).44
Mitsui Toru, „The Genesis of Karaoke‟, Mitsui Toru and Hosokawa Shuhei (e ds.), KaraokeAround the World: Global Technology, Local Singing, (London and New York: Routledge,
1998), p.39. The All Japan Association of Karaoke Entrepeneurs survey conducted in 1995
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
28/147
17
particularly played up the role of „musicking‟ in communal participation,
rather than non-music-related forms of socialisation, because membership was
predicated upon the appreciation of songs from the Showa period for the
former and karaoke in general for the latter. Thus, these settings would
provide fertile ground for analysis of „musicking‟ behaviour. Chapter Three
provides a more in-depth explanation of the three settings, particularly key
members in the research, and the segregation of karaoke consumers and
musical tastes between kissas and boxes.
In these settings, I participated and observed other participants‟
behaviour in communal karaoke. I noted their song preferences to identify
which songs were most popular in each setting, particularly focusing on the
year in which songs were released and the singers most represented. I also
paid attention to the conversations and behaviour that we would engage in
between songs. I then conducted individual interviews, where I asked about
karaoke participants‟ musical preferences. The questions included the
following: What are your favourite songs and singers? How did you come to
like them? What kind of frame of mind, or emotions, do you have when you
listen to these songs and singers? What do you think is their appeal? What
kind of personal meaning do the songs and singers take on for you? Finally, I
also asked if they liked enka, and what they thought about enka‟s claim to
represent an essentialist „Japanese identity‟ through tradition. Although the
sample size of participants (around forty) was small, limiting the
showed that young consumers (university and high school students, and young adults)
consisted over 70% of karaoke boxes‟ clientele, while working-age and elderly men consisted86% of karaoke snacks‟ customers. Zenkoku Karaoke Jigyosha Kyokai [All Japan Association
of Karaoke Entrepreneurs], Karaoke Hakusho [White Paper on Karaoke], (Tokyo: ZenkokuKaraoke Jigyosha Kyokai, 1996). Cited in Oku Shinobu, „Karaoke and Middle-aged and OlderWomen‟, Mitsui and Hosokawa (eds.), Karaoke Around the World, pp.54-55.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
29/147
18
representativeness of the research in providing an overall picture of the
Japanese music audience, nevertheless my comparative approach presented an
important shift away from existing enka research, which has thus far focused
on production practices (and in rare cases, consumption) solely within the
genre.
Contemporary researchers are confronted with methodological,
epistemological and ontological issues about the ethnographic research and
writing process. Critical ethnographers such as James Clifford, George Marcus
and Michael Fischer have questioned the intellectual and relationship contexts
in which ethnographic research is conducted and written up.45 Jennifer Mason
convincingly argues that ethnographers need to acknowledge that their
knowledge is generated only via their participation in and embodiment of the
behaviours and processes being studied.46 Within my research, I found that my
very presence within the karaoke settings generated certain reactions and
modes of thinking unavailable to other researchers. 47 I characterise my
experiences within these settings as a series of culturally and generationally-
framed transgressions, as my biographical, cultural and academic background
always contrasted in some way with those of other karaoke participants. These
transgressions proved methodologically important in highlighting musical and
cultural identities and meanings held by both enka and non-enka fans.
45 See James Clifford and George E. Marcus, Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of
Ethnography, (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986); George E. Marcus andMichael Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique, (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago
Press, 1986).46
Jennifer Mason, Qualitative Researching (Second Edition), (London: Sage Publications,
2002), pp.87-90.47
I hesitate to use the terms „native‟ or „insider‟ in comparing myself with other researchers, particularly Japanese, because of the multiple loci through which ethnographers are identified
according to the research setting. See Kirin Narayan, „How Native is a “Native”Anthropologist?‟, American Anthropologist, Vol.95, (1993), pp.671-86 for a conciseargument about the problems of ethnographer identity in the fieldsite.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
30/147
19
Transgression, as Chris Jenks defines, „is to go beyond the bounds or
limits set by a commandment or law or convention, it is to violate or
infringe‟. 48 However, transgr essions are „manifestly situation-specific and
vary considerable across social space and through time‟, despite appeals to
their universality. 49 Instead, drawing upon ideas of social constructionism,
Jenks proposes the importance of the „context of the act‟s reception‟ in
understanding instances of transgression.50
For this research, I draw attention
to disconnects in my age, nationality, upbringing and education from the
karaoke participants with whom I interacted. I am a young academic
researcher born in 1986, and have been brought up in Singapore for the vast
majority of my life. I did not try to hide my cultural and academic background,
although I also did not reveal them when first meeting other karaoke
participants. Once revealed, however, my cultural and academic background
began to also factor into how other participants viewed my karaoke
performances and social interactions within the settings.
In fact, when karaoke participants‟ analysed and talked about my
karaoke performances and involvement in their social relationships against
these biographical, cultural and academic characteristics, truly insightful
observations about their views on enka and musical tradition were borne. This
was possible because of the effects of transgressive behaviour that Jenks
describes:
„But to transgress is also more than this (a violation), it is to
announce and even laudate the commandment, the law or the
48
Chris Jenks, Transgression, (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), p.2.49 Ibid., pp.2-3.
50 Ibid., p.8.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
31/147
20
convention. Transgression is a deeply reflexive act of denial
and affirmation. Analytically, then, transgression serves as an
extremely sensitive vector in assessing the scope, direction and
compass of any social theory…‟51
Here, Jenks suggests the possible uses of transgression as a
methodological tool in understanding social behaviour and settings. As such, I
decided against conforming to the norms of being a young foreign academic
researcher. Instead, I found that a more fruitful approach towards
understanding karaoke participants‟ musical understandings was to enact, in
various ways, performances that they did not expect from young foreign
researchers, using my limited but still substantial knowledge of local
behaviour and various Japanese popular music genres including enka.
Although such performances might have affirmed, as Jenks suggests,
„commonly-held‟ conceptions of musical tradition, they also allowed me to
create stronger rapport with karaoke participants, through the creation of a
sense of surprise, in order to facilitate in-depth critical discussions about these
„commonly-held‟ conceptions later on. These „transgressive‟ performances
also created a sort of spectacle, not unlike Jero‟s enka performances, which
provided opportunities for reflections on prior assumptions of musical
meaning.
51 Ibid., p.2. Brackets mine.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
32/147
21
Towards a new framework for understanding enka
The following chapters present my exploration of enka from the
audience- and taste-based theoretical framework described thus far. In Chapter
One, I introduce enka‟ s stylistic forms, showing how these have been
described as links to a pre-modern musical tradition and an „authentic
Japanese identity‟. I then analyse Jero‟s enka career, as an example of how a
particular kind of performer has destabilised culturally essentialist
understandings of the genre. Audience reactions towards his enka
performances also highlight the need for alternative theoretical frameworks,
based on taste, to explain audiences‟ connection to enka.
In Chapter Two, I provide a socio-historical look at the development of
musical taste for enka, and argue that such musical taste is held only by a
specific segment of the Japanese music audience. I first show how
contemporary enka is a relatively recent construct borne out of struggles
among Japanese music producers and intellectuals of the 1960s, and became
attached to notions of „Japanese tradition‟.52 I then describe the development
of nostalgic longings among older segments of the Japanese population for a
furusato [„hometown‟] positing the r ural locale of the past as an ideal vision of
„Japan‟ during the 1960s and 1970s, and their gravitation towards enka‟ s
themes of rural longing. Effectively, a division in musical tastes within the
Japanese music audience developed around this time.
In Chapters Three and Four, I highlight karaoke as a social music
consumption setting to understand how communal „musicking‟ activities have
highlighted and entrenched such segmentation of musical tastes not only in
52
This is an important topic in understanding enka‟ s development as a music genre worthy ofin-depth research on its own, but ultimately outside of the audience-centred focus of this
thesis.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
33/147
22
terms of age, but also education, locale and family income. I first describe
karaoke‟s historical development in Chapter Three, as an example of how the
divide in musical tastes and audiences has persisted through a communal
„musicking‟ activity. I also introduce the three karaoke settings, SC, K -club
and NSK, and key participants in the research, to show the social and musical
segregation between them. Chapter Four then analyses the „musicking‟
activities occurring within each setting. I argue that the communal taste-
building and „musicking‟ behaviour of karaoke participants, particularly with
regards to enka, continue to highlight and entrench social differences based on
age, locale, family income and education. I first explore the different ways in
which I transgressed in my participation in each setting, to tease out the
generational and culturally essentialist terms in which both fans and non-fans
explained their views towards enka. I also show how non-fans used culturally
essentialist frameworks to also discuss other Japanese popular music genres.
Finally, I make a contrast between how enka fans and non-fans create musical
and communal identities and relationships through „musicking‟ and taste-
building activities surrounding genre, in a manner that produces further
segregation. These participant observations are supplemented with anecdotal
data from interviews, and I read their behaviour and anecdotes against their
social life-histories and socio-musical experiences.
I conclude by pointing out the inability of existing enka research to
provide an accurate picture of the peripheral position the genre and its fans
occupy within the Japanese popular music industry, and highlight how my
sociologically- and ethnographically-based methodologies show that Japanese
music listeners have developed differing opinions and attitudes towards the
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
34/147
23
genre. By pointing out the specific socio-historical origins of both the genre
and its fandom, and also the diverse ways in which karaoke participants in
different settings approached the use of enka in their gatherings, I argue that
enka performs the more socially divisive role of marking off a certain fan
demographic, within a heavily segmented Japanese music audience that
conceptualises „Japan‟ in various ways.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
35/147
24
Chapter One
Enka, a National Musical Tradition?
In this chapter, I destabilise culturally essentialist assumptions that
enka unquestionably represents an essential Japanese traditional identity. I first
introduce how both Japanese and Euro-American academic discourses have
coupled the genre to notions of Japanese tradition, in terms of its formal styles
and content. However, I show that culturally essentialist narratives are unable
to fully explain the fluidity and dynamism of musical performance and
consumption. This is done by highlighting how audiences have viewed the
racially- and culturally-defined spectacle of Jero‟s enka performances in non-
cultural terms of musical appreciation. Audience reception towards Jero‟s
performances suggests that an alternative framework for understanding enka
consumption and audiences, based on taste, is needed.
Enka’ s ‘traditional’ features
In describing the musical content and form generally found in enka
songs and performances, Christine Yano explains kata as „a recognisable code
of the performance action‟. 53 She defines kata as „stylised formulas‟ and
„patterned forms‟, and suggests that the concept reflects the deeply embedded
structural approach to production, performance and consumption in the
genre.54 In other words, enka relates compositional and performance motifs to
certain ideals and values deemed „traditional‟, through kata‟s highly structured
and explicit semiotic code. This approach to the analysis of enka songs is also
53 Yano, Tears of Longing, p.25.
54 Ibid., pp.24-25.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
36/147
25
prominently utilised by publications such as Okada Maki‟s „Musical
Characteristics of Enk a‟ and Koizumi Fumio‟s „Kayōkyoku no Kōzō‟
[„Structure of Kayōkyoku‟], which operate on the assumption that the
authenticity of such songs as a representation of tradition rests on its
faithfulness to kata. 55
Yano discusses an exhaustive list of ideas and images „cued‟ by
specific kata. They work to aestheticise and glorify nostalgia for a „Japan‟
situated in an idealised rural past. In textual/lyrical kata, this „Japan‟ is most
succinctly referenced in the word „furusato‟.56 In enka, furusato does not
necessarily mean a physical location (although Mizumori Kaori (1973- ),
dubbed „the queen of locale songs‟, has had a lucrative career singing many
songs that reference actual places and sceneries), but rather a setting in which
an idealised „traditional Japan‟ can be visualised through a process of
nostalgia and longing.57 Lyrical kata serve as signifiers of the people (such as
mothers, stoic men and jilted lovers) inhabiting the pristine, rural furusato
setting full of natural goodness, and the intimate and emotionally intense
interpersonal relationships that bind „traditional Japanese‟ together. Even the
lyrical structure, which is highly influenced by the pre-modern Japanese poetic
form of waka, provides a sense of tradition.58
Ideas of tradition are also expressed through performative kata. Firstly,
vocal techniques, drawn from pre-modern Japanese forms such as jōruri,
55 See Koizumi, Kayōkyoku no Kōzō, pp.148-81; Okada Maki, „Musical Characteristics of
Enka‟, Gerald Groemer (trans.), Popular Music, Vol.10 No.3, pp.283-303.56
Yano, Tears of Longing, pp.148-79.57
Jennifer Robertson, „The Culture and Politics of Nostalgia: Furusato Japan‟, InternationalJournal of Politics, Culture and Society, Vol.1 No.4, (1988), pp. 494-518; Marilyn Ivy,
Discourses of the Vanishing: Modernity, Phantasm, Japan, (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1995), p.104. I discuss the furusato concept in greater detail, when detailing the socialupheaval of 1960s and 1970s Japan in Chapter Two.58
Yano, Tears of Longing, p.92, 103.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
37/147
26
minyō and naniwa-bushi, signify gendered expressions of melancholy,
stoicism, grief or pain.59 The most prominent technique is the kobushi, a vocal
ornamentation described by Okada as a „melismatic kind of singing‟. 60
Yoshikawa Seiichi argues for the sensuality that is experienced in utilising
kobushi, and proclaims it as the „life-blood of enka‟.61 Several fans that I
spoke to during fieldwork echoed such views about kobushi. Also, embodied
kata provide visual indicators of emotion and gender ideals. Yano provides a
list comparing the fashion styles (encompassing both traditional Japanese and
Western dress), poses and stage movement of female and male enka singers
during performances, to show how the genre clearly differentiates between
„otoko-michi‟ and „onna- gokoro‟ [„the path of a man‟ and „the feelings of a
woman‟].62
Compositional kata, meanwhile, play an important role in generating
feelings of nostalgia by aurally signifying ideas of the past through
instrumentation. This is most prominently done through the use of yonanuki
scales, particularly the minor.63 These scales share many characteristics with
traditional music, but were actually developed in the Meiji period as music
practitioners and educators sought to fit Japanese musical modes into their
newly acquired knowledge of Western musical theory.64 Also, the imitation of
sounds produced by traditional instruments, such as the shakuhachi and
shamisen, in song arrangements work to create a faux traditional feel to the
music.
59 Ibid., pp.109-14; Koizumi, Kayōkyoku no Kōzō, pp.172-80.
60 Okada, „Musical Characteristics of Enka‟ , p.288.
61 Yoshikawa Seiichi, Kanashimi wa Nihonjin: Enka Minzokuron [Grief is Japanese: Enka
Ethnology], (Tokyo, Ongaku no Tomo Sha: 1992), pp.35-37.62
Yano, Tears of Longing, pp.114-22.63 Okada, „Musical Characteristics of Enka‟, pp.284-6.
64 Ibid., pp.285-6.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
38/147
27
Even production and consumption practices are portrayed as markers
of „tradition‟ and „marginality‟, as Yano describes. 65 Firstly, she notes the
strict apprenticeship system and senior-junior [ senpai-kōhai] hierarchy
practiced in enka, with budding singers undergoing extensive and gruelling
training periods as live-in disciples. Also, many songs are still released on
cassette tapes, matching enka‟s older fan demographic and their reliance on
older technology. Performers also exhibit their hard effort by travelling
extensively across Japan to perform at small-scale venues that allow for close
personal interaction with fans (a practice that has precedents in pre-modern
itinerant performers).66
In terms of consumption as a marker of marginalised tradition, Yano
notes that enka sales occupy a miniscule portion of the Japanese music market
(less than one percent in 1998).67 Also, enka sales patterns provide a stark
difference to the instant consumption and disposal dominating the Japanese
musical scene today: typically rising through the charts slowly and gradually,
songs usually take months or even years to achieve hit status. Together, these
production and consumption traits are valorised as expressions of
perseverance, hard work and a „Japanese spirit‟, as seen in a music industry
journal article which describes enka as being „like a marathon‟, just as Japan is
„a “marathon country”‟ that emphasises „spirit and effort‟.68
65 Yano, Tears of Longing, pp.45-76.
66 Ibid., p.74.
67 Oricon, Inc., Orikon Nenkan 1998 Nenban [1998 Oricon Yearbook], (Tokyo: Orijinaru
Konfidensu, 1998). 68 Anonymous, „Ōen shitakunaru kashu no jōken to wa?‟ [What Makes a Singer Incite Your
Support?], Konfidensu, Vol.26, (1992), pp.21-37.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
39/147
28
Enka is thus a nostalgia built on what Yano calls a „memory of pain‟
aestheticised into something desirable. 69 By coupling marginalised rural
experiences with images of the past, enka‟s nostalgia presents a kind of
„internal exotic‟ that preserves temporal, spatial and cognitive distance from
modern urban Japanese lifestyles, while preserving a longing to „return‟ to
such an essentialised „traditional Japan‟. 70 Enka‟s aesthetic appeal is thus
explained as a structured representation of an essential „traditional Japanese
musical identity‟, compared to rock, pop and other genres seen as more
modern and Western-derived. Indeed, Yano cites an explanation often utilised
by enka fans in explaining its lack of popularity in younger audiences: „those
Japanese who do not like enka are either insufficiently experienced,
particularly in life‟s hardships and sorrow, or not true to their innate
Japaneseness‟.71
But paradoxically, Yano also concedes that a culture-based approach
towards enka understanding, through the primacy of structured forms dictated
by kata, cannot totally explain how certain enka singers are better received
than others. Instead, she suggests that kosei [individual character], which she
uses to explain individuality and originality in performances, is what „makes a
star a star‟.72 Successful singers „break out little by little‟, showcase their
„mastery over kata‟, and „convey the impression that no one can sing quite like
them: their kata is not only distinctive, it is elusive‟.73 Yano‟s explanation
69 Yano, Tears of Longing, pp.14-5; David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p.8.70
Yano, Tears of Longing, pp.15-6. Cf. Ivy, Discourses of the Vanishing.71
Christine R. Yano, „The Marketing of Tears: Consuming emotions in Japanese popularsong‟, Timothy J. Craig (ed.), Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture, (New
York: M.E. Sharpe, 2000), p.61.72 Yano, Tears of Longing, p.123.
73 Ibid. Emphasis in original.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
40/147
29
implies that despite the primacy of kata as structure in understanding enka
thus far, the genre cannot be seen as a totally static genre determined by form.
In fact, while her explanation of kosei has been conducted in terms of the
production and performance of enka thus far, I suggest, through the previous
discussion in the Introduction (pages 8 to 15) on sociological approaches to
studying music consumption, that there is no reason why audiences should be
excluded from any kind of agency in their consumption of the music. For the
rest of this chapter, I will analyse Jero‟s career developments, and how
audiences have viewed them, to show the need for a non-culture-based
understanding of the genre.
Jero’s enka career
Jero‟s early media appearances provide vivid examples of the racially-
and culturally-bounded discourse in which his performances are situated. For
example, in an appearance on Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai [Japan Broadcasting
Corporation, abbreviated as NHK] programming in 2008 to perform Misora
Hibari‟s (1937-1989) 1950 hit „Echigojishi no Uta‟ [„Echigo Lion-Dancer
Song‟], Jero‟s first sentence in his explanation to the host‟s quizzing of his
connections to the song „My grandmother was Japanese, so…‟ provides the
greatest hint about the framework through which he negotiates enka‟s musical
meanings.74 To hammer home the point, a photo of Takiko embracing a young
Jero is superimposed on the screen not only during the chat, but also the actual
song rendition. A year later, in a television appearance to promote his third
single „Tsumeato‟ [„Nail Marks‟], he again cites his grandmother as his main
74 shenyuetao, „Jero – Echigojishi no Uta‟ [„Jero: The Echigo Lion-Dancer Song‟], Youku,
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNzI2NTY5MzY=.html, Accessed 22 November 2012.
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNzI2NTY5MzY=.htmlhttp://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNzI2NTY5MzY=.html
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
41/147
30
influence in performing enka, while a family portrait including Takiko is set as
a prominent backdrop as he performs.75 These attempts at legitimising his
performance of enka also act to discursively assert the „Japaneseness‟ of the
genre, as it is seemingly only through Takiko that he obtains the cultural
licence to perform.
Figure 1: Cover photo for „Umiyuki‟ (Courtesy of Victor Entertainment Co.Ltd.)
Jero and his producers also crafted his initial visual image, which
provides the most visible reason for the interest surrounding his enka career,
within a culturally essentialist understanding of music genres. Indeed, Jero‟s
appearance in hip-hop fashion, with his baseball cap, baggy shirts and trousers,
large chains, sneakers, and occasional dance moves, panders to existing
Japanese musical stereotypes about African-American inspired hip-hop culture
(See Figure 1).76
75 gbc025026, „Jero: Tōku & Tsumeato‟ [„Jero: Talk & Nail Marks‟]
Youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtXJfimG1fk, Accessed 22 November 2012.76
See John Russell, „Race and Reflexivity: The Black Other in Contemporary Japanese Mass
Culture‟, Cultural Anthropology, Vol.6 No.1, (1991), pp.3-25; Ian Condry, Hip-Hop Japan:Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalisation, (Durham and London: Duke University Press,
2006), p.25.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtXJfimG1fkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtXJfimG1fk
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
42/147
31
Describing his thoughts on performing enka in hip-hop fashion in a
2008 interview, Jero expressed some reservations about such a fashion choice,
but conceded that it would be even stranger for him to wear a kimono on
stage.77 He also mentioned that this choice of fashion was the best way to
allow him to „perform comfortably as himself‟.78 His producer, Kawaguchi
Norihiro, suggested in Jero‟s 2011 biography that such ideas of „himself‟ and
„normal‟ were most probably based on a recognition of dominant cultural
discourses in Japanese society about African-Americans and Japanese.79
As such, Jero‟s early attempts to introduce his own kosei into the genre,
through his „fresh‟ and „unique‟ visual appeal, were overwhelmingly based on
a culturally-defined framework of enka as „Japanese music‟. Through the
usage of visual markers of African-American hip-hop culture, including his
own dark skin, Jero transgressed into a soundscape deemed exclusively
Japanese, and created a culturally-defined spectacle through his performances.
These performances also had the effect of reaffirming the racial and cultural
categories and boundaries of fashion and music, by skilfully adhering to both
established performance kata and conventional notions of African-American
hip-hop fashion and culture, and calling into question for audiences the
(in)compatibility of both cultural styles.
Jero has released several more singles, and six cover and two original
albums, since „Umiyuki‟. He and his producers have looked to expand on his
early artist image, while retaining some unique elements separating him from
other enka singers. Firstly, the development of a trademark „Jero sound‟ can
77 „Shoshin Wasurezu, Kokkyō wa Wasurete Enka no Kokoro wo Utaitsuzuketai‟ [„Wanting to
Continue Singing Enka‟s Spirit, Without Forgetting Roots but Forgetting National
Boundaries‟], Fujin K ōron, Vol.93 No.11, (22 May 2008), p.153.78 Kosakai, Enka wa Kokkyō wo Koeta, p.64.
79 Ibid.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
43/147
32
be observed in his releases since 2009, starting from „Yancha Michi‟ [„The
Way of the Brat‟]. Jero‟s later single releases have exhibited increasingly
modern sounds and arrangement styles. For example, „Serenade‟, released in
February 2013, has little trace of enka‟s trademark motifs. Instead, the song
features a highly stripped down arrangement style focusing on the sorrowful
lead piano melody backed by a mellow bass-line and dramatic guitar solos.
This musical direction is a significant departure from „Umiyuki‟ , which
showcased considerable allusions towards instantly recognisable traditional
Japanese musical motifs, such as the shakuhachi flourish at the beginning of
the song and rapid ascents and descents along the pentatonic scale.
Even his cover releases offer such departures from the stereotypical
enka sound. His version of the 1970s hit „Hisame‟ [„Sleet‟], for example,
prominently features an electric guitar riff backed by a strings section. Also,
songs usually associated with more urban and modern genres, such as the
1970s „new music‟ hit „Katte ni Shiyagare‟ [„However You Want It‟] and the
popular 1980s rock ballad „Wine Red no Kokoro‟ [„Wine-red Heart‟], are
included in his cover albums. While Jero still employs certain performative
kata, especially melismatic vocal ornamentations like kobushi and yuri (a slow
and broad vibrato), numerous collaborations with performers and composers
from other popular music genres, including Hitoto Yō, Nakamura Ataru,
Tamaki Kōji and Marty Friedman, have allowed him to develop a distinctly
more urban and modern sound.
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
44/147
33
Figure 2: Cover photos for „Yakusoku‟ (top left), „Serenade‟ (top right) and„Covers 6 (bottom) (Courtesy of Victor Entertainment Co. Ltd.)
Jero‟s visual imagery has also undergone significant, although gradual
change, as he started to appear more frequently in suits from the release of
„Yakusoku‟ [„Promise‟] in 2009. The preference towards a full suit is evident
today. In the „Covers 6‟ album released in July 2013, Jero stands in a side
profile with a wistful and faraway look, decked in a black blazer jacket and
pants matched with white shirt and grey necktie. He has his left hand in his
pocket, while his right hand grabs his jacket. In „Serenade‟ released in
February 2013, he is dressed in a black woollen winter jacket, while adorning
a colourful silk scarf (See Figure 2).
While these moves can be read as a shift towards more orthodox enka
fashion, Jero still adorns a number of trademark accessories. Firstly, he is still
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
45/147
34
never seen without headgear, with a do-rag topped off by a cap, or more
frequently in recent years a fedora hat. Jero also wears ear studs and a big
chain around his neck, reminiscent of the „bling‟ worn by African-American
hip-hop artists, in his appearances. He finishes off his suit with hip-hop
sneakers, rather than formal shoes. As such, while Jero‟s changes in fashion
style towards enka orthodoxy presents a seeming contradiction to his musical
departure from stereotypical enka, he still maintains his unique visual appeal
as a singer with African-American heritage, and as a „cool‟, „chic‟ and
„modern‟ enka performer.
Jero has also played up his African-American heritage in live concerts
and appearances, by performing Euro-American music, particularly soul. At
his special live event held in Yokohama in late June 2013, for example, Jero
started off with a rendition of the 1970 soul classic, The Spinners‟ „It‟s a
Shame‟, followed by Bobby Caldwell‟s „What You Won‟t Do for Love‟. He
also performed Michael Jackson‟s „Human Nature‟ later in the 75 -minute
show. These songs appeared in the set-list with numbers from enka and 1980s
and 1990s pop-rock ballads, creating a prominent juxtaposition between
„Japanese‟ and „African-American‟. Jero also self-deprecatingly referred to his
bilingualism when talking about the set-list by commenting, „Well now that
I‟m done with a couple of songs in English which I‟m poor at, let‟s move on
to some songs in Japanese which I‟m also poor at.‟ Thus, Jero has not
completely discarded the kind of culturally essentialist juxtaposition that
earlier media appearances and promotional material highlighted. His linguistic,
ethnic and cultural backgrounds are still valuable tools through which he (and
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
46/147
35
his producers) expresses his kosei, and differentiates himself from other enka
singers.
Jero‟s stated aim in pursuing this image and sound is to encourage
more listeners, particularly younger ones, to develop a liking for enka.80 In his
biography, he recounts his disappointment as a teenager in how young
Japanese turned away from what he considered an expression of the wonderful
ideals of Japan by dismissing it as old-fashioned. Jero thus seeks to
experiment with various sounds and fashion styles in his enka performances as
a professional singer, in order to entice new (and younger) fans to the genre.81
Jero‟s experimentations may also be read as a way to overcome
problems of declining popularity, as his releases after „Umiyuki‟ experienced
increasingly slow sales, failing to capitalise on its success. 82 But these
experiments in Jero‟s sound and fashion apparently have not worked to rebuild
his initial stardom, nor entice more fans to his music. His releases from 2010
onwards generally peak in the lower regions of Oricon‟s top 200 charts.83 Jero
has also missed out on NHK‟s K ōhaku since 2010, a widely-held marker of
general popularity, with some media reports dismissing him as a „one -hit
wonder‟.84
80 See for example „Kashu Jero- san: Nengan no Enka Kashu toshite Karei ni Bureiku Chū‟
[„Singer Jero: Having a Big Break as the Enka Singer He Always Wanted to Be‟], NikkeiŪman, (August 2008), p.96; and „ Monthly Pick Up!: Jero‟, Gekkan Za Terebijon , (August2008), p.40.81
Kosakai, Enka wa Kokkyō wo Koeta, pp.32-33, pp.170-1.82
Oricon, Inc., Jero no Shinguru Rankingu [Jero‟s Singles Ranking], (2013),http://www.oricon.co.jp/prof/artist/445413/ranking/cd_single/; Oricon, Inc., Jero no Arubamu
Ranking [Jero‟s Album Ranking], (2013),http://www.oricon.co.jp/prof/artist/445413/ranking/cd_album/, Accessed on 10 November
2013.83
Ibid.84
„Enka Waku Dai Sakugen de Kōhaku ni Risutora no Fubuki!: Gakeppuchi ni Tatsu
Kobayashi Sachiko, Mikawa Kenichi, Hosokawa Takashi , Godai Natsuko‟ [„A Flurry ofRetrenchment as Enka Slots are Lessened: Kobayashi Sachiko, Mikawa Kenichi, Hosokawa
Takashi, Godai Natsuko on the Brink‟], Shūkan Shinshō, (18 November 2010), p.35.
http://www.oricon.co.jp/prof/artist/445413/ranking/cd_single/http://www.oricon.co.jp/prof/artist/445413/ranking/cd_album/http://www.oricon.co.jp/prof/artist/445413/ranking/cd_album/http://www.oricon.co.jp/prof/artist/445413/ranking/cd_single/
8/19/2019 Enka Tradition
47/147
36
Evaluating Jero’s enka performances
Most media appraisals of Jero‟s enka career have been conducted in
culturally-bound frames of comparison. Reports early on heavily portrayed
him as not only „the first black enka singer‟ [„hatsu no kokujin enka kashu‟ ],
but also „the black ship of enka‟ [„enka no kurofune‟ ].85 The use of the term
„black ship‟ is an allusion to his African-American heritage and skin colour,
and also the arrival of the gunships of Commodore Matthew Perry to Tokyo
Bay in 1853 which forcibly opened up the Tokugawa Shogunate to foreign
trade and cultural influences. Jero‟s presence in enka is thus portrayed largely
in the same vein as Perry, in opening up the genre to foreign elements.
Cross-cultural comparisons still abound in later reports. An article in
the women‟s weekly magazine „ Josei Jishin‟, dated 18 October 2011,
introduces his musical knowledge by quoting him (in bold) as follows: „I
started listening to enka at a young age due to my Japanese grandmother‟s
influence, but I also got used to the sound of the jazz and R&B music from
older times. I like the rhythm. It‟s another point of musical
Top Related