NAKAJIMA Miyuki, Sakamotos, and Japanese music abroad (FAQ)
Tomoyuki Tanaka
Maintained-by: TANAKA Tomoyuki <tan...@cs.indiana.edu>
Archive-name: music/Japan-music-FAQ
Version: 0.1 (about 560 lines)
Posting-Frequency: at most once every two or three months
Last-modified: Nov 10, 1998
URL: http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/tanaka/Jp_music_faq.html
Written/edited-by: TANAKA Tomoyuki <tan...@cs.indiana.edu>
this is Version 0.1
when i've included more entries and links, i'll call that Version 1.
<soc.culture.japan> FAQ files are at
http://welcome.to/SCJ
http://welcome.to/soc.culture.japan
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summary of contents
-- 0. introduction & general links on Jp music
-- 1. pop music
-- 2. classical music
-- 3. Jp folk music
-- 4. others
-- A. cultural politics of music
-- B. motivation for writing/editing this FAQ
-- C. submissions to this FAQ
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
contents
-- 0. introduction & general links on Jp music
---- 0.1 about the title "NAKAJIMA Miyuki, Sakamotos, ..."
---- 0.2 about the notation of names "NAKAJIMA Miyuki" etc.
---- 0.3 Jp musicians' success in the West
---- 0.4 Jp musicians' success in the rest of Asia
-- 1. pop music
---- 1.1 pop composers
------ Nakajima Miyuki
------ Nakamura/Ei rokusuke's "Sukiyaki"
------ YMO
------ Sakamoto Ryuuiti
------ Yano Akiko
------ SAS
------ Shonen Knife
------ Kinki Kids
------ Komuro Tetsuya, Amuro, Globe, etc http://www.komuro.com
------ The Yellow Monkey
------ Pizzicato Five
---- 1.2 pop performers / "idol talent"
------ sakamoto kyuu
------ pink lady
------ Matsuda Seiko
------ virtual idol DATE Kyoko
-- 2. classical music
---- 2.1 classical composers
------ Takemitsu Toru
------ Tomita Isao http://listen.to/tomita/
---- 2.2 classical performers
------ Midori
------ Nakamura Hiroko
-- 3. Jp folk music
---- Ondekoza
---- Kodo
---- Warabi-za
-- 4. others
-- A. cultural politics of music
-- B. motivation for writing/editing this FAQ
-- C. submissions to this FAQ
=-------------------------------------------------------------------
-- 0. introduction & general links on Jp music
Japan has a vigorous music industry but because of
cultural politics
(see the section "cultural politics of music")
....
some Jp musicans have made their presence known abroad.
esp. in Asia (Taiwan, HK, etc) ...
i see two active Usenet groups <tw.bbs.music.japan> and
<tw.bbs.rec.japan-idol>, where people mainly from Taiwan
talk (in Chinese) about Jp pop music.
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
general links on Jp music
http://jpop.hatch.co.jp Bonsai's Jpop Pages & Search Engine
http://www.yahoo.co.jp/text/Entertainment/Music/Genres/
http://www.cdjapan.com/ CD JAPAN
http://coolgirlsjapan.com/HOME1.html
news:tw.bbs.music.japan
news:tw.bbs.rec.japan-idol
news:tw.bbs.rec.japan-idol.uchida-yuki
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
---- 0.1 about the title "NAKAJIMA Miyuki, Sakamotos, ..."
i want my diva Nakajima Miyuki in the title for obvious reasons.
also, she seems popular in Taiwan, HK, etc.
by "Sakamotos" i'm refering to several people.
(all of whom are discussed in the body of the FAQ)
--- Sakamoto Kyuu
--- Sakamoto Ryuuiti, who often works with his wife Yano Akiko
--- YMO
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
---- 0.2 about the notation of names "NAKAJIMA Miyuki" etc.
you may see Nakajima's name written as "Miyuki Nakajima".
there are basically two issues,
1. family name first or given name first.
2. TI TU SI ... or CHI TSU SHI ...
there is an bimonthly? (every other month?) magazine published
in Tokyo entitled "Eye-Ai". it's an excellent English-language
magazine on Jp pop music. in this FAQ file i'll follow what
"Eye-Ai" does and write Yano Akiko's husband's name as "Sakamoto
Ryuichi".
|--------------------------------------------------------------------
| http://theory.kek.jp/~ben/japanese/hon
| http://theory.kek.jp/~ben/japanese/hon/eyeaiamagazineonjapaneseculture
| ***andentertainment.html
|
| Eye-AI - A magazine on Japanese Culture and entertainment.
|
| Eye-AI is published monthly by Riverfield Inc. 54 pp, black
| and white, 410 yens in Japan, including tax. Us$ 2.25 in Hawaii.
|
| Articles in English about some topics of Japanese culture, and
| lots of information on the Japanese pop art world. Feature
| interviews with actors/singers, articles on travel, living in
| Japan (only Tokyo), mail order of Japanese CDs and videos.
|
| Review by Rafael Santos
from "American misconceptions about Japan FAQ":
|--------------------------------------------------------------------
| (MISCONCEPTION 4) Japanese have first names followed by last names
| just like Americans do.
|
| THE TRUTH: a Japanese name usually consists of a family name
| followed by a given name.
|
| most academic and serious treatment of Japanese culture
| in English text (such as scholarly papers and serious
| books) observe this original order, while popular and
| cursory ones (such as newspaper and magazine articles)
| reverse and "Anglicize" the order.
|
| note that preserving the original name order in English text
| is the default for people from mainland China (PRC) (Mao
| Tse-tung, Chou En-lai, Li Peng), Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh, Nguen Van
| Thieu, Pham Van Dong), and North Korea (Kim Il Sung). it is
| also common for people from Taiwan (ROC) (Chiang Kai-shek) and
| South Korea (Rho Tae Woo, Chun Doo Hwan).
|
| on a related note ...
|
| many Japanese people (myself included) don't find it
| particularly flattering or pleasant when non-Japanese do
| the following "Japanese" things in an attempt to be
| polite or show off their knowledge.
|
| --- saying, "Ah, so".
|
| --- bowing to us (instead of shaking hands).
|
| --- calling us "XXX-san" in English speech or text, such as
| "Good morning, Tanaka-san."
| (when friends do it, it's perfectly fine.
| use of "-san" in Japanese is always fine.)
|
| --- using words "Nippon" and "Nipponese" instead of "Japan" and
| "Japanese". (we usually say NIHON anyway.)
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
---- 0.3 Jp musicians' success in the West
Sakamoto should be in the title because "Sukiyaki" is the ONLY
Jp song/musician that made it big in the West.
"Sukiyaki" was #1 hit in the US charts in 1963.
did any other Jp song/musician hit the top 50 in the US or UK
charts? (other European charts?)
(Ryuichi) Sakamoto did the music for the film "Last Emperor".
also "Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence"
Yoko Ono (Plastic Ono Band) seems significant mainly because of
Lennon. and also, should Ono be considered a Jp musician?
Sadistic Mika Band (Katoh Kazuhiko).
Tomita's synthesizer albums.
violinist Midori. maybe there are other Jp classical musicians
who should be mentioned here.
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
---- 0.4 Jp musicians' success in the rest of Asia
[later]
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
-- 1. pop music
---- 1.1 pop composers
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
------ Nakajima Miyuki
i'll list her covers abroad.
Zhou Wei Ming (sp?), etc
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Flats/5819/Nakajima-Miyuki.html
http://www.silcom.com/~edlee/miyuki.html
http://ink.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=nakajima+miyuki
(i'm looking for other pages on Nakajima Miyuki in English.)
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
additional Nakajima Miyuki tidbits
--- she's an extremely pretty woman. and she's never been married.
--- radio show
for many (over 20?) years she did a late night radio talk
show. since her (early?) songs are mostly sad songs of
lost love, many people are surprised by her show's jolly
tone. on many nights i've lost sleep not being able to
turn off the radio until her show ends at 5am.
--- novels, books
she's written at least two novels (collections of short
stories). many "fan books" are published, as well as
several books containing words to her songs.
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
------ Nakamura/Ei rokusuke's "Sukiyaki"
the cover by New Kids on the Block (?)
"Sukiyaki" was #1 hit in the US charts in 1963.
http://www.summer.com.br/~pfilho/html/lyrics/s/sukiyaki.txt
Sukiyaki
[sung by] Kyu Sakamoto
- words by Rokusuke Ei, music by Hachidai Nakamura
[...]
ue o muite arukou
namida ga kobore naiyouni
omoidasu harunohi
hitoribotchi no yoru
[...]
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
------ YMO
there are many MIDI files on www for YMO.
------ Sakamoto Ryuuiti
------ Yano Akiko
------ SAS
Southern All Stars
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
------ Shonen Knife
from: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/music/sci-fi-refs/
| SF-references-in-music List
|
| Shonen Knife:
| A Japanese band, they often sing about space travel and other
| SF-ish themes. "Parallel Woman" (Japanese) from the "Shonen
| Knife" album, is about a superheroine in a parallel universe.
| "Riding on the Rocket" (japanese), on "Pretty Little Baka Guy",
| is about visiting different planets in a space ship. "The Moon
| World" (japanese), on "712", is about visiting the Moon. "Neon
| Zebra", a single, is about a zebra who gets transformed by
| aliens. In "Space Christmas" (english), a single, Naoko asks
| for a space ship for Christmas so she can visit Pluto. Their
| latest album, "Let's Knife", includes an English-language
| version of "Riding on the Rocket", as well as "I am a Cat"
| (english), about turning into a cat and dancing on a flying
| saucer. The CD single "Riding on the Rocket" also includes an
| instrumental called "Milky Way".
|
| Sweet, Matthew:
| "Children Of Time (Forever)" from "Earth" is a story of the
| future. The video for "I've Been Waiting" is loaded with clips
| from the Japanese Animation series "Urusei Yatsura"; the video
| for "Girlfriend" has clips from another anime, "Space Adventure
| Cobra".
|
| [this list contains many more references to Japan.]
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
------ Kinki Kids
http://ink.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=kinki+kids
Joanna Lai <joan...@netvigator.com> wrote:
>
> They are even cuter than the sound of their name... Gorgeous guys
> with good singing and acting skills plus a great sense of humour.
>
> KinKi Kids are a singing/dancing duo from the Johnny's Production
> Company which is renowned for managing top boy groups in Japan.
> They took the name of "KinKi Kids" as they come from the KinKi area of
> the Kansai region of Japan. All their singles and albums hit the
> million mark and reached the Number One spot in the Japanese chart.
> Members: Dohmoto Kohichi (Birth date: 1 Jan 1979), Dohmoto Tsuyoshi
> (Birth date: 10 April, 1979)
>
> Singles: 1. Garasu no Shounen
> 2. Ai sareru yori ai shitai
> 3. Jetcoaster Romance
> 4. Zenbu Dakishimete/ Ao no jidai
> Albums: 1. A Album
> 2. B Album
>
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
------ Komuro Tetsuya, Amuro, Globe, etc http://www.komuro.com
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
------ The Yellow Monkey
http://jpop.hatch.co.jp/scripts/jsearch1.pl?keyword=yellow+monkey
1. The Yellow Monkey
2. http://www.bmgjapan.com/funhouse/home/artist/yellow/yellow.htm
3. UK concert in July 98 (see website for further details...)
From: "Dave Fossett" <dajf@REMOVE_THISpo.teleway.ne.jp>
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
------ Pizzicato Five
http://jpop.hatch.co.jp/scripts/jsearch1.pl?keyword=pizzicato+five
i think i've seen them on MTV Beavis and Butthead.
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
[other musicians that are successful abroad]
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
---- 1.2 pop performers / "idol talent"
------ sakamoto kyuu
------ pink lady
------ Matsuda Seiko
she does a 1-minute cameo appearance in the 1998
summer movie "Armageddon". she's the airhead
tourist who says, "I want to go shopping!" in
the beginning.
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
------ virtual idol DATE Kyoko
http://jpop.hatch.co.jp/scripts/jsearch1.pl?keyword=date+kyoko
despite a lot of media coverage, this "Virtual Idol"
project didn't go very far.
http://www.etud.insa-tlse.fr/~mdumas/kyoko.html
[...]
Kyoko Date is the first 100% virtual star: the "Virtual
Idol". She has been created by engineers and designers
of the top Japanese model agency, HoriPro. [...]
She is made of 40,000 polygons, 10 people worked on her
face alone, and she fulfilled the aim of the DK-96
project. [...]
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
-- 2. classical music
---- 2.1 classical composers
------ Takemitsu Toru
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
------ Tomita Isao http://listen.to/tomita/
my most favorite compositions by Tomita are opening theme
music for
1. "Leo, the Jungle King"
2. NHK's "ten to ti to"
3. NHK's "sin nihon kikou"
also: Kitaro (i think there's another guy like Kitaro)
[several more]
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
---- 2.2 classical performers
------ Midori
------ Nakamura Hiroko
------ Yoshihara Sumire (?) the percussionist
[several more]
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
-- 3. Jp folk music
---- Ondekoza
---- Kodo
---- Warabi-za
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
-- 4. others
---- other genres
---- not really Japanese
(they are Japanese only by national origin.)
Yoko Ono,
Toshiko Akiyoshi,
what's-her-name in the UK Mitsuko UCHIDA ?
Seiji Ozawa?
Tsutomu Yamashita ?
Hiroshima
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
-- A. cultural politics of music
how/why Western music
(Elvis, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Micheal Jackson,
Enya, ABBA, ...)
flows to Asia and almost never the other way around.
[later]
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
-- B. motivation for writing/editing this FAQ
mainly,
1. i've wanted to do a tribute to Nakajima Miyuki for many years.
2. although i find Usenet pygmies and SCJ bigots annoying, i
still think Usenet is an interesting medium.
in this regard, i'm grateful to the few cultured persons
in SCJ, etc --- including myaw and Richard Kaminski.
3. what things (what works by which artists) have i loved? i've
been enthusiastic about many things in the last 20 years
or so. among them:
--- Eliot, Joyce, ...
--- computers, programming, GEB, Lisp, AI, ...
--- Kawai, Jung, Freud, Kisida, ...
--- films: Blade Runner, Ozu, Itami, ...
there are clearly some musicians i love: Bach, Lennon,
Paul Simon, Kate Bush, Yano Akiko, Nakajima Miyuki, ....
since others have already done FAQs on Bach, Lennon,
Blade Runner, Joyce, ..., perhaps it's worth my while to
do a FAQ on Jp music.
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
this is my 5th Usenet FAQ file.
1. American misconceptions about Japan FAQ
2. disparity in Asian/white interracial dating FAQ
3. <alt.fan.hofstadter> and "GEB" FAQ
4. ITAMI Juzo, OZU Yasujiro, and the Japanese Cinema (FAQ)
my FAQ files are stored in FAQ repositories around the world,
including at:
http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-bng/alt.tanaka-tomoyuki.html
http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/alt.tanaka-tomoyuki.html
(see http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/tanaka/FAQs.html)
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
-- C. submissions to this FAQ
email submissions to <tan...@cs.indiana.edu>.
it'd be better if you could also post the submission to
<soc.culture.japan> and <alt.tanaka-tomoyuki>.
a submission of a musician/group should contain the following:
1. name of the musician/group
2. URL and/or a short (6, 7 lines max) description
3. (optional) description of the musician/group's success abroad
=--------------------------------------------------------------------
if i become unable to update/maintain the FAQ, i ask the future
maintainer(s) to change the FAQ name and/or archive name so
that the future versions will coexist with, not overwrite, my
version. repositories of FAQ files are capable of storing
multiple files for a newsgroup's directory. don't worry about
waste of resources --- remember that today much of Internet
traffic and computer resources are taken up by cyberporn.
;;; TANAKA Tomoyuki ("Mr. Tanaka" or "Tomoyuki".)
;;;
;;; For <soc.culture.japan> and <soc.culture.asian.american> FAQ
;;; files, see <http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/tanaka.html>.
;;;
;;; e-mail: tan...@cs.indiana.edu
Tomoyuki Tanaka
> [...]
>-- 3. Jp folk music
>---- Warabi-za
>
i think this is their home page: http://www.warabi.or.jp
Warabi-za actively supports "green" causes: democracy,
the environment, rights of the handicapped etc.
playing drums is only a small part of Warabi-za's repertoire.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
: http://www.taiko.com/newsletter/newsletter4.html
[...]
Warabiza is touring the US. [...]
This group has been active in Japan for about 45 years. [...]
Their concert program is a combination of singing, folk
dance, and taiko. They support seven performing ensembles in
Japan and have over 250 members in the company. They are
based in the Akita prefecture of Japan. Warabiza has
inspired many other groups, including Ondekoza and Kodo.