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"Ersatz as the Day is Long": Japanese Popular Music, the Struggle for Authenticity, and Cold War Orientalism

Perry, Robyn Paige
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1617205969493365

Abstract Details

2021, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, History.
During the Allied Occupation of Japan, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) Douglas MacArthur set forth on a mission to Americanize Japan. One way SCAP decided this could be done was by utilizing forms of media that were already popular in Japan, particularly the radio. The Far East Network (FEN), a network of American military radio and television stations in Japan, Okinawa, Guam, and the Philippines, began to broadcast American country & western music. By the early 1950s, Japanese country & western ensembles would begin to form, which initiated the evolution toward modern J-pop. During the first two decades of the Cold War, performers of various postwar subgenres of early Japanese rock (or J-rock), including country & western, rockabilly, kayōkyoku, eleki, and Group Sounds, would attempt to break into markets in the West. While some of these performers floundered, others were able to walk side-by-side with several Western greats or even become stars in their own right, such as when Kyu Sakamoto produced a number one hit in the United States with his “Sukiyaki” in 1963. The way that these Japanese popular music performers were perceived in the West, primarily in the United States, was rooted in centuries of Orientalist preconceptions about Japanese people, Japanese culture, and Japan that had recently been recalibrated to reflect the ethos of the Cold War.
Walter Grunden, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Jeremy Wallach, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
123 p.
American Studies; Asian Studies; History
Japanese popular music; Japanese popular culture; J-pop; orientalism; global rock; postcolonialism; Occupation of Japan; country and western; rockabilly; Group Sounds; eleki; Kyu Sakamoto; Sukiyaki

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Perry, R. P. (2021). "Ersatz as the Day is Long": Japanese Popular Music, the Struggle for Authenticity, and Cold War Orientalism [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1617205969493365

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Perry, Robyn. "Ersatz as the Day is Long": Japanese Popular Music, the Struggle for Authenticity, and Cold War Orientalism. 2021. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1617205969493365.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Perry, Robyn. ""Ersatz as the Day is Long": Japanese Popular Music, the Struggle for Authenticity, and Cold War Orientalism." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1617205969493365

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.