Identity, language, and counterculture in the Japanese rock debate: or how English lyrics came to a 'Happy End'.
The 'New Rock' bands active in Japan since the late 1960s preferred setting rock music to lyrics in English. Thus, when new band Happy End began attempting to sing rock in Japanese, a backlash from English-language rockers led by The Flower Travelin' Band emerged in response. An unusually heated con...
| Published in: | Japan Forum Vol. 36; no. 5; pp. 552 - 582 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Dec2024
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=180992854&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 180992854 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 09555803 5BH jtl: Japan Forum issn: 09555803 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Dec2024 vid: 36 iid: 5 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 180992854 10.1080/09555803.2024.2407767 ppf: 552 ppct: 30 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T db: hlh ui: 180992854 – @attributes: type: P db: hlh ui: 180992854 tig: atl: Identity, language, and counterculture in the Japanese rock debate: or how English lyrics came to a 'Happy End'. aug: au: McCarty, Michael su: Japan Identity (Psychology) Postcolonialism Japanese language Rock music English language sug: subj: Identity (Psychology) Postcolonialism Japan Japanese language Rock music English language keyword: Flower Travelin' Band Happy End language lyrics rock Flower Travelin' Band Happy End language lyrics rock ab: The 'New Rock' bands active in Japan since the late 1960s preferred setting rock music to lyrics in English. Thus, when new band Happy End began attempting to sing rock in Japanese, a backlash from English-language rockers led by The Flower Travelin' Band emerged in response. An unusually heated controversy between these two lyrical approaches marked publications in the emerging Japanese rock press in the early 70s. Building upon previous scholarship which connects this so-called 'Japanese rock debate' to narratives of post-colonialism, I argue for interpreting the rock debate foremost as a product of a particular time when rock was seen as a medium that connected a community of youth to a global counterculture. By investigating the actual contours of the discourse in the Japanese rock press, I demonstrate that the issue of language and linguistics was less pressing to New Rockers than more existential issues of identity, ideology, and generational politics. Further, I posit that Happy End was able to succeed with Japanese lyrics not only because of their inventive linguistic adaptations, but because the force of opposition to Japanese lyrics naturally declined as the counterculture ideals of the early 1970s began to fade. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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