All About J-Pop Music: A Brief History of Japanese Pop Music

J-pop, an abbreviated term for Japanese pop or Japanese pop music, is a musical genre that has been a part of Japanese pop culture since the mid-twentieth century. J-pop applies to various music genres, from jazz and vocal ballads to pop-rock and folk, and “idol pop,” which features the highly polished and aggressively marketed entertainers known as Japanese idols and idol groups.

Since the early 1990s, the term “J-pop” has come to define music by singers and musical groups outside of the hard rock, metal, punk, and electronic music genres: pop bands and pop stars, boy bands, and girl groups, and some performers from the hip-hop and rock worlds.

Like its Western counterpart, J-pop music is accessible, upbeat, and radio-friendly. Its proponents reflect a positive attitude, and lyrics concern simple yet identifiable topics: first love and heartbreak, happiness, aspiration. Like Western pop, J-pop is marketed through extensive touring, promotional appearances, roles in TV dramas, and theme songs for anime programs and video games, like Hikaru Utada’s popular theme for Kingdom Hearts.

However, J-pop differs from Western and other forms of Asian pop in sound, as it hews closer to Japanese musical tropes. As a result, J-pop artists have not yet received the global trending and popularity of South Korean or K-pop artists like BTS, Exo, or Blackpink.

The history of J-pop begins in the early years of the Showa era (the 1920s to 1980s) with ryūkōka, a form of popular music influenced by Western jazz and blues.

• Beginnings. Ryukoka was supplanted by enka, a sort of emotional balladry, and kayōkyoku, a more polished and reserved variant, until the late 1950s, when popular music from the West, like rock and roll and rhythm and blues, began to infiltrate the Japanese music scene. These influences led to the rise of electric guitar-driven instrumental bands known as ereki and the “Group Sounds” movement that echoed the Beatles and other ‘60s-era pop-rock acts.
• Making of the sound. Homegrown versions of hard rock, singer-songwriter-styled folk, and punk soon followed. Pop diversified into the idol system in which music labels shaped singers’ images for maximum appeal to fans. Synthesizer-driven electropop and city pop, a sort of urban fusion of soft rock, funk, and boogie that focused on urban areas like Tokyo, grew in popularity. J-pop remained between the twin poles of enka (traditional Japanese music) and kayōkyoku until the 1980s and ’90s when the modern definition of the term became the music industry standard.
• The rise of the genre. The J-pop music scene grew exponentially larger in the 1990s, thanks in part to groups like B’z and Mr. Children, which generated platinum sales with their band-oriented sounds. The group was supplanted in the late ’90s by dance-oriented singers like Namie Amuro, whose 1997 release “Can You Celebrate?” was the best-selling single by a female J-pop artist. Pop-rock acts like Glay and L’Arc-en-Ciel also came to prominence during this period, as did boy band and girl group acts like SMAP, Arashi, and Morning Musume.
• Evolving in the new millennium. J-pop trends embraced hip-hop, folk, and techno elements in the twenty-first century. Some acts created music by sampling actors’ voices from anime TV shows using a singing synthesizer. During this period, the most prominent J-pop acts were from the idol world: solo idol acts, like the Harajuku-influenced model Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, and idol groups, like AKB48, which is split into rotating teams and sister groups to allow for simultaneous appearances in multiple locations.

Several characteristics define the look and sound of J-pop artists, including:

1. 1. Marketing: J-pop groups tend to record a series of single tracks, or singles—instead of compiling a studio album—and then choose a single track as the lead single. J-pop singles are typically featured on a compilation album, often with an alternate “album mix” to generate sales for both the single and record.
2. 2. Sound: Given the colossal size of the Japanese music-buying market, there is little need for J-pop artists to adopt or conform to Western music styles. As a result, J-pop often features chord changes and vocal delivery closer to traditional Japanese music than American pop or rock. Vocals tend to be higher in pitch, and melodies can sometimes very simple; the closest Western comparison would be the hook-heavy “bubblegum rock” of the 1970s.
3. 3. Visuals: As with J-rock, the look of J-pop artists is one of the most significant elements of their music. Female artists will frequently dress in fantasy clothing or, as with the girl group NiziU, in a “kawaii” or cute and childlike manner that nods to youthful interests while obliquely referencing their sexuality. Male artists adopt bright colors and hip, youthful styles.

There are dozens of popular J-pop artists hailing from Japan. Among them are:

1. 1. AKB48: Currently one of the top-selling girl groups of all time, AKB48—named after the Akihabara district in Tokyo—is almost a music industry in itself. The group, which is composed of more than 100 members in multiple teams and sister bands, has been featured on television shows, in video games, anime, and manga. AKB48 holds multiple world titles for record sales, including selling more than 20 million singles.
2. 2. Arashi: The best-selling boy band in Asia, Arashi was founded in 1999 and enjoyed incredible chart success until its dissolution in 2020. Their 2019 greatest hits compilation bested both Taylor Swift and the K-pop juggernaut BTS in sales.
3. 3. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu: A former fashion model and blogger, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu embodies J-pop’s “kawaii” aesthetic with her larger-than-life fashion sense and childlike stage presence. Her look has made her one of the rare J-pop artists with a Western fanbase and attention from American record labels.
4. 4. Official Hige Dandism: The Shimane-based pop group Official Hige Dandism is arguably one of the biggest J-pop bands. Their 2019 single “Pretender” amassed a staggering 300 million streams on Apple Music, which sent the accompanying album, Traveler to the top of the Japanese music charts in the same year.

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