Enka (演歌 ) is a popular Japanese music genre considered to resemble traditional Japanese music stylistically. Modern enka, however, is a relatively recent musical form which arose in the context of such postwar expressions of modern Japanese nonmaterial nationalism as nihonjinron, while adopting a more traditional musical style in its vocalism than ryūkōka music, popular during the prewar years.
Modern enka, as developed in the postwar era, is a form of sentimental ballad music. Some of the first modern enka singers were Hachiro Kasuga, Michiya Mihashi, and Hideo Murata. The revival of enka in its modern form is said to date from 1969, when Keiko Fuji made her debut. The most famous male enka singer is Kiyoshi Hikawa.
The term enka was first used to refer to political texts set to music which were sung and distributed by opposition activists belonging to the Freedom and People's Rights Movement during the Meiji period (1868–1912) as a means of bypassing government curbs on speeches of political dissent – and in this sense the word is derived from "enzetsu no uta" (演説の歌 ) , meaning "speech song."
Another theory holds that modern enka means "enjiru uta" (演じる歌 ) , meaning "performance song."
The genre called enka is also said to be an expedient classification for record labels as well as J-pop. For example, Harumi Miyako, who has been usually considered as an enka singer, said "I don't think that I sing 'enka'" and "In fact, there was no such term as 'enka' when I debuted."
There is no schedule or ticket right now.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Enka", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.
Content listed above is edited and modified some for making article reading easily. All content above are auto generated by service.
All images used in articles are placed as quotation. Each quotation URL are placed under images.
All maps provided by Google.