To be sure, as Nagahara explains, “popular” music in Japan during this era accommodated a variety of styles. In “Tokyo Boogie-Woogie: Japan’s Pop Era and Its Discontents,” published this month by Harvard University Press, he examines the politics of popular music and concludes that “Japan’s masses … emerged not only as the chief consumers of mass media and mass culture but also as the protagonists of the broader social change” that upended the country. Now Nagahara has written a new book examining the way popular music became intertwined with the larger transformation of Japan. But by the time you get to the 1970s and 1980s, people feel they are all middle class.” “For the vast majority of Japanese, they didn’t feel like they were middle class. “Japan was a highly class-conscious society,” says Nagahara, referring to the era when “Tokyo March” was released. Japanese popular music, he believes, helped create a larger common culture in the country - including a larger culture of consumption - that placed more people on common social ground. Despite disruptions due to war and postwar reconstruction, companies churned out hundreds of what were termed “popular songs,” or “ryukoka,” in Japanese.īy the time this pop-music boom slowed, in the 1970s, Japan had transformed itself from a traditional and hierarchical society into a nation where almost everyone described themselves as being part of the country’s middle class.įor Hiromu Nagahara, the Cecil and Ida Green Career Development Associate Professor of History at MIT, these developments are related.
Graphic: Japanese investments in US and European assets, cent20investmentsper cent20inper cent20USper cent20andper cent20Europeanper cent20assets.In 1929, the Victor Talking Machine Company of Japan, a subsidiary of RCA, released a recording of the song “Tokyo March,” an ode to modern life, with lines about “dancing to jazz and drinking liqueur late into the night.” Performed by the singer Sato Chiyako, “Tokyo March” quickly sold 150,000 copies, making it the first big pop hit in Japanese history.įrom that point through the 1960s, Japan’s pop music industry became a powerhouse. bonds and 926.8 billion-yen worth of European bonds, data from the Bank of Japan showed. In June, domestic investors sold 3.88 trillion-yen worth of U.S. yields, Japanese investors made net sales of 2.54 trillion yen worth of foreign bonds in July, making it a sixth straight month of net sales. The overseas equity buying was led by investment trusts, which purchased 755.4 billion yen, while trust banks bought 748.6 billion yen.Īccording to Refinitiv data, 66per cent of the MSCI World index constituents have beaten analysts' forecasts for their net income. equities gained 9.1per cent in the last month, boosted by postive forecasts from Apple Inc and Inc, which showed confidence in companies ability to weather an economic downturn. Graphic: Japanese investments in overseas assets, cent20investmentsper cent20inper cent20overseasper cent20assets.jpg U.S. Federal Reserves.Īccording to data from Japan's Ministry of Finance, Japanese investors accumulated a net 1.85 trillion yen worth of overseas equities in July, the biggest since at least 2005. Japanese investors purchased heavily in foreign equities in July, as global stocks rebounded last month on the back of positive earnings and hopes of less aggressive monetary tightening measures from the U.S.
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