The Japanese Version

The theme I have chosen for this weekend is about the Japanese music culture and how different Japanese bands use English in their lyrics. A lot of Japanese bands that are very big do have some English words in their songs, and especially during the chorus of the songs.
In the beginning of the semester I had the opportunity to go see a concert with two Japanese bands, the one the was the main act was called Shonen Knife. Shonen Knife is a band with three members, all of them women. The band is famous for it's lyrics about food, barbies and etc. To summarize their history, it is a band that was on the edge of hitting it big, and during the 90's they did a lot of tours in the US. The famous band Nirvana was so starstruck the first time they saw them, that Shonen Knife ended up being touring with Nirvana in both US, and in the rest of the world. The band has been active with different members since 1981 and are still active today. Their homecity is Osaka and as I mentioned before, they do music with english lyrics sometimes and sometimes they mix it.
I still found it very interesting about why some Japanese musicians use English words in their songs. I can understand if the whole song is in English, or part of it, but sometimes the English words fall out of context in the song. The second picture shows a typical sign people do on concerts, the rock sign with the fingers. How come they do it? The rock sign today has become a typical sign for just rock and roll, and you can't avoid it at concerts.

So how come Japanese music insists on using English words in their songs? Is it because they want to sound more western? Or is it because they are so used to listen to western songs with words like love, go, tonight and other worn out words in songs. This phenomena does make me sometimes feel a little bit disappointed, I went to Japan to experience Japanese music and culture, but it is hard, when the whole country is very influenced by the globalization. It's hard to walk into a music store and not noticed that the most selling artists in Japan use English in their songs.

Maybe that's why Shonen Knife became so popular during the 90's when they go to USA. Would they been popular if they didn't sing in English? Probably not, people wouldn't have had the interest to listen to them, because they won't understand them a slightly bit. Shonen Knife is just one of many bands that's been influenced by Western music. Who doesn't want to see three cute Japanese girls singing cute songs in Japanese and English?

I recommend to listen to them, they are actually pretty good and I do like them, but sometimes it's hard to take them seriously because of how the use the English in the songs. Here are some samples for my dear readers.









The last video is of another band called FLOW! Which also use a lot of English words in their song. This particular song is called GO! What do you think about the use of English in Japanese songs?

Feel free to read more about the biography on their webpage. They have both an English and a Japanese page.

/Quang