Paper short abstract:

The birth of contemporary Japanese popular music can be traced to one song, "Kachūsha no uta" (Kayusha's Song, 1914). This paper discusses the song, its immense popularity, and its influence on Japanese popular music, media, and Japanese society in the Taishō period.

Paper long abstract:

Various types of commercial popular music have existed in Japan for over one thousand years. The roots of contemporary Japanese popular music, however, can be traced to one song, "Kachūsha no uta" (Katyusha's Song, 1914). The song was composed for a stage adaption of Tolstoy's Resurrection, performed with the title Fukkatsu.

What makes "Kachūsha no uta" special is that it combined elements from both Western art music and Japanese popular music. As such, it was the first stylistically Western song that succeeded in eliciting a response among the Japanese public who had until then preferred originally Japanese genres of popular music. The choice of style by the composer Nakayama Shinpei (1887-1952) laid the foundations of contemporary Japanese popular music and remained the mainstream well until the mid-20th century. In this sense, we can discuss the song as the very first contemporary Japanese hit song.

"Kachūsha no uta's" significance, however, goes beyond its musical achievements. With its phenomenal popularity all over Japan, it also molded the ways that popular music itself became to be produced. As the first best-selling Japanese record it proved record companies that producing records of popular songs could result in good sales. This, on its own part, eventually fostered the establishment of a full-scale record industry for popular music in the beginning of the Shōwa period.

The song also marked the birth of hit singers and songs being associated with them - as opposed to the older songs with no concept of "creators" of music - as the performer-actress Matsui Sumako (1886-1919) became the first Japanese hit singer and national celebrity idolized across the country. Furthermore, the song foresaw the Taishō democracy as the very first popular song that managed to appeal to audiences from different social classes and particularly as a Western-style song "chosen" by the public instead of being imposed from above.

The song triggered many aspects that became fundamental qualities in Japanese popular song and popular music culture. These kinds of qualities make "Kachūsha no uta" an intriguing phenomenon both from musical and social viewpoints.