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Paper short abstract

This paper reconsiders the reconfiguration Japan’s music industry of the immediate postwar years. It takes the NHK radio program Shirouto nodo jiman (The Layperson’s Singing Contest) and its contemporary derivatives by record companies as focal point.

Paper long abstract

This paper reconsiders the centrality of Tokyo in the reconfiguration Japan’s music industry during the immediate postwar years. In this period, radio is considered a crucial medium for the dissemination of hits while record companies were still recovering from the Second World War. As radio broadcasting was democratized under supervision of the Allied forces, the dominance of the capital was also, arguably, in question. To demonstrate that, the paper takes the NHK radio program Shirouto nodo jiman (The Layperson’s Singing Contest, often shortened to Nodo jiman) with its contemporary derivatives contests held by record companies nationwide, as focal point.

Nodo jiman was launched on 19 January 1946 and featured a selection of amateur contestants on a weekly basis who competed against each other by performing a freely chosen song. During the hard socio-economic conditions of the latter half of the 1940s, the show was highly popular among all layers the population – children, students, salarymen, shopkeepers, and housewives alike. Its success was a combination of the amateurish level of its participants and bringing local talent to the national level during a time of democratization under supervision of the Allied Forces. Moreover, several famous postwar artists, such as Misora Hibari and Sakurai Chōichirō, had participated in the contest.

In contrast, record companies were still reeling from the outfall of the war. American bombers had destroyed their factories and recording studios. In addition, the production of gramophones and records was still low as resources were expensive and most households still held on to radio sets which were more affordable. Nevertheless, such companies continued their business with hits by existing composers, lyricists, and performers. On the other hand, Nodo jiman proved an interesting format to recruit new talent and attract visibility as record companies also launched their own imitations of and collaborated with NHK.

This paper argues that such perspective allows a more nuanced view of the recording industry’s recovery in postwar Japan in relation to the changed media landscape without reducing record companies’ operations as profit based.