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Enka

Suffering and Nostalgia for an Imagined Past

Written by: DJ Clae

5/17/04

Japan is home to the second largest music market in the world, alive with nearly every style of modern rock and ever-changing pop music one can conceive. But there is one sector of the music scene that is always immersed in tradition and nostalgia for an unadulterated past that has largely been crushed under the weight of technology and postmodernism – one that seems to always live on unchanged in a culture that jealously clings to its traditions. This music is called “enka,” and despite what the genre borrows from other types of music, both past and present, domestic and international, it remains a Japanese original through and through. Although Westerners may be quick to label enka an exotic relic from Japan’s feudalistic past, made almost exclusively for the elderly who can remember a better day before kids were head-banging to metal or getting their groove on to DJs at night clubs, like the genre of country music in America, enka is ever-present, consumed and performed by the young and old alike, yet wrapped in stigma and practically shunned by a stunning majority.

Introduction: What is enka?

Various enka records

The musical genre known as enka, which first appeared as we know it today in the early Twentieth Century, is considered by many to be the most “Japanese” of contemporary music (although its roots can likely be traced back to Korea and other parts of Asia, where similar genres still exist today). Not to be confused with traditional Japanese folk music, which dates back much further, enka songs are ballads that combine modern Western music with a distinctly Japanese flavor. Enka originated in Meiji era Japan during the early Nineteenth Century as a form of political activism. In 1874, Japan’s first political party was formed, yet party leaders weren’t allowed to speak in public, so they wrote songs and had singers go out in the street and sell copies.¹ Enka is no longer primarily used as a tool for political activism, but this is thought to be the beginning of the lyrical form. The characters used to write the word “enka” literally mean “performance song”. The lyrical style is assumed to have developed from “waka,” a traditional form of Japanese poetry and folk song. Enka has the same poetic features of waka.²

The instrumentation most commonly (and indeed almost invariably) used in enka is a striking combination of Western and traditional Japanese instruments. Guitar and orchestral instruments usually make up the main accompaniment, while traditional Japanese instruments such as the shamisen, koto, and taiko drums are used more sparingly, appearing at key moments to provide a sprinkling of Japanese color. Enka songs are largely composed using a pentatonic scale (five notes per octave, rather than the seven per octave traditionally found in Western music) called “yonanuki onkai” in Japanese. This pentatonic scale is similar to the ones used in Greek, Celtic, Gypsy, some Eurasian music, as well as a small amount of modern blues and jazz.³ The pentatonic scale used in enka comes in two flavors: yonanuki major and yonanuki minor. Yonanuki major is warmer, more reassured, and used more often in men’s songs. Yonanuki minor tends to be more emotional, conveying a sense of forlorn, and is used more in women’s songs. In contemporary Japan, enka stands in stark contrast to modern Western-influenced “pop” music. (By “Western-influenced” I mean that instruments, scales, and core styles of primarily Western origin are adopted, and a creative exchange takes place; I am not saying that Western sounds are merely imitated by Japanese pop artists.) Enka is seen as constantly frozen in time, a nostalgic reminder of simpler days long gone by. Although in reality the genre of enka actually does alter slightly as decades pass by, always shaped by changing consumer demand, in general most enka songs recorded today sound like they could have just as easily been recorded twenty years ago (or more).

Much of enka’s appeal is fueled by the nostalgic concept of one’s “furusato” (“hometown”) and a longing to return to it. Older generations of Japanese can sometimes remember growing up in the countryside, before being forced to move to the crowded city. They remember growing up in a war-torn Japan where food and money were scarce, before modernization and mass urbanization, let alone the information age that the country has now entered. This nostalgia is obviously idealized, and conceals much of the pain and suffering that were also associated with this rural setting. Because of this appeal that enka has toward older generations, some argue that enka is dying (and indeed enka record sales took a significant nose-dive during the 90’s). Others believe that most Japanese develop an appreciation for enka once they get to be about 40 or 50 years of age (as if a special “enka code” exists in their blood), and that regardless of record sales, enka will always live on as a national emblem that will have a place in restaurants and karaoke boxes.

The Faces of Enka

Hibari Misora

Likely the undisputed ‘Queen of Enka’ is Hibari Misora. She started performing at a very young age and became a sort of heroine in postwar Japan, continuing until her death in 1989. Nonetheless, she is still widely regarded as the biggest name in enka. Chiyoko Shimakura also started her career in the 50’s, and continues to perform to this day. The 50’s and 60’s brought a star named Keiko Fuji. She married enka singer, Kiyoshi Maekawa, but soon divorced. She later moved to the United States and became much more reclusive. She remarried and had a daughter, contemporary starlet, Hikaru Utada. Slightly after Keiko Fuji came Aki Yashiro, who in the 80’s performed the hit song “Funauta” (“Sailor’s Song”). A huge star, Sayuri Ishikawa, made her debut in 1977, and is still a big name today. Younger generations, which followed include Ayako Fuji.

Although the male side has especially become smaller in more recent years, we cannot forget the male stars of enka. Hachiro Kasuga sang the first post-war hit, “Otomi-san” in 1954.⁴ Minami Haruo, debuting in 1957, stands for conservative values. Hideo Murata debuted in 1959, representing himself as a real masculine man’s man. Murata only sings men’s songs. Kitajima Saburo (whose fans affectionately call him “Sabu-chan”), debuted in 1962 and has a deep, husky voice. You could call him the blue-collar hero of enka. Shin’ichi Mori could be referred to as one of the last big male enka celebrities. Loved especially by older women for his lovable mama’s boy image, Mori sings a great deal of women’s songs. Although debuting so long ago, many of these old celebrities still perform and are still popular today.

Although, as mentioned earlier, some would argue that enka is becoming ‘old-hat,’ that there is little place left for it in the information age, nonetheless new faces, the vast majority being female, still debut today. Whether or not they are successful is a much different matter, as the majority of debuting enka artists never gain mainstream popularity. One reason many of these artists continue to try after years of failure is the Japanese value of tenacity, or the ‘fighting spirit.’ Many singers, such as Shin’ichi Mori, sang for many years before hitting it big, and this value of never giving up is especially valued in the world of enka.

The "Kata" of Enka

One feature of enka production and performance that listeners of today’s contemporary pop music may find most striking (and perhaps “most Japanese”) is its emphasis on the style, or “kata” of the performance. As in traditional Japanese art forms such as tea ceremony, flower arrangement, or traditional dance, in enka an artist is typically expected to follow the examples given to them by the enka masters of the past as close to the original model as possible. This flies in the face of contemporary notions of music that stress making a song “one’s own” and adding one’s own flavor. Famous enka songs are performed and re-performed by several artists. Artists regularly release covers of past songs originally performed by other artists on their albums, and this is normal. These songs aren’t really considered “covers” in the sense that we think of them in most contemporary music – re-performance is a pervasive, accepted, and even encouraged part of enka. However, rather than re-performing the song in a new way, most artists usually try to follow the original model as closely as possible. In fact, the new versions often end up sounding practically indistinguishable from the originals. As an artist grows, he or she is expected to follow the kata, or patterning set for them by the past enka masters – only when an artist has reached true celebrity status do they usually break out and start adding their own personal flourishes of their own. It could be said that enka as a genre is resistant to change, but like all music, it does in fact change gradually over time.

Megumi Makino

The enka market doesn’t work quite the same as the pop music market either. Enka music can be a hard sell because in general the sales numbers are much lower than most pop music. The top enka singles on the Oricon’s enka chart in general are selling far less per week than the singles at the top of the pop chart.⁵ However, pop tends to rise and fall very quickly, whereas a hit enka song will usually make its way up the chart gradually over several months before becoming a number one.⁶ Just as this theory supports an affinity for cover versions of songs, enka fans generally prefer repetition, and this helps a new song gradually become like a well-loved friend to fans. Because of lower sales, enka producers usually have a lower budget than pop producers, and the low sales can contribute to the amount of risk that goes into producing enka. However, if one composer writes one hit song and it stays on the chart for several months, it is easy to see how this risk can pay off. Record companies often release enka collection albums, featuring songs from several of their artists, and this way the same recording can appear on several different albums, generating multiple sources of revenue from one recording.

Although most singers go for a conservative enka image that sticks firmly within the boundaries of the art’s original principles, there are a few artists who make a point of being different. One such artist, Megumi Makino, debuted in November of 2003 and has only released a debut single, “Tsugumi,” as of yet. As a Westerner most accustomed to contemporary popular music, I actually personally found Makino’s song more accessible and attractive than most standard enka fare. It was at least interesting to hear a break from the ordinary. I wouldn’t mind hearing more artists like her who go beyond the genre’s strictly defined boundaries to create a sort of neo-enka sound. Opinions differ on whether this type of music is still considered enka. Regarldess, Makino’s song can be heard on Columbia Record’s recent enka collection album, “Best Hit Kayou Nenkan 2004.”

The Gendering of Enka Songs

Natsuko Godai

Enka is a highly gendered musical genre. One cannot even begin to address the themes of enka without addressing the strong discrepancy between male and female enka songs and performance conventions. Female performers vastly outnumber male performers, and this gap is widening – Almost all of the new enka artists debuting today are female. Female enka performers usually wear a traditional Japanese kimono on stage and in photos, while men often wear Western attire, as well as traditional Japanese clothing. The lyrics of enka songs also varies greatly by gender. Although there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to the genre’s boundaries, in general women’s songs tend to sing primarily of unrequited love, drinking, and loneliness, while men’s songs tend to focus on standing tall in the face of adversity, honor, and tenacity.⁷ Interestingly, women’s songs can be sung by men, and vice versa, which many artists do more often than you might imagine. However, for women this often has the effect of added sexiness, but for men results in a more neutral, asexual effect.⁸

In the following example of a women’s enka song, “Hime Uta” (“Secret Song”), performed in 2003 by popular female singer, Natsuko Godai, we can see many examples of the common recurring themes in women’s enka songs (for copyright reasons, original Japanese lyrics are not included):

“Secret Song”
Lyrics by Yoshioka Osamu
Composed by Gen Tetsuya

A weak woman again wheedles the love
she let die in her heart
If you have compassion, I want you to grant my wish
Even knowing tomorrow will be filled with tears

The length of the night and the yearning of love...
Pouring sake for myself as I'm accustomed
The memories dripping, dripping
With no one to whom to tell

The crimson that fell in the midnight rain
is a sad camellia
If you have compassion, I want you to understand
The secret song in a woman's heart

In the first verse we learn that this song is about a past lost love. Women who stubbornly hold on to romance from long ago and never let it die in their heart are a common recurring theme in women’s enka songs. In the second verse she is pouring sake for herself alone at night. In Japan alcohol is customarily poured by another person, so the fact that she is pouring it for herself is considered somewhat crude and self-deprecating. In the third verse the concept of a “woman’s heart” is invoked, a common theme. The idea is that a woman’s heart is loyal and delicate – it is an object that is often irreparably broken in enka songs. Even though she knows that, realistically, her desires for her lost love will never be fulfilled, she allows herself to wallow in her own self-pity and cry – in enka this suffering is considered beautiful. This is in contrast to men’s songs, which often carry the theme of keeping one’s chin up, doing the honorable thing, and moving on. With these two opposing themes in men and women’s songs, it’s no wonder so many hearts are broken in enka.

Case Study: Ayako Fuji vs. Sayuri Ishikawa

Sayuri Ishikawa

As part of my research, I decided to compare two popular female enka artists, Sayuri Ishikawa and Ayako Fuji. To do this, I examined one relatively new collection album from each of them. Both were released in November of 2003.⁹ Sayuri Ishikawa is considerably older than Ayako Fuji and is therefore of an older generation. Fuji, though a relative recent upstart, has garnered much popularity as well. Ishikawa is an accomplished, seasoned enka performer, and therefore is considered fully developed and able to put more of her own style into the music and still have it seen as true art. Her best collection features loads of huge hits, most of which the artist herself made famous. Ayako Fuji’s best collection, on the other hand, features a much less diverse selection of songs, some of them sounding melodically so alike that the songs are easily confused.¹⁰ It would seem that Fuji still has some way to go before she has developed as expansive a library of songs as Ishikawa, and expands her ability to insert her own character into the songs. Ishikawa has a more mature, rich voice, while Fuji has a lighter style and a wide vocal range. Both artists have much to their merit, and despite enka’s apparent gradual decline in recent decades, hopefully Fuji will get many more chances to show what she has to offer.

Conservatism: Enka vs. American Country Music

One thing I always used to mention, when introducing my fellow Americans to popular Japanese music, is that “J-pop”, as it is affectionately called, contains within it every genre you can think of – from rock, to rap, hip-hop, R&B, to reggae – you name it – except for country. Later on I decided that enka fills the same roles in Japan as country music does in America, and as I researched this concept further, I discovered that this is in many ways true, while in other ways it isn’t an exact match. Of course differing cultures never contain within them exact analogues of each other, but several of the similarities in this case are striking.

Ayako Fuji

In many ways, enka embodies conservative values – the very antithesis of modern J-pop – just like country music. Country music dreams of a frontier that is quickly disappearing and the cowboys that ran it, just as enka remembers a feudal past run by samurai. Country music continues to embody the truck driver, and the other stereotypes that come with it, including honky-tonk bars and monster truck rallies, just as enka is still associated with the old-fashioned bars and sushi restaurants in Japan. In fact, enka is also associated with truck drivers, just as country music is. To this day, radio stations play enka shows at night, a time when truck drivers often work their shift, which often even tended to be live back in enka’s heyday. Truck drivers can even make requests for their favorites by phone or fax machine.¹¹

Of course, one could make the argument that unlike American country music, enka does not embody conservative family values at all, because of its emphasis on older single women and romantic encounters outside of marriage. This would be to miss the point entirely. Conservative values in this case does not necessarily equate to “family values,” as it so often does in the United States. Rather, in enka adulterous affairs and the pain of lost love are celebrated as reminders of the past. In pre-modern Japan marriages were often arranged, rather than the product of romance. In essence, the woman completely left her family to become a member of the husband’s family – a marriage of convenience and patrilineal emphasis, rather than romance and comfort. Because these concepts invoke an imagination of the past, they too reflect conservative values – an emphasis of the way things were, rather than simply the way things should be.

The Place of Enka Past and Present: Who listens and Why

For decades, enka has provided hope and a symbol of nationhood to Japanese through a set of strictly defined “kata” (models), and in that time has become considered by many to be a relic of the past, listened to most by older generations. Why then would a Westerner like myself even bother listening to enka? Although they are few in number, I have encountered some people outside of Japan who also claim to listen to and enjoy enka. Although there obviously exists a universal appreciation for music and poetry at its most basic level, one still must wonder, taken out of context, if enka can be properly appreciated. Do these non-Japanese enka “fans” I have encountered actually understand the true messages of enka and what it stands for, for that matter? While doing my research for this piece, I allowed enka songs to loop non-stop on my stereo system, hoping I wasn’t offending my Japanese neighbor across the hall. (“Why must he mock my culture of descent?”) Is enka something that I will play in my car with the windows rolled down on a summer day? Doubtfully. However, I believe it is good for anyone who enjoys contemporary Japanese music to have an understanding, or at least an awareness of enka, its roots, and its role in the music scene today.

As with country music in America, it seems that you almost either have to love enka or hate it. In general, the stereotype is that older generations, and people that live in rural areas are more likely to have an affinity for enka. This demographic theory may be true to an extent, but it is always important to realize that there can be exceptions to the stereotype. The young are popularly thought to dislike enka. In the English subtitles found on the DVD for Joe Hisaishi’s film, “Quartet,” the words “enka singer” are intentionally translated to “yowling singer” in order to convey the youths’ implied repugnance for this form of music (portrayed in this case as a genre performed in the seediest venues, sung by an aging pervert). This seems a striking parallel with American country music, though one’s age may be an even more important factor when it comes to an aversion to enka.

In any case, enka promotes the beauty of suffering and tragedy in many of its more somber songs, a recurring theme in much of traditional Japanese stories and plays, perhaps even still lingering in contemporary Japanese films more than in their Western counterparts. Such themes are not uncommon in many American country songs, and is in fact the entire basis of blues music. The word “blues” itself is in fact a recurring word in several enka song titles (e.g. Yutaka Yamakawa’s “Minato no Blues” (“Harbor Blues”). Enka and blues may seem an unlikely match, but keep in mind that enka borrows much from other modern forms of music, so this isn’t as far a stretch as you might think. Enka is certainly not alone in this aspect of its aesthetic, and perhaps has more in common with some Western musical forms than what might be recognized at first glance.

Conclusion

Enka embodies a time long ago, but its appeal continues due to a nostalgia for those imagined times, and its universal themes of tragic romance and perseverance that still ring true in Japan today. I believe that enka will always live on in some form, just as country music continues to live in the US. It almost seems that without enka, it would be hard to still call Japan "Japan.”

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