When I was enrolled in a world music class freshman year at my university, we were given a final project task of researching an aspect of the music industry in which we were interested. Being an East Asian media fanatic, I naturally decided to write a paper on the history of the Japanese idol phenomenon. What ensued was 14 pages of goodness, complete with annotations, about the wonders of J-pop from its birth in the 1970′s to the present. It’s been a big hit with many J-pop fans who are curious to learn more about their fandom, so I present the entire paper here for you to download!
Please remember, if you take any information from it, be sure to cite me as the author:
Lee, Vivian A. Let’s Start the Party: a study and analysis of Japanese “idol” groups from the 1970′s to the present day. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008. vivace SPARK ★. 11 July 2009. <http://spark.vivian-lee.net/>.
Here is a small excerpt from the paper itself, along with a download link at the very bottom. Enjoy!
Despite what the idol herself may desire from her career, the main goal of the idol industry is to cater to the audience, which in turn fuels the development and promotion of the idol phenomenon as a whole… In this study, we focus on the general trends and changes in the musical aspects of the idol phenomenon. Audiovisual analyses of several performances (ranging from the idol phenomenon birth in the 1970′s to the present day) are presented as a method for tracking these aspects.
