160081 VO+UE East Asian Popular Music (2010W)

This course introduces students to contemporary popular music of East Asia, including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, and to musical trends in the East Asian region. It focuses on the circulation of popular music and on governments’ efforts to promote the music of their countries. Starting with Japanese pop music from the 1970s, moving to Hong Kong pop music in the 1980s, and continuing with Korean pop music from late 1990s, contemporary East Asian societies have shared genres and styles
of popular music. The study of changes in East Asian popular music shows how the music industry and
cultural policies are changing. It also shows how East Asia is finding its own cultural identity. Unlike in the past, since the 1960s, when Western (American) popular music swept Asia and East Asians were struggling to form their own cultural identity, East Asians now form their musical identity by imbuing Western musical contexts with Asian values and sentiments. East Asian popular music has acquired a distinctive character, which can be called “East Asian pop.” The intercultural flow of popular music
demonstrates that contemporary Asians prefer to consume cultural productions that reflect their own
historical background and expounds Asian values.
This class will explore East Asian popular music from many different perspectives, so that
students will understand the issues that are relevant to this topic. Although the American popular-culture industry still dominates the airwaves and large and small screens, East Asian popular culture has cornered a major piece of the regional consumption economy. Attitudes of resistance toward American pop culture, combined with competitive production and marketing strategies, have made Japan and Korea the main producers of popular culture in East Asia.