"Enka" Music

[Hatori]

what's up with "enka" music? ever since i watched "Ah! My Goddess" and the Goddess Urd falls asleep from it and i've heard like a billion references to "Enka" music all of a sudden. is it corny music? is it some old people music? what?

[Machina Maw]

Enka?

[aKuMu]

Enka. Traditional Japanese Music.

btw Google is your Friend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enka

[Oyaji]

Go to any "snack" (bar that serves tiny snacks with extremely watered down whisky) that has a karaoke machine and is filled with middle aged men, and you will hear enough enka to last you a lifetime.

[AJBryant]

HEY! Don't you be dissing enka!

THAT is good stuff. It has soul and real Japanese cultural flavor to it, unlike 90% of J-pop.

Tony
(listening to Yoshi Ikuzo right now)

[Oyaji]

Oh, I'm not dissing it. I'm usually one of the middle-aged men singing.
I do a mean rendition of Sabu-chan's 「まつり」.

[two_heads_talking]

AJBryant wrote:
HEY! Don't you be dissing enka!

THAT is good stuff. It has soul and real Japanese cultural flavor to it, unlike 90% of J-pop.

Tony
(listening to Yoshi Ikuzo right now)

well j-pop has exactly 0% japanese culture.. so you are right there Tony... and Enka.. well, one can only hear so much from men singing it in a karaoke bar.. now, the real singers, that's a whole new ball of was..

Enka sung by someone who actually knows how to sing is very enlightening..

[AJBryant]

I do a mean rendition of Sabu-chan's 「まつり」.

Kewl. The first Japanese song I learned (outside the classroom-required renditions of 春が来た, that is) was his 炎の男. Then came 与作 and まつり. Then I moved over to Yoshi Ikuzo's 酒よ. People kept expecting me to want to sing "Blue Suede Shoes," "My Way," and "Yesterday." :p

Tony

[coco]

:D:D
トニーさん。もしかして英語の歌も歌えるの？　そっちの方が驚く。:D
『与作』って実は「お寝坊さん」だったんじゃないか？　
というのが目下の疑問。

[punkgrl326]

I like Enka. It has that cultural japanese feeling that j-pop/j-rock just doesn't have

[Seijiro Hiko]

Just a quick comment
I'd say that any music is in part a reflection of culture
J-pop just isn't traditional japanese culture.

[nihongogakusei]

While I don't care for the "canned" sound the genre can sometimes have, I love it too. Here's a good site on a variety of enka artists: http://www.quixium.com/enka/

[Oracle]

The only Enka I have ever learned to sing all the way through was 矢切の渡し (yagiri no watashi - it's the name of a old-fashioned boat crossing somewhere in Tokyo). I'll never forget the reaction when one evening in a 'snack', under the influence of a lot of alcohol, I was persuaded to do karaoke and I mistakenly requested instead 輪切りの私 (wagiri no watashi = "me, sliced into thin round sections")

That got a *huge* laugh from everyone, like it was some clever joke..

no, that was just drunkeness

[AJBryant]

トニーさん。もしかして英語の歌も歌えるの？

ふむ。さぁぁ、そうですね。あのぉぉぉ。。。

まぁ。Yankee Doodle　ぐらいは、ね。:o

実にいうと、Abba や Beatles が大好きですので、ちょっとできます。

『与作』って実は「お寝坊さん」だったんじゃないか？　
というのが目下の疑問

そう？初耳ですね。それをさがさなきゃ。:)

Tony

[Hatori]

oooh, i understand more now. lol... i wasn't really sure. from what i've heard it seems like people don't like it, but now i know it's something that's special to Japan it seems like.