J-pop

J-pop, an abbreviation for Japanese pop, is a loosely defined musical genre that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1990s. Modern J-pop has its roots in 1960s popand rock music, such as The Beatles, which led to bands such as Happy End fusing rock with Japanese music.^[6] J-pop was further defined by Japanese New Wave bands such as Yellow Magic Orchestra and Southern All Stars in the late 1970s.^[7] Eventually, J-pop replaced kayōkyoku ("Lyric Singing Music", a term for Japanese pop music from the 1920s to the 1980s) in the Japanese music scene.^[8] The term was coined by the Japanese media to distinguish Japanese music from foreign music, today the most powerful singers and bands in the genre are Ayumi Hamasaki, Namie Amuro, Koda Kumi and the new popular DJ Kawasaki knowns in all the world, and now refers to most Japanese popular music.

Impact and international fanbase

J-pop is an integral part of Japanese popular culture, being found in anime, commercials, movies, TV shows, and video games and other forms of Japanese entertainment. Some television news programs even run a J-pop song during their end credits. In anime and television shows, particularly dramas, opening and closing songs are changed up to four times per year. Because most programs have a combination of both opening and closing songs, it is possible for one show to use eight tracks for a single season.

Over the past decade, J-pop has continually gained fans worldwide through video games and anime. Many video game fans import games from Japan well before they are released in their respective countries. The theme songs and soundtracks from these games and anime can be a gateway to further interest in J-pop and other genres of Japanese music. One example is the Kingdom Hearts game series, in which popular J-pop singer Hikaru Utada performs the main theme songs. Her single "Easy Breezy" was also used to promote the Nintendo DS. The Ouendan Series and Band Brothers for the Nintendo DS both feature a lot of J-Pop songs. In the case of anime, shows are normally sold in the West with their original soundtracks untouched, affording more direct exposure. Some shows aired on television in the United States, for example, have seen their themes go so far as to become commercially available as ringtones through mainstream vendors in that country.

With changing music trends in India and Bangladesh, J-pop has gained some ground.^{[citation needed]} After the channel Animax was introduced, the knowledge and popularity of J-Pop further spread among the youth of Asia.

Pop duo Puffy, one of the Japanese acts that have their material released on the United States market, had their own animated series on Cartoon Network—Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, which premiered in 2004 and ran for three seasons. Prior to that, the duo recorded the theme song to another cartoon on the same channel, Teen Titans. Because of the success of their show, video clips of Puffy, who are known as Puffy AmiYumi in the United States, were shown several times during the channel's programing.