Abstract
VOCALOID is a voice synthesizer developed by Yamaha Corp. Following the development of VOCALOID, a new genre of music called Vocaloid music was born, and has gained significant popularity among young Japanese audiences. Given the dominance of young listeners and creators within this genre, Vocaloid music is said to greatly influent young Japanese people. Therefore, it is hypothesized that the analysis of thematic contents within Vocaloid songs can provide valuable insights into the ideologies and values of contemporary Japanese youth. In this article, the author examines the dominant themes of Vocaloid music from 2007 to 2011 through contextual analysis of popular song lyrics. The results show that the two most dominant themes are love and “Ikidurasa” (the pain of living). After going deeper into the contents of these songs, this article comes to three conclusions. Firstly, character songs were popular for a short period, however, songs written to express the ideology of the producers became more popular in the later stages of Vocaloid music. Secondly, the themes of Vocaloid music in 2007 – 2011 were quite abundant and contained some topics that are hardly found in other Japanese popular music. Lastly, the majority of popular Vocaloid songs in this period have negative lyrics. It reflects the picture of a society where the youth are feeling disconnected and anxious in human relationship.
Author Information
Lien Quynh Pham, Okayama University, Japan
Paper Information
Conference: KAMC2024
Stream: Cultural Studies
This paper is part of the KAMC2024 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Pham L. (2024) Modern Japanese Youth’s Ideologies As Seen in Vocaloid Music – Focusing on the Period From 2007 to 2011 ISSN: 2436-0503 – The Kyoto Conference on Arts, Media & Culture 2024: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 245-254) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2436-0503.2024.23
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2436-0503.2024.23
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