Welcome to the online site for our class this semester. Please feel free to add your comments on the two readings for this week at the bottom of this post. The readings for this week are Mitsui, "Sing Me a Song of Araby," and Kawabata, The Japanese record industry.
What do you think are the main points of the Mitsui article? What is your evaluation of the argumentation and evidence? Persuasive? Lacking? Why or why not? How about the Kawabata article?
Over the next few days I will be adding links to the songs we will be discussing next week. Before then please browse the music download menu and see if your computer allows you to connect to the music samples. We need to sort through compatibility problems as soon as possible. Please send me an e-mail and let me know if you were or were not able to get the music links to work with your computer. My e-mail address is: ander025@umn.edu
Posted by ander025 at September 8, 2005 1:14 PMThe article about Mitsui's "Sing me a Song of Araby" was interesting, but for me, also hard to understand some of the finer music points to it- as I have no wits about my mind that pertain to it, so it was a little hard to follow. It seemed to me that the Araby song was much related to a similar children's version- that's how it became popular, because that one was (page 11, bottom paragraph). I think the overseas influence did have a big impact on the Japanese recording companies, and the addition of Western music to Japan. For they mixed old style with new.
In the Kawabata article, the main points are that Japanese youth set the record sales and that the Compact Disc overtook the walkman, and is still more popular in Japan. Western music, or foreign music was also more popular in Japan over the years; especially after WWII.
I would definitely love an mp3 or some such of Futamura's Kimi Koishi...
I really liked the song!
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! zgnfcekifhanes
Posted by: vluvnlwmnt at August 5, 2007 4:41 PM