Group Sounds is a genre of Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese rock music

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

. Inspired by The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

, Group Sounds became popular in the mid to late 1960s. Group Sounds initiated fusion of Japanese kayōkyoku

Kayokyoku

is a Japanese pop music genre, which became a base of modern J-pop. The Japan Times describes kayōkyoku as "standard Japanese pop" or "Showa era pop".Kayōkyoku is Western-style-inspired music of Japan. Music in this genre is extremely varied as a result...

music and rock music. Their music production techniques were regarded as a pioneer of modern Japanese popular music.

Fōku (folk) and New Music became famous in Japan in the 1970s, but new rock bands survived as "New Rock" in Japanese underground music. The origin of modern Japanese rock music was usually regarded as New Rock. Videos of New Rock bands' concerts were very rare.

Notable Group Sounds bands

• The Tigers (aka The Funnys)
• The Tempters
  The Tempters
  The Tempters were part of Japan's Group Sounds pop music era in the 1960s.Featuring lead vocalist Kenichi Hagiwara, who was also known by the nickname of Shoken, they rivaled The Tigers for the top spot in the Japan rock scene hierarchy...
  
  
• The Spiders
  The Spiders (Japanese band)
  The Spiders were a Japanese band in the Group Sounds era, who were one of the top three bands of that genre, a cultural pop music scene unique to Japan....
  
  
• The Wild Ones
• The Golden Cups
  The Golden Cups
  were one of the top bands performing in Japan's Group Sounds scene in the late 1960s.Featuring singer Dave Hirao, guitarist Eddie Ban, and bassist Masayoshi "Mabo" Kabe, and made a number of hit singles in addition to many re-workings of international songs. A full length documentary film about the...
  
  
• The Mops
  The Mops
  The Mops were a Japanese psychedelic rock/garage rock group active in the late 1960s and early 1970s.-History:The Mops were formed in 1966 by a group of high schoolers: Mikiharu Suzuki , Taro Miyuki , Masaru Hoshi , and Kaoru Murakami...
  
  
• The Carnabeats

Notable New Rock bands (1969–1972)

• Blues Creation
• Flower Travellin' Band
  Flower Travellin' Band
  is a Japanese heavy psych outfit that was first active in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They reunited in 2007. Vocalist Joe Yamanaka died on August 7, 2011 after a battle with lung cancer.-History:...
  
  
• Happy End
• Power House
• PYG
  Pyg
  PYG was a super-group from Japan, made up of members of the most famous bands of the Group Sounds era, The Tempters, The Spiders and The Tigers....
  
  
• RC Succession
  RC Succession
  RC Succession was an influential Japanese rock band fronted by singer-songwriter Kiyoshiro Imawano.- History :In 1966, Kiyoshiro formed a band named the Clover with Kenchi Haren. This band broke up the following year, however, the remaining members added some new members and called it the...
  
  
• Les Rallizes Dénudés
  Les Rallizes Denudes
  Les Rallizes Dénudés were an influential, yet reclusive Japanese avant-garde band. They originally began in 1962 as a musical theatre troupe, however the formation of the band was not until 1967...
  
  
• Sadistic Mika Band
  Sadistic Mika Band
  was a Japanese rock group formed in 1972. Its name is a parody of the "Plastic Ono Band". Produced by Masatoshi Hashiba on Toshiba-EMI Records , the band was led by the then husband and wife team of guitarist Kazuhiko Kato, and his wife, singer Mika Fukui...
  
  
• Speed, Glue & Shinki
  Speed, Glue & Shinki
  was a Japanese psychedelic rock power trio formed in 1970 by guitarist Shinki Chen, and Ikuzo Orita, the president of Polydor Records.Orita had previously produced an LP featuring Shinki Chen; who was considered the Japanese equivalent of Jimi Hendrix. The self-titled album Shinki Chen featured...
  
  
• Taj Mahal Travellers
  Taj Mahal Travellers
  The Taj Mahal Travellers were a Japanese experimental music ensemble founded in 1969 by former Group Ongaku leader and Fluxus member Takehisa Kosugi. The rest of the group were several years younger than Kosugi, and were all inspired by the spirit of the day...
  
  

See also

• Garage rock
  Garage rock
  Garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that was first popular in the United States and Canada from about 1963 to 1967. During the 1960s, it was not recognized as a separate music genre and had no specific name...
  
  
• Music of Japan
  Music of Japan
  The music of Japan includes a wide array of performers in distinct styles both traditional and modern. The word for music in Japanese is 音楽 , combining the kanji 音 with the kanji 楽...
  
  
• List of Japanese rock bands
• J-pop
  J-pop
  , an abbreviation for Japanese pop, is a musical genre that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1990s. Modern J-pop has its roots in 1960s music, such as The Beatles, and replaced kayōkyoku in the Japanese music scene...
  
  
• Enka
  Enka
  is a popular Japanese music genre considered to resemble traditional Japanese music stylistically. Modern enka, however, is a relatively recent musical form which arose in the context of such postwar expressions of modern Japanese nonmaterial nationalism as nihonjinron, while adopting a more...
  
  
• Ryūkōka
  Ryukoka
  - 1914–1927: Origin :In 1914, Sumako Matsui's song "Katyusha's song", composed by Shinpei Nakayama, was used as a theme of the rendition Resurrection in Japan. The record of the song sold 20,000 copies...
  
  
• Kayōkyoku
  Kayokyoku
  is a Japanese pop music genre, which became a base of modern J-pop. The Japan Times describes kayōkyoku as "standard Japanese pop" or "Showa era pop".Kayōkyoku is Western-style-inspired music of Japan. Music in this genre is extremely varied as a result...
  
  

External links

• Cutie Morning Moon - Dedicated to Japanese 1960s garage punk
• The Video Beat - What are the Group Sounds?
• Showapop - Group Sounds Record & CD articles in English