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in English
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in Japanese
*Multilingual automatic translation features for languages other than Japanese have recently been implemented.
Concept
Music has, since ancient times, been closely intertwined with religion and ritual, and it can be said that it once held a profoundly sacred status. This is because musical instruments themselves did not directly contribute value to humanity’s most fundamental acts of living, such as eating or sleeping. In every culture, the origins of music were “sacred,” and music was regarded as something that brought a kind of value unattainable through ordinary human activity alone.
In the modern and contemporary eras, however, music has largely shed this sacred role and come to be valued primarily as “entertainment.” At the same time, as suggested by symbolic phrases like “rock is dead,” music has increasingly been treated as a source of commercial value. As can be seen in much of today’s music, this situation has shifted the focus of evaluation away from the artistic depth involved in creating “music itself” and toward a form of lookism, where performers are judged on lip-syncing and dance rather than on the music per se (I do not mean to deny the value of those elements, but I am concerned about a situation in which they completely replace every other aspect of musical evaluation).
Consequently, the prevailing discourse around music tends to center not on the cultural or artistic value from which the music emerged, but rather on quantitative metrics: how much it went viral, how many followers it gained, how many streams it accumulated.
In the midst of this climate, we continue to publish articles that focus on the artistic and cultural value of music. We believe that this is one way of demonstrating music’s fundamental worth, its value as an art form, and its significance as a cultural presence—and that doing so can offer potential clues for addressing the many problems embedded in contemporary music.
In the modern and contemporary eras, however, music has largely shed this sacred role and come to be valued primarily as “entertainment.” At the same time, as suggested by symbolic phrases like “rock is dead,” music has increasingly been treated as a source of commercial value. As can be seen in much of today’s music, this situation has shifted the focus of evaluation away from the artistic depth involved in creating “music itself” and toward a form of lookism, where performers are judged on lip-syncing and dance rather than on the music per se (I do not mean to deny the value of those elements, but I am concerned about a situation in which they completely replace every other aspect of musical evaluation).
Consequently, the prevailing discourse around music tends to center not on the cultural or artistic value from which the music emerged, but rather on quantitative metrics: how much it went viral, how many followers it gained, how many streams it accumulated.
In the midst of this climate, we continue to publish articles that focus on the artistic and cultural value of music. We believe that this is one way of demonstrating music’s fundamental worth, its value as an art form, and its significance as a cultural presence—and that doing so can offer potential clues for addressing the many problems embedded in contemporary music.