We’re happy to invite you for our upcoming Pop Talk 17 presented in the context of the City Pop International Workshop organized at Amsterdam University on March, 20th, 11.15-12.45: Toshiyuki Ōwada (Keio University, JP) will talk about The Sonic Texture of City Pop – History, Musicians, and Its Representation.
IASPM Beneulx is very proud and happy to invite you to the upcoming workshop:
AND SUDDENLY THERE WAS CITY POP…
THE GLOBAL DIMENSIONS OF THE RETROGRADE FORMATION OF A JAPANESE POPULAR MUSIC GENRE
International Research Workshop, University of Amsterdam, March 19-21, 2025
And suddenly there was “City Pop”. The music sounded familiar, and its name also rang a bell. But even if those in the know about the history of popular music in Japan might associate the term with the late 1970s and early 1980s, the music that today goes by the name “City Pop” usually wasn't called that back then. This is also the reason why there is much debate about exactly what Japanese popular music is meant by the term “City Pop”. “City Pop” only recently became a genre designation, and the coinage and filling of the term with musical content from the past appears to be a process that involves actors not only from Japan. Even if the production and reception of the music that today goes under the name of “City Pop” was completely analogue at the time it was created and was limited to Japan, the formation of the genre of “City Pop” seems to be a global process that retroactively takes place in the digital environment of the Internet and challenges existing academic genre theories which assume that the formation of music genres can be clearly dated historically and traced geographically.
The workshop will not be held in the form of a conference, but is intended as a kind of expert meeting during which scholars researching “City Pop” and/or Japanese popular music of the 1970s and 1980s will together attempt to trace this decades-spanning, global process in as much detail as possible, as an example of cultural production transitioning cultures, temporalities and technologies.
The workshop is supported by…
ASCA, the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis,
IASPM Benelux, the Benelux Branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music,
K. Matsushita Foundation,
NICA, the Netherland Institute of Cultural Analysis,
the University of Amsterdam’s capacity group Musicology,
and the University of Osaka
… and organised by…
Oliver Seibt (University of Amsterdam, NL) & Ken Katō (Osaka University, JP)
REGISTRATION via the QR code on the poster or via e-mail: F.O.Seibt@uva.nl
Location: The UBA Singel, Potgieterzaal and Zoom (link will be provided after registration)
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
9.00-9.15 Welcome Address
Oliver Seibt (University of Amsterdam, NL) and Ken Katō (Osaka University, JP)
9.15-10.45 (Panel 1) “City Music” and “New Music” 1
Moritz Sommet (University of Fribourg, CH)
Urban Psychogeography as Transcultural Intertextuality in the Lyrics of Matsumoto Takashi
Ai Ishikawa (Tokyo University, JP)
Choreography for the Sudden Emergence of City Pop: Analysis of the Singing Voices of Happii Endo and Their Cover Versions
11.15-12.45 (Panel 2) “City Music” and “New Music” 2
Anita Drexler (Osaka University, JP)
Grasping the Amorphous: On the Formation of a Canon of Nyū Myūjikku
Tokikake Ii (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, US)
“City Pop”? Cool Japan and the Perception of City Pop/New Music in and outside of Japan
13.30-15.00 (Panel 3) From “City Pops” to “wamono” 1
Davide Gnoato (Art University Linz in Vienna, AT)
City Pop and the Digital Revolution. Genre and Sound Identity by New Technologies
Martin Roberts (Emerson University, US)
Endless Summer: Transcultural Geographies of City Pop Art
Thursday, March 20, 2025
9.15-10.45 (Panel 4) From “City Pops” to “wamono” 2
Chris Tonelli (University of Groningen, NL)
Shibuya-kei, Pico-Pico and Hipster Re-Presentation: Proliferating the Pastiche that Regenrefied City Pop
Tetsu Ōshima (Tamagawa University, JP)
Continuing Curatorial Practice: From Happy End via wamono to City Pop
11.15-12.45 Key Note
Toshiyuki Ōwada (Keio University, JP)
The Sonic Texture of City Pop – History, Musicians, and Its Representation
13.30-15.00 (Panel 5) Algorithms and Anemoia 1
Sayo Sakamoto (University of Southern California, US)
Collaging the Past: Vague Memory in Vaporwave and City Pop’s Nostalgia
Ollie Hershon (Durham University, UK)
Skylines and Supras: Exploring City Pop's Resurgence in the Age of Anemoia
Friday March 21, 2025
9.15-10.45 (Panel 6) Algorithms and Anemoia 2
Benjamin Düster (University of Göttingen, DE)
A City Pop Fanon in the New Media Age? Material Genre Formations Between Algorithms, Vinyl and Cassettes
Shang Gao (Communication University of China, CN)
Digital Echoes: The Evolution and Cross-Cultural Reinterpretation of City Pop in Chinese Online Communities
11.15-12.45 (Panel 7) Non-Japanese and “Neo-City Pop” 1
Viriya Sawangchot (Walailak University, TH)
Resonances of City Pop in the 1980s Thai Pop Music
Herb L. Fondevilla (Rikkyo University, JP)
The J-Pop in Manila Sound: Hybridization in Popular Music
13.30-15.00 (Panel 8) Non-Japanese and “Neo-City Pop” 2
Cody Black (Duke University, US)
Playlisting the City: Genre, “City Pop,” and the Aural Politics of Personal Playlists in Contemporary Seoul
Ken Katō (Osaka University, JP)
Reimagining the City: Neo-City Pop and Independent Soundscapes
IASPM Benelux invites student applicants to apply for the Bachelors and Masters Popular Music Thesis Prize. This prize honors outstanding research by students (previously enrolled in a university/university of applies science in the Benelux region) writing about popular music. The prize is awarded to the best-researched and best-written BA and MA thesis on some subject related to popular music.
We are happy to announce the upcoming POP TALK 15: We are celebrating the Open Access publication of Popular Music and the Rise of Populism in Europe edited by Mario Dunkel and Melanie Schiller on November 11 (16-17 CET).
We are pleased to invite you to attend the ERASMUS+ (Music4Change) funded International School Sustainable Cities and Cultures of Music from November 5-8, 2024 at the University of Groningen.
IASPM Benelux is organizing a symposium at Radboud University: "From Hinterland to Europapa: Identity and Placemaking in Dutch Popular Music Culture on October 25th (in collaboration with The Research School for Media Studies and The Radboud Institute for Culture & History (RICH).
It is with great please that we are able to announce this year’s program and keynote speaker for the upcoming 9th IASPM Benelux Student Conference, organized with our partners from the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten (HKU) in Utrecht!
On Friday, June 28th, 2024, we will hold our ninth annual student conference on popular music research organized by IASPM Benelux at HKU in Utrecht. This one-day event will offer a series of panels led and presented by students at all levels of their academic careers. The goal of the event is to provide students with the opportunity to share their research with others, receive feedback, and connect with peers across disciplines with a joint interest in popular music.
On 30 March to 1 April 1984 the conference “Kantlijnen van de Pop” took place at Paradiso in Amsterdam – the founding moment of the Benelux branch of IASPM. While during the 2-day conference leading academics including Boudewijn Büch as chair and the British sociologist Simon Frith took presented their work and discussed popular music studies as an emerging field of research, in the evening The Falls and INXS performed in Paradiso. The conference was followed by a big record and cassette collectors fair. Special thanks to founding member and conference organizer Stan Rijven for reminding us of this important date!
We are happy to invite our members for the 13th edition of IASPM Benelux POP TALKS, this time in collaboration with Music Matters at the University of Groningen. Dr Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta from the University of Birmingham will talk about his new book Together, Somehow available now through Duke University Press on February 20th, 17:00-18:30 CET.
As the year comes to a close, we would like to thank you for a great year! 2023 was filled with a multitude of fun and inspiring popular music themed events - including the annual student conference and thesis prize, lectures in the POP Talks series and beyond. To get a full overview of what we have been up to, please have a look at our 2023 newsletter:
