Kyushu Communication Studies, Vol. 6, 2008, pp. 23-41 ©2008 Communication Association of Japan Kyushu Chapter Cultural Reinterpretation of Popular Music: The Case of Japanese/American Cover Songs Judy YONEOKA (Kumamoto Gakuen University) Abstract. The genre of popular music, in contrast to most other cultural products, allows for much leeway in cultural reinterpretation of other artists’ works in the form of cover songs. Japanese artists have a long history of covering American music in both original and translated forms, and artists may choose to culturally modify the original in several ways. Of these, “reculturalization” and “acculturalization” processes tend towards cultural specificity, whereas “deculturalization” and “generic maintenance” processes lead to universality. Artists may also, with permission, opt to change the lyrics completely, essentially creating a different song with the same melody. Naturally, the image the performer wishes to portray, the cultural milieu in which the cover song is presented and the intended audience all play important roles in the processes selected for cultural reinterpretation. This research discusses these processes with respect to several famous Japanese cover versions of US popular songs from the 1950s to the present. Such music has often been dismissed as pakuri, or copycatting, but on closer look many show cultural reinterpretation processes that warrant their reanalysis as culturally hybrid works of art. INTRODUCTION The field of popular music allows for much leeway in cultural reinterpretation of other artists’ works in the form of cover songs. Japanese artists have a long history of covering American music in both original and translated forms, and artists may choose to culturally modify their works in several ways. This situation is markedly different from that of other cultural products; poetry and novels, for example, must be translated/interpreted as faithfully as possible to the original. There is more flexibility for cultural adaptation in cinema, but it still does not reach the extent of possibility available for popular music. In the context of Hollywood movie renditions of traditional Chinese stories, Wang and Yeh（2005）refer to such cultural reinterpretation as “hybridization” (following Bhabha, 1994). They define three processes involved in cultural hybridity: reculturalization, wherein cultural elements are changed to fit the new culture; deculturalization, wherein elements of 23 the original that would not be appreciated by the new culture are dropped; and acculturalization, wherein elements of the new culture are added to the original in order to make it more comprehensible or familiar to the new culture. In the present study, a fourth process of generic maintenance is defined which actively retains the universal humanness of the original piece—in other words, it is a conscious decision to abstain from culturalization processes in favor of retaining universality. The processes chosen for individual songs depend both on the intent of the coverer and the character of the original piece. The original song itself may be relatively universal; a placeless recount of human emotion such as Mariah Carey’s Hero (1993; covered by Nakayama Miho, 1994) or a timeless classic such as Grandfather’s Clock (Henry C. Work 1876; covered by Hirai Ken, 2002). In this case, the artist may choose to “acculturalize” or culturally locate the piece in the target place or time. Alternatively, the artist may faithfully reproduce the content of the original in the spirit of cultural universality1). On the other hand, a more culturally specific work such as Tennessee Waltz (Patty Page, 1950; covered by Chiemi Eri, 1951) or I’ve Never Been to Me (Charlene, 1976; covered as Love is All by Shiina Megumi, 1986) may undergo deculturalization to render it more culturally universal, or reculturalization with the goal of making it more acceptable to a different culturally specific audience. A unique example of a piece that has gone through different processes with different artists is YMCA (Village People, 1971; covered as Young Man by Saijo Hideki, 1978 and Razor Ramon HG, 2006), which will be discussed later in detail. Naturally, the image the performer wishes to portray, the cultural milieu in which the song is presented and the intended audience all play important roles in the processes used for cultural reinterpretation. Although covering is a legitimate artistic process, it has often been the brunt of severe criticism as an act of pakuri (plagiarism or copycatting), a kowtow to Western imperialism and/or simply immorality. No doubt there are many cases in which some of these criticisms are valid, but to condemn all cover music as such is to ignore and negate the processes of creativity involved in recreating artistic works to make them relevant to the sensitivities of a culturally different audience. Perhaps for this reason, little serious research has been done with cover music in general (Dent (2004) and Yano (2005) are exceptions), but it is hoped that this work will present a framework that will open the way for a new reinterpretation of the cover phenomenon as one that merits more academic attention. This paper analyzes several Japanese cover songs in terms of the processes used in cultural reinterpretation. It begins with a review of the development of cover music in general in Section 2 and in Japan specifically in Section 3. Section 4 introduces the four processes outlined above in greater detail, and presents specific Japanese cover versions of US music as examples. In the process of performing the above analyses, several questions arose, which are discussed in the final section: (1) How to treat songs whose lyrics are completely different from the original? (2) Can the same processes for hybridization of lyrics be applied to the 24 melodies and performance styles as well? (3) Can different levels of reculturalization be posited within the same piece, and is there a connection between the depth of the reculturalized item and its hybridization process? Finally, it will be argued that the discussions presented can help lead to a reinterpretation of the cover music phenomenon as “repacking” (Otani, 2001) rather than pakuri. COVERING: COPYING OR CREATION? What exactly is a cover song? In Japan, the term kabaa kyoku is used to refer to any song of which the melody was not originally written by or for the singer. Thus, it includes remakes and parodies as well as re-releases and translations. It also includes melodies that are no longer covered by copyright issues, such as classical music. In contrast to literature, it is generally the music rather than the words that is considered the salient feature connecting the original and the cover, and lyrics can be (and often are) changed dramatically, essentially creating a different song altogether. This relative disregard for faithfulness in translation of lyrics may be partially due to the “wide range of cross-cultural experiences involved in the translation of American culture into Japanese culture” and “numerous difficulties when finalizing the Japanese translation” mentioned by Miyashita (2007, p. 44; abstract), but also to the desire to create something new while paying homage to the original. The tradition of cover music is as old as the music recording industry itself. Originally, songs were recorded and promoted on their own merits as prospective “hits” and the people who sang them were not as important as the songs they sang. In other words, recording companies aimed to popularize a piece of music rather than a singer, and cover music was accepted and even encouraged in order to give a song more exposure. As Yano (2005) notes, “the process by which a song gets promoted is predicated upon principles of repetition and covering” (p. 4). Perhaps the popularization of radio in the 1920s and 1930s began to change this trend, as it served to promote not only a certain piece of music, but also a certain rendition of that piece. This continued into the 1940s and 1950s, when the advent of rock and roll made artists like Elvis Presley and Bill Haley & His Comets household terms, and people bought records because of the name of the singer rather than the song. LPs, first introduced successfully to the market in 1948 by Columbia Records, began to feature collections of songs by a single artist. In this era, another factor that changed the concept of covering was the existence of multiple genres of music (country, jazz, blues, etc.). Artists began to “transpose” music into various styles, and this served to change the process of covering from simply singing someone else’s music to actually recreating that piece within the context of a new musical form. Thus, even within the same language, the cover process came to be a form of cultural translation or reinterpretation. However, the 1960s and 1970s ushered in a stronger attitude towards music as 25 intellectual property and covering as copyright infringement. Copyright suits cropped up, and one of the most famous copyright suits in history was against My Sweet Lord by George Harrison of the Beatles. Released in 1970, it was reminiscent of the hit song He’s So Fine recorded in 1963 by the Chiffons. The melody of My Sweet Lord sounded so much like the melody of He’s So Fine that Harrison was sued. Harrison was aware of the song, but insisted that he did not consciously use the melody. Even so, he lost the case. Unfortunately, the trend of regarding cover music as plagiarism and intellectual theft has given a bad name to cover artists, even when they have cleared copyright issues (in contrast to cinema, where remakes of older films are accepted as forms of art in their own right). In their defense, we invoke here the concept of hybridity (Bhabha, 1994) to return some respectability to cover music as an art. Hybridity is a postcolonial interpretation of cultural change which treats products of multiple cultures (or subcultures) as “hybrids”, products of a “third space” that are neither inferior, nor deferential to the original from the source culture, and are neither disrespectable nor subversive with respect to the target culture.