The first decade of the 21st century has seen a concurrent rise of pop-rock screen productions in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, particularly feature films, documentaries and TV series informed by the guitar and/or band culture. This paper probes the popularisation of pop-rock in the region and asks what gender and sexual expressions have been mobilised in such productions and representations. The paper juxtaposes dominant gender tropes, such as the failing male rocker in search of rebirth (Korea), romantic youth pursuing authenticity (Japan), dazzling but also bedazzled rocker-girl on stage (Japan), indie music goddess in control of subdued femininity (Korea) and peripheral girl-with-acoustic-guitar who chronicles boys' sorrow (Taiwan). Responding to the familiar myth of rebellion in pop-rock discourses, our inter-referential analysis suggests that East Asian pop-rock screen is about the making of heterotopias rather than utopias.

Linguistic diversity poses a significant but not insuperable obstacle to transnational flows of popular music in East Asia. This paper reviews strategies that are used to overcome language barriers, especially the use of English by mainstream artists. Although this strategy has met with some success, it can be problematic in that it involves the negotiation of new artist identities with audiences. This negotiation of identities is illustrated by an analysis of YouTube comments on two English-language music videos by established Asian-language singers – Tata Young's ‘Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy’ and Utada Hikaru's ‘Easy Breezy’, which indicates that language, ethnic and gender identities are all problematised when these singers choose to sing in English.

Based on ethnographic interviews, this paper examines how Japanese hip-hop DJs distinguish themselves in the global marketplace in ways that reflect on Japan's two self-images: its impenetrable uniqueness and its adeptness at assimilating other cultures (cf. Ivy, Iwabuchi). Following the autoexoticist strategies of Takemitsu and Akiyoshi, DJ Krush and Shing02 draw on Japanese uniqueness by integrating Japanese instruments (e.g. shakuhachi, shamisen, taiko), genres (biwa narrative), and aesthetics (ma, imperfection) into their works; Evis Beats takes a more parodic approach. At the DMC World Championships, Japanese DJs including DJ Kentarō have competed on the basis of eclecticism and originality in assimilating multiple sound sources. While countering the stereotype of the Japanese as imitators, this emphasis on originality may place some contestants too far from prevailing trends, putting them at a disadvantage. Both strategies imply that Japanese artists experience anxieties regarding their authenticity, necessitating strategies to differentiate themselves.

This paper examines the ways in which hip-hop has taken root in Korean popular culture. The processes that began in the early 1990s include appropriation, adaptation and ‘cultural reterritorialisation’. By looking at recent Korean hip-hop outputs and their associated contexts, this paper explores the ways in which Korean hip-hop has gained its local specificities. This was achieved by combining and recontextualising Afro-American and Korean popular musical elements and aesthetics in its performance and identification in the context of the consumption and commodification of Korean hip-hop as a ‘national(ised) cultural product’.

Ever since its sovereignty reverted to China, Hong Kong has been torn between its national (in terms of China and its ‘soft’ power) and global status (as ‘Asia's World City’). In this special context, Hong Kong's singular, ambiguous but prolific existence ceased. This paper endeavours to map ‘Cantopop’ (Chinese popular songs) on the new media landscape and examine its decline in the context of the rise and fall of cover versions. Cantopop was once very popular, not only in Hong Kong but also in its neighbouring regions. Its rise in the 1970s was a result of its typical hybridity, an important aspect of which was influenced by the use of cover versions that changed its soundscape. In the mid-1990s, the Cantopop market started to shrink significantly. A radio campaign for localisation advocated the release of original songs aimed at enhancing the development of Cantopop, but in the end proved to have the opposite effect. In the new millennium, ‘Mandapop’ (Mandarin popular songs) has taken on the role as the trend setter of the Chinese popular music industry. We argue in this paper that Cantopop's decline is the result of Hong Kong's loss of hybridity.

In terms of circulation and sales of albums, the most popular pop music found in mainland China today is the Mandopop imported from Taiwan. The pop music that is genuinely locally produced in China by mainland producers and artists, and which is most notable to the outside world is probably the Chinese rock music and the wave of ‘northwest wind’ pop music produced locally in China in the late 1980s. However, after 2005, there emerged a new kind of Chinese pop that is commercially successful and a product of the national Pop Idol-like singing contest. This paper describes and explicates the broad popularity of this new wave of Chinese pop. Putting aside the overly discussed topic of democracy that comes out of such politicised Supergirl contests, this paper focuses on the nature of the melody and lyrics of pop idol winner Chris Li's songs and how their unique formulation evolves into an important ‘short wave’ of Chinese pop.

This paper examines the performances of Taiwanese American Jack Hsu and his New Jersey-based progressive erhu-rock band The Hsu-nami, in transnational contexts fraught by ethnonationalism and race. Through an ethnographic approach, this paper highlights the band's depoliticising practice to deflect the geopolitics across the Taiwan Strait. It also discusses how Hsu adapts the musical and gender ideologies in rock music culture to diffuse racial ideologies surrounding his ethnicity and instrument. Finally, an analysis of the band's deployment of cultural diplomacy discusses pragmatic multiculturalism, a mode that reflects the tension between rock music's ostensibly counter-cultural front and its commercial foundation.

This paper focuses on Shibuya-kei, a style of independent popular music that emerged in Japan in the late 1980s and which has been influential in the popularisation of J-pop worldwide. Although usually treated as a uniquely Japanese musical genre, Shibuya-kei was from its inception defined by an ostentatious internationalism, fusing jazz, easy listening and bossa nova with British, American and French retro-pop styles. Tracing the international itineraries of Shibuya-kei musicians and the role of Western musicians and labels in promoting it outside Japan, this paper characterises Shibuya-kei not as just another J-pop genre but as a transnational soundscape, a collaborative project produced by a network of musicians circulating between Japan and the UK, the US, France, Germany, Spain and Brazil. As such, the paper suggests, it requires us to rethink the place of the national in relation to popular music.