TIL Japanese Enka from the mid 20th century sounds a lot like Greek music from that time.

3 comments

1. You should have a look at different Balkan music (Croatian etc). A lot of that sounded/s like that. Also Russian music. Dont think it’s especially Greek

2. Umm, probably that’s just how old music is?
   I come from India and if you played Indian songs of the 50s and the songs you linked in this post side by side, even I wouldn’t be able to differentiate for a moment.

3. The history of Enka goes back to Chanson, the French genre of love songs. During the early to mid 20th century, there was chanson boom of popular Japanese songs inspired, or potentially mimicking, the style of French chanson.

   Some information here: [https://www.ndl.go.jp/france/en/column/s2_4.html](https://www.ndl.go.jp/france/en/column/s2_4.html)

   >From around the late 1940’s, chanson boom occurred on an enormous scale. There were a number of major happenings related to chanson including the opening of the chanson
   café Ginpari (Paris d’argent) (1951), the visit to Japan by popular
   singles Damia (1889-1978) and Yvett Giraud (1916-2014), Yves Montand’s
   (1921-1991) Autumn Leaves, etc. becoming a hit. Japanese singers were very successful, and a large number of chanson produced by Japanese also appeared.