Faces at the Top

Their faces are soft and pretty, their voices tender and sweet. When it comes to pop music, the Japanese like their stars young and female. Last week the top of the pops belonged to a handful of singers -- Hiroko Yakushimaru, Akina Nakamori, Naoko Kawai and Tomoyo Harada-- whose claim to fame owes more to their winsome good looks than their modest vocal talent. Says Shig Fujita, an entertainment writer for the Asahi Evening News:

"The most popular singers have no singing voices. They are promoted as round, cute faces, singing basically the same songs."

The Japanese rock scene is largely bland.

Popular sounds are either innocuous imitations of ABBA-like Europop -- like Yakushimaru's current No. 1 single, Be a Little Bit Gentle-- and the derivative post-Beatles croonings of male stars like Shinji Tanimura and Motoharu Sano. Overwhehningly domestic in origin (Japanese performers account for about 70% of the record market), the pop world shows little sign of the some times violent creativity now rampant in the post-punk West.

Also currently riding high are Nakamori's throaty Twilight, Kawai's lively Escalation and Harada's The Maiden Who Takes Time, a simple ballad sung in a childlike voice over a gentle rock beat. The best-selling album is Kirei (Pretty) by the Southern All-Stars, a Beach Boys clone making a comeback after ten years of declining popularity. But the Japanese are not entirely immune to international pop trends: No. 2 on the album charts is the sound track from Flashdance. Come to think of it, there's a pretty face in that one too. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.