Tags: Genre, Music Genre, Topical Concept.
Ryūkōka (流行歌 literally Popular Song) is a Japanese musical genre. The term originally denoted any kind of popular music in Japanese. Therefore imayō which was promoted by Emperor Go-Shirakawa in the Heian period was a kind of ryūkōka. Today however ryūkōka refers specifically to Japanese popular music from the late 1920s through the early 1960s. Some of the roots of ryūkōka were developed from Western classical music. Ryūkōka ultimately split into two genres: enka and poppusu.
