So, you've got 73 minutes of play time to sum up the entire music culture of Japan. How would you do it? What would you include?
A poll around The Japan Times office shows that our guide would include music by garage greasers Guitar Wolf, Oscar-winner Ryuichi Sakamoto, alternative-pop diva Shiina Ringo, jazz pianist Hiromi Uehara, sensitive rockers Quruli, pop duo Puffy, jazz-ska freak-out troupe Shibusashirazu Orchestra, silken-voiced singer-songwriter Natccu and "Queen of Showa" (postwar pop) Hibari Misora. But a new CD compiled by British journalist/broadcaster/ music-industry all-rounder Paul Fisher is a wholly different offering.
"The Rough Guide to the Music of Japan" is a sequel to the 1999 CD of the same name, part of the 180-strong "Rough Guide" series of country-by- country compilations produced by the guidebook company in association with the British label World Music Network. Fisher, who has extensive knowledge of the music of East and Southeast Asia and lived in Okinawa and Japan from 1990 till 2001, running an online CD shop and helping Asian musicians reach the West, curated both the original compilation in 1999 and this new sequel. He explains to The Japan Times how he tackled the mammoth task.