Group sounds

This article is about the music genre. For the Rocket from the Crypt album, see Group Sounds (album).

Group sounds (Japanese: グループ・サウンズ, Hepburn: Gurūpu Saunzu), often abbreviated as GS, is a genre of Japanese rock music which became popular in the mid to late 1960s and initiated the fusion of Japanese kayōkyoku music and Western rock music.^[1] Their music production techniques were regarded as playing a pioneering role in modern Japanese popular music.^[1]

Group sounds
Stylistic origins	Rock and roll rockabilly rhythm and blues beat psychedelia kayōkyoku
Cultural origins	Mid-1960s, Japan
Derivative forms	J-pop

Group sounds arose following the Beatles performance at the Budokan in 1966, and was strongly influenced by British beat music of the 1960s.^[2] Group sounds acts included the Tigers, the Tempters, the Spiders, the Mops, and the Golden Cups.^[2] The movement peaked in late 1967 when Jackey Yoshikawa and His Blue Comets won the Japan Record Award.^[1]

See also

• Music of Japan
• J-pop
• Visual kei
• Japanese hip hop
• Japanese jazz
• Japanese reggae
• Japanese ska
• List of Japanese rock bands
• Enka
• Ryūkōka