Growing up, family parties would wind down around our favorite special occasion appliance. My father clumsily ran cables from the karaoke machine into our television, transforming the living room into ...

The Hot 100 launched in 1958, just 13 years after the end of World War II. The war was still well within living memory, and I have to imagine that it left deep psychic wounds all across the globe. And ...

Fifty years ago today, the No. 1 song in America was an import from Japan: a song about young love called "Sukiyaki," sung by Kyu Sakomoto. Ian Condry, who teaches Japanese culture at MIT, says ...

In June of 1963, Kyu Sakamoto's "Ue wo Muite Aruko" — better known as "Sukiyaki" overseas — became Japan's first, and only, No. 1 hit single in the United States. Fifty years later, the song is still ...

Simply sign up to the Life & Arts myFT Digest -- delivered directly to your inbox. In June 1963, a Japanese pop song soared to the top of America’s Billboard Hot 100 chart. More than 50 years later, ...

During what proved to be a festival full of collaborations, Mac Demarco invited out fellow slacker hero, Post Malone onstage to play the shaker during a cover of Kyu Sakamoto's "Sukiyaki." By Sam ...

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. The Hot 100 ...