When people think of Japan, anime, technology and baseball might come to mind, but what about City Pop?
“It is a mixture of funk, soul, jazz, and disco,” Thuy Phan, who is a vinyl vendor in Southern California said.
Phan works for Helix Sounds and sells vinyl at the Los Angeles Records Fair and OC Records in Buena Park.
In the 70s and 80s, Japan was in an economic boom when Mariya Takeuchi dropped her fifth studio album “Variety” on April 25, 1984.
It was number one on the Oricon Weekly LP Albums Chart.
Despite the album’s popularity, “Plastic Love” was not a hit, it was number 86 on the Oricon Singles chart.
In 2017, a YouTube account called Plastic Lover uploaded a remix of “Plastic Love” and it became a hit with 22 million views to the video.
After the song was uploaded it reintroduced not only Takeuchi’s city pop music, but also other artists like Miki Matsubara, and Taeko Onuki.
In February 2021, the video had 55 million views, but due to copyright, it was taken down.
Nory and Ira own Boogie Maru Sounds and have worked with their kids, daughter Lola and son Jum Ukira in Torrance, CA.
“It definitely expanded a lot more artists’ names towards users of social media platforms,” Jun Ukira said.
Likes of YouTube, Instagram and TikTok users use City Pop songs for their photos and videos.
“I kind of think that city pop does have potential, especially with most listeners nowadays focusing more towards rhythm,” Jun Ukira said.
Miki Matsubara released her first album “Pocket Park” on Jan. 21, 1980. The song “Mayonaka no Door [Stay With Me]” reached number 28 on the Oricon chart.
Matsubara released 10 more studio albums, but in 2000 she announced that she would stop making music, Matsubara lost a battle with cervical cancer and died on Oct. 7, 2004, in Sakai, Osaka, Japan.
Sixteen years later the song “Mayonaka no Door [Stay With Me]” became the most popular City Pop song on TikTok. In Feb. 2021 the song had been used in over 200,000 social media posts.
In city pop jazz, Taeko Onuki Mignonne was a pioneer. Her third album was released in 1978.
It is one of the top city pop albums with an iconic black and white cover and songs like “Jajauma Musume” and “4:00 a.m.”
Many city pop artists also saw a spike in their music including, Tomoko Aran’s “Midnight Pretenders”, Junko Yagami’s “Bay City”, Junko Yagami’s “Telephone Number”, Meiko Nakahara’s “Fantasy”, Kaoru Akimoto’s “Dress Down”, Yurie Kokubu “I wanna be with you” and Yasuha “Flyday Chinatown”.
Surprisingly some city pop artists have only just done one album have disappeared after that. Yet their work is finally being recognized by new Japanese American fans.
Takako Mamiya is known as lost city pop artist. She released her first and only album “Love Trip” in 1982 and then retired. In the city pop resurgence movement, her original and re-released vinyl is hard to find. The song “Mayonakano Joke” is her most listened to on the album. Receiving 2.8 million views on YouTube.
After the rebirth of city pop Takeuchi, Matsubara, Ohnuki and more Japanese artists and studios are re-releasing their music albums on digital platforms, CDs, and vinyl records from Moon Records, Pony Canyon and RCA.
The city pop vinyls are sought after by vinyl collectors, with the addition of Obi strips.
The Obi strips were added to the new album with Japanese lettering detailing the album in their language.
Today, popular music artists in other genres have used city pop beats in their songs including, Tyler, The Creator, “Gone Gone/Thank You,” Jenevieve, “Baby Powder,” and The Weeknd, “Out of Time.”
Anri’s album “Heavy Beach and Timely” was shot in Santa Monica, and Makoto Matsushita’s “First Light” was photographed in Hollywood.
With the popularity of City Pop around Japan started to do copyright claims around social media platforms.
Tasturo Yamashita is known as the city pop king in Japan and his wife is Mariya Takeuchi.
Yamashita doesn’t believe in digital like Apple Music and Spotify. He makes millions on CD sales in Japan. The original vinyl of his music is hard to get and his re-release immediately sold out.
With today’s digital platform of music, people have a chance to discover new genres from all over the world.
To the point of downloading the song on an app or going to a vinyl shop and buying the record.
