Thank you! I really appreciate that!

Nostalgia is a funny thing. It's a comfy feeling. Even with my own memories, I wonder how much I'm seeing through rose tinted glasses.

What an interesting perspective! I hadn't thought of that. I have found some city pop that is intentionally dance-oriented, but you're right a lot of it is a loungier, more intimate kind of pop music. I'll definitely check out that Hawaiian scene as The Aliis ring a distant bell. Thanks for watching and commenting!

I agree-although, I think the sound went through such a rapid evolution that the popular musical aesthetic was markedly different after the early 90's. There are also several revivalist groups that are actively trying to cultivate the sound of this particular era(75-90). I also agree that the golden age of City Pop left its mark on the future of Japanese pop-this can make things a little blurry at the borders. That's the elusive thing about City Pop, though, it's almost a meta descriptor of genre like Motown.

There are songs by artists like Noriyuki Makihara from the 90s that aren't quite city popish, but his soulful sounds defintitely feel influenced by city pop

Plastic Love has introduced so many people in the west to this awesome genre/era of music-so cool

Thanks for the kind words-glad you enjoyed the video! Working on it!

I think that Plastic Love is how a lot of people are introduced to City Pop, such an ear worm. I plan on doing a Japanese Jazz and Fusion video in the future, and Flying Beagle would make a great recommendation!

Thank you!! Interesting take, I hadn't thought of that. I hear a lot of Masayoshi Takanaka in mariokart themes aha I was wondering where I had heard that name! Watanabe's Round Trip is a great album-features Chick Corea on keys. I haven't had a record player since I moved to Central America-miss it every single day. I would love to be spinning some Yamashita right now!

Glad you enjoyed it!

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you!

Yeah, once it gets its hooks in you it's hard to stop listening! Glad you enjoyed it!

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you!

Thank you!

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks for the watch-hope you enjoy the listening! Who's that artist?

@@CharcuterieSound Her name is Ai Furihata (降旗愛). She has some original songs as well as covers of some popular City Pop songs, so i got engaged form them

Thanks! Appreciate it, goosebumps!

Thank you! And there is somewhat of a revival happening. Some artists(including Japanese artists) are mixing city pop into dance music which is usually referred to as 'Future Funk', while others are making more faithful nods to that era with fully original music. Only time will tell what happens next!

Thank you for your comment! I'll definitely check out those recommendations. I'm a big fan of Japanese jazz, funk, and fusion from that era, but I haven't listened to a lot of rock yet-so it's useful to have some names to look for!

That's awesome! That's funny because there is also some great Japanese disco-plus, disco didn't die the way it did in the West, so you still hear its influence well into the 80s(which is super cool to me). What was the Taiwanese music scene like when you were a kid?

Thank you! Great minds stink alike 🧠

What an insightful and well-researched comment! Glad to see someone is as obsessive over genre definitions as I am! This serves as a great timeline for some of the first contemporary uses of the term City Pop. I love the study of genre origins, especially the intersection of the actual musical style as it develops and its broader cultural ontology. In musicology(I'm not a musicologist, but I have studied musicology academically to an admittingly pedestrian degree) genre is not always defined historically-although there is still frothing contention over a strong definition of genre in general. In this video I am a prisoner of the colloquial. The definition of City Pop seems to have gone through several rounds of renegotian. One of which certainly occurred in the early 2000's with music writers like Yutaka Kimura who were looking back at music from this period and finding commonalities in the larger musical cannon of the 70's and 80's. With the influence of these cultural critics and music writers, the City Pop "Tent" certainly grew to include music that wouldn't orinally have been referred to as such. This negotiation process is important to how we understand genre in everyday life-but does this, or rather, should this be part of our categorization? I think so. I like Pablo Mendoza-Halliday's breakdown of genre, in which he bridges different perspectives one can have about genre itself-is it a cognitive category, simply a taxonomic class, or a part of a cultural unit? For Mendoza-Halliday they are a cycle that can lead to the transformation and reconfiguration of genre. I thought about sticking to a more historical construction for City Pop(at least in the historical context section) but felt it might undermine my role as an evangelist of the music itself. I also didnt want to catagorize the renegotion of the genre that is happening right now (the city pop craze on the internet)as somehow impure or ruining the original taxonomic understanding of the genre. Especially with the understanding that conceptions and limits of genre can and often do form retroactively. Country music, disco, soooo many sub-genres of Jazz. City Pop has taken on a broader meaning among western and Japanese listeners-and it seems like this happened in phases-some of which occured before our current internet-based boom. Which as a fan can be frustrating at times, because the historical components which helped form a certain genre can get smoothed over or even ignored. Something I think I am at least partly guilty of in this video. Also, you may have already read it(judging by your fantastic knowledge of the genre and its history!) but I'd highly recommend the article "Intermediality and the discursive construction of popular music genres: the case of ‘Japanese City Pop’" by Moritz Sommet. I feel like it makes for a good bridge between our perspectives! Anyway, I could go on about genre and its many understandings for a boring amount of time! Thanks for watching the video and contributing to the conversation!

​@@CharcuterieSound Well... Thank you :D Actually, I am not obsessive about this genre, I am just an ordinary Showa Retro and Showa Kayo fan. But this topic/trend or virality got my notice since my friend defined the Onyanko Club as city pop and after that, my friends came to my house to see my Showa-era magazines and consult with me deeper about Showa Era. I already read Moritz Sommet's paper since one of my friends asked me about his article. (another example by Van Paugam, some of Vice and Pitchfork music journalists). This made me face-palming myself to read like... "Where the hell did they get this information?". Turns out their references are based on the Heisei-era media and their own feeling. hey "...car stereo music", "genre of bubble era", "It is the 80s and Japan. so it is city pop", "Look! palm trees, orange tone, and purple shadow", "It remixes by Night Tempo which is now city pop" Well... It's getting out of hand. When I came back to my regular kayokyoku bar in Osaka (right before COVID in 2019) we were making small bets between customers and the barkeep. The owner got annoyed with this "city-pop" thing which led him to say, "This city pop! That city pop! What else? Masashi Sada City Pop?". Me and my friends started the challenge, "Probably Enka will be City Popped next" and laughed. Turns out the wishes do come true. In 2023 there was a compilation album by Universal Music called City Pop Essentials Enka. Sadly the bar closed due to the impact of COVID in 2020. But we still mocking him via Line group. Sorry for chit-chatting, Actually, I want to tell more about the wide variety of hougaku. From ryukoka, entering the Meiji Restoration (which started the rebellious genre of enka because yougaku influenced) but it led to the Kayokyoku through Taisho to Showa era. It is hard to type properly in English (not my major language). Here I have some video (just uploaded for you) that used to get terminated by some music journalist idiot I debated on the internet (maybe it will affect their credibility), common by me haha... especially my comment got deleted by whom-they-called-themself as city pop expert lol. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/p7hontWA35vQd2g.htmlsi=Zvb4BwPRuHgRJRrA kzfaq.info/get/bejne/a5-CraZ1v6vUYWg.htmlsi=1gXtxd2uNuBuP9Ki

Well, I definitely won't delete your comment! Sorry to hear about your regular bar closing-I'm still mourning the loss of my favorite pub. I see what you're saying about the expanding definition of City Pop. That can be frustrating-the people making that enka compilation are probably just cashing in on a trend. My point, and I think Sommet's point as well is that these Heisei period writers began to influence the definition of City Pop. A legacy we still live with today. I'm not an expert though, just a guy who likes music. I appreciate you answering so thoroughly in a language not native to you. Your chit chat has me excited to dig deeper and learn more about the rich history of different Japanese musical styles! I will check out those videos and sink deeper into my growing showa era nerdom.

Thank you! Definitely could have spent more time on kayōkyoku, but that could easily be its own video. Exactly, one day you're listening to Plastic Love, and the next you're scouring eBay for Tin Pan Alley bootlegs at 4am.

@@CharcuterieSound If you feel like diving in to an artist's discography that you might've not heard of, I really recommend you try Hiromi Iwasaki. I've posted a few of her LPs on my channel (she has a vast discography). She did quite a few citypop gems in the 70s, then weirdly switched to a more "new music" vibe at the beginning of the 80s. She also did some collaborations with LA artists witch really double down on AOR and soft rock that's ever present in citypop (Wishes - coming soon to the channel; and I Won't Break Your Heart - already on there). Same with Ami Ozaki, whom collaborated with David Foster on two of her albums - Hot Baby and Air Kiss, both on the channel :3

I didn't recognize her name, but now that I've seen the album artwork for Wishes, I've definitely ran into it somewhere. That sounds fascinating though-new subscriber incoming 👌

@@CharcuterieSound Ahoy there, welcome on board! It's safe to say you've also gained a subscriber here after watching your videos, keep up the great work! :3

Thank you for your moving and courageously vulnerable comment. I can only speak for myself-and my own experience, but I've always found escapism in moderation to be a healthy coping mechanism. That being said, I can always tell when I'm slipping a little too far into fantasy. Connecting with the small pleasures in life has helped immensely, but I also try and remind myself that change and progress can be incremental, slow, and non-linear. Hope you're having a good week, you got this! Cheers!

​@@CharcuterieSoundThanks, by the way, I forgot to mention the fact that Yamashita played the guitar in Sato's "Say Goodbye", which could be the reason why that song has that "funkier" rhythm to it compared to the rest of the songs in the album.

Wow! I can't believe I didn't know that-I can totally hear it now!

Claro que sí👌

The first and last songs from this album are my favorite!

Right? There are so many artists I'd love to loop into my cooking playlists aha. Vinyl is the way for a lot of these groups, it seems-makes me wish I had lugged my record player when I moved abroad! That's actually one of the very first city pop albums I discovered! It's so groovy. I should have recommended it!

I'm not sure how much City Pop was influenced by that scene-but there's definitely a similarity there!

I'll have to check them out! Do you have any other Brazilian artists that the rest of the world should know about? I love Brazillian music, but I feel like an outsider, just scratching the surface.

Japanese people who like MPB pass by 😀 Brazil is the country in the world where the largest number of Japanese people live, other than Japan, so that may be another reason.🤔 Also, Ed Motta's album ``AOR'' released in 2014 was originally titled ``Adult Oriented Rock,'' which was coined in Japan to describe a genre such as Bobby Caldwell.😊

Thanks so much. Those kind words mean a lot at this stage! The train doesn't stop here, I should have a new video out this coming week. Really appreciate the early sub-won't forget it! That's funny-in my first draft, I had a bunch of J-Jazz fusion acts like Caseopea, Takanaka, and Himiko Kikuchi in the recos. I realized pretty quickly that those acts deserve their own video. I'll definitely do a follow-up at some point focusing on jazz fusion and funk!

That's too funny!

Guy has an almost perfect discography.

This is true, but some Japanese sources do start to use the term "City Pop" -especially later in the 80s. Seems to have started as a marketing term. Also, intrestingly enough, some sources I found from the mid 80s were still using the term Kayōkyoku to describe japanese pop music in general.

That's a cool idea! I have to admit, Korean and Japanese hip-hop is a blind spot for me-I've started to see more of it recommended though, so it's only a matter of time before I fall deep into that wormhole.

Thanks for the recommendation, as Christmas songs go, that one's pretty great! I'm not American, but I'm pretty sure the entire English speaking world has heard that Mariah song a few too many times...

Unfortunately, because of this platform's copyright stringency, I am prevented from playing examples of the music-which can result in a copyright strike. My hope is that with some insight and analysis, I can still add some value-Rolling Stone magazine is a notoriously quiet medium, but they still manage to talk about music in a compelling way! Still, I wish I could include even short audio samples with some peace of mind. Thanks for the comment!

Thank you for your perspective on that period! I find it interesting that disco died in the west, but continued going strong in some parts of Europe, Asia and Africa-even morphing into new more hybrid styles like Italo Disco in Italy. It's kind of like a parallel world where Disco Demolition night and "Disco Sucks" bumper stickers never happened!

@@CharcuterieSound I feel it evolved to a degree to techno.

Maybe-has the fast tempo, the four on the floor, and the party-all-night ambiance. I don't really know too much about techno's origins, actually, so I'll have to look into that!

You're the second person that's told me that they're hearing enka on City Pop compilations! Crazy world we live in.

@@CharcuterieSound lol, yeah, it's the series called 'City Pop', and there are different colours for each edition. I was like 'what the?!', and realized that maybe Japanese understanding of what is City Pop is not the same lol

Does the album artwork look like Gameboy game cartrages by chance? I just had a conversation with someone from Japan who was complaining about the exact same thing(enka on city pop compilations)! So I think the understanding is the same, but so are people willing to make a quick dime.

@@CharcuterieSound Not sure about game boy cartridge. It's actual name is 'City Pop Collection', and they're on amazon japan. There are 4 different volumes, each is a colour - red, orange, green and blue. Some of the volumes are better than others in terms of something resembling actual 'city pop' content. There are some other CDs with 'city pop' in the title that are really instrumental (e.g. piano) covers lol, but I used google translate to avoid those ones.

This guy knows his gear! Good catch! You do hear OB-8s and Linndrum stuff on Japanese pop tracks, but you'll definitely find more DX7s and the like. Thanks for the watch!

@@CharcuterieSound Very interesting video, had not heard of City Pop until about a year ago and I had no idea it had made a come back or the history so a really great watch thanks

Checked out each one. I've decided I'd like to live at studio tanta.

That's a pretty rare and expensive album these days(at least where I live), I'd hold on to that one! Jealous!

@@CharcuterieSound I'll hold on to it for sure don't worry !

I see your point. We are prisoners of the colloquial. The common understanding of City Pop has shifted a little, with some labeling 80s music from various countries as ______ City Pop. Although, it's worth mentioning that naming genres retroactively is nothing new. I think the City Pop moniker, as applied to other countries' music, is less about laziness and more about marketing on the part of the playlist uploader. Which is funny because the term City Pop began as marketing lingo. Personally, I chose to reference "Japanese City Pop" to add more semantic value for those new to this type of music. That being said, you'd never catch me being redundant. That being said, you'd never catch me being redundant. That being.... ;)

@@CharcuterieSound Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love your video... About 3 years and I created a FB group about Japanese music called "City-Pop and More Japanese Music Gems" with a Japanese friend who lived the Showa Era and had the chance to see live and meet some artists (Miki Imai, Yumi Matsutoya, amongst others) and we had to add the "only Japanese music" warning. Otherwise, it could happen like in other groups in which posts like "look guys, here's a compilation of Greek City-Pop!". Yeah, we're quite strict but that allowed the keep quality and give it a more Japanese perspective instead of just looking it from the Western point of view. Most of our top collaborators are Japanese, so I feel happy about it

That makes sense-moderating anything like that requires limits. Happens to me all the time when I think I've found a good bebop playlist, and then all of the sudden I'm hearing smooth jazz tracks.

I don't live in the USA, but you can definitely get a lot of this stuff on vinyl, cd, and, to a lesser extent, tape from internet retailers(although sometimes for silly prices). I've also heard that record stores in San Fran can be the best spots to find city pop records. But it's hard or impossible for some artists to buy digital copies. Thankfully, there are more artists that are putting their stuff on major streaming platforms these days - Takanaka has his whole discography on Spotify 🙌

Amor fati. My body pillow is in the mail.

Well... thank you! Not going to lie, I almost pinned this comment.

Amazing.

@@CharcuterieSound I'm japaese.Ami ozaki serenade single version listen thank you recommend for listening great sound quality through a headset.