It ain't just Gen Z that's obsessed with this music. Old X'ers who were alive, but not exposed to it when it came out can enjoy it as well. Japanese pop culture (toys, games, anime) was fairly prominent even back in the 70's when we grew up, so the ground is fertile indeed for new fans of this fantastic musical movement.

Japanese City Pop gives you a nostalgic feeling of something you missed a long time ago, in a time you were not born yet. This is the most intriguing sensation I have experienced.

not only gen z I am a millenial. I've been into this music since 2014. It is amazing.

My mom was stationed in Okinawa in the mid '80s. I played her some of the CityPop playlists that I'd found online, and while she didn't recognize any specific song, she recognized the style and remembered that it was popular back then. While my mother and I have a great relationship, we don't have all that many common interests, so CityPop was a really unexpected but welcomed way for us to connect. I can say that Millennials were drawn to CityPop because that style of music was used in or had an influence on classic anime openings (see: "A Cruel Angel's Thesis"), so it's very nostalgic for those of us who grew up watching those shows.

Millenial here. Main reason why I'm into citypop is how the Japanese tend to be much more creative with their chord progressions than most mainstream western artists. You can hear the western jazz of the 50s and 60s play a major role in the sound as triads are seldom used as 7ths and extended chords are the norm in citypop.

I was one of the first to publish city pop videos in English with an account that was deleted a while ago (DanaWhite0). Back then people talked more about "japanese funk" than "city pop". And I've been obsessed with it since 2006, which is logical because I was raised with Japanese anime from the 80/90s which had a lot of that kind of music in the background or OP/ED (kimagure orange road, city hunter, yu yu hakusho, DBZ,...). But before you had to search a lot to find those obscure tracks (on forums, peer-to-peer softwares, blogs,...). It's not just nostalgic, it's very groovy and seems at the same time generic and unique. It's also very romantic...

My introduction to Japanese City Pop was from _City Hunter_ . The opening and ending songs are masterpieces.

As a Gen Z, I stumbled upon this through searching for obscure Japanese music in early 2017. I was undergoing depression, so anime and Japanese culture was great escapism for me. I value city pop songs for not only nostalgia factor, but how powerful yet chill the sound can be.

I'm honestly glad Tatsuro Yamashita was mentioned, his music is legendary and can be hard to find especially in a digital space. Which is why having an album of his is always handy

Citypop definitely gives off a cool nostalgia vibe

Everything sucks nowadays, but when I hear music like this it takes me to a place filled with hope and optimism. Like things are going in the right direction. Nostalgia for a time I never lived through.

Once I found it, I didn't want to hear anything else. Tomoko Aran, Anri, Tatsuro Yamashita, Toshiki Kadomatsu, Piper, Mai Yamane, Yurie Kokubu, Junko Ohashi, Junko Yagami, Taeko Ohnuki, Sugar Babe, Masayoshi Takanaka, Meiko Nakahara, just so much incredible music.

Look, here me out. City Pop literally saved my life. I'm not joking. When I was in college I had a pretty bad 2015-2017. I started off 2015 strong but I started experiencing early signs of depression in Summer that year. It got so bad by Fall that I failed two classes, and the quarter after, I failed Chemistry. Around 2016 was when I started listening to Future Funk. I had a few great college quarters but by Winter 2017 that depression happened again and I just couldn't... but it was 2017 where I listened to City Pop more as I felt I had become exhausted of good Future Funk songs. See, Future Funk and City Pop had this nostalgic feeling that kept my mood high. After I started going to another college (it was in a city)...you can guess what happened next. The next two years of my life were THE BEST. Gone were the days of me driving and studying in a depressing, unfulfilling environment. The highs I felt driving through Seattle listening to Tatsuro Yamashita or Junko Yagami were the peak of my mid 20s. I got my first job in Redmond after and it was also the same feeling too...the route going to Redmond from South Seattle College, and then Sparkle by Tatsuro Yamashita plays around 7 in the morning as you drive up towards a view of Seattle going up West Seattle Bridge Columbian Way during a dark blue morning...I can't make any of this up! I would also be tired all the in the morning so I often sang City Pop in my car. I'm 29 now. But when I look back at those years, it was truly magical.

Japanese City Pop just has a groove that not many other genres have. It’s fun and pleasant to listen to.

I'm 57yo right now. I fell in love with this genre of music since early 80s and still listen to it every day. Thanks to internet, I can find all the songs I once liked and discover other artists I never heard before.

As an early gen z (2001) i feel so drawn to city pop music because it makes me feel transported to another realm. a world full of neon lights, retro tecnology, joy, melancholy and true passionate romance. it's such perfect music that makes me escape from my unhappy reality and yet, keeps me yearning for the day i will live the life of my dreams. city pop playlists helped me sleep well during the anxiety-ridden reality of the pandemic.

As someone who’s been listening to Japanese music in general for years now, I’m glad other people are finally catching on. Not just city pop but Japanese music in general is so fire. The chord progression just hits different.

It's not a Gen Z thing. I was born in the early early 80s and I've heard bits and pieces of this music all my life. From listening to early works of guys like Joe Hisaishi/Hoshi Katsu, hearing some played in Chinatown and sometimes stumbling upon a western 80s song that takes influence from YMO or Yamashita without realizing it. It was always this type of music I knew existed, but never had a genre name to search for. Until about 7 years ago I stumbled upon a random mix on youtube. And the floodgates opened. The reason I like it so much is partially because I grew up in the 80s and 90s and it's similar to the 70s and 80s music I was hearing as a kid. But the bigger reason is, it's just more upbeat and features better compositions than most modern pop music. American pop music for the last 30 years has been downright depressing. And even most Japanese music post 2000 has a grunge/synth pop feel. And while the Japanese stuff is better than the American stuff it's imitating, it doesn't compare at all to the so called City Pop, which used every genre and style under the sun. One song will sound like bubble gum pop, then the next Bossa Nova, then the next is like a classical song, the next like a Euro Disco, then the next is a cover of a Beach Boys album. And all of that's just from one artist. Other artists were experimenting with other styles so you have endless variety. Big shoutout to Takanaka and Kikuchi. Anyway, my experiences and tastes aside, the reason I think it took off is the same reason anime did. A combination of Japan being open to spreading their culture and having the infrastructure to do it. A certain businessman is clearly trying to make KPOP take off in the same way. But one guy can only do so much. Compared to thousands of fans who organically found and shared city pop songs. If some other countries had been more open, the current craze might have had been Italian Disco or various styles of Brazilian music. But a lot of people are listening to music from those genres. They just happen to come from Japanese composers under the label of City Pop/Jazz/Funk.

It's more than Gen Z - I'm Gen X, and I am really digging City Pop, as well as retrowave. It's just that happy, mindless flow, I think. At least, for me.

I never watched Kiki's Delivery Service growing up, so a year or 2 ago I checked it out and discovered Yumi Matsutoya (or Arai depending on where you look) - Rouge no Denton The song plays on Kiki's radio as she flies in the beginning looking for a place to settle, such feel good vibes

City pop, vaporwave, retrowave, synthwave, etc. all have that retro flavor but also sound fresh too!

If you're from the Philippines, City Pop was famous here in the late 80s and 90s as overseas Filipino workers worked as musicians in Japan. Some of our songs were also renditioned from City Pop. That's our reality. We knew City Pop where nobody outside of Japan knows it.

It isn't just City Pop I would say, but Jazz Fusion as well with artists like Casiopea, Masayoshi Takanaka, and T-Square to name a few. Takanaka definitely at the top of my list for me at the moment, especially his tracks from Brasilian Skies, Seychelles, and The Rainbow Goblins. If anyone likes the music from Gran Turismo, I URGE you to look into Casiopea or T-Square

When you are already born (early 80s) when these music were released but now old enough to enjoy its resurgence.

When I started listening to city pop 5 or 6 years ago I didn't understand Japanese at all, but I loved the music. I've now been studying Japanese for 3 years, and living in Osaka for the last 2 years, and now that I can understand the lyrics, I have to say, City Pop has become even better. The strange thing is a lot of songs that I felt were fun dance songs turned out to be heartbreaking when you can understand what's being said. Understanding Japanese has given me an entirely different perspective on these artists I originally just considered to be pop stars, and has allowed me to look closer into the meanings of their songs. It's truly an incredible feeling to be able to understand the music after hearing it for so long.

Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed the City Pop journey🎶 Sadly, by playing these magnificent tunes, I receive no ad revenue from this video (looking especially at you Yamashita Tatsuro 😡). But hey, the party's still on at my newsletter (www.konichivalue.com/ ) where your support helps me spin tales of Japan's coolest parts and hidden economic gems! ❤

SOUL LADY by Yukika Teramoto is a fantastic modern take on the genre. The song is literally about moving to a new city and finding your way. She moved from Japan to South Korea, so the name is a pun. She has become a Seoul Lady!

The first song to gain popularity was Plastic love posted to KZfaq by “Plastic Lover” which has since been taken down. But in it’s prime was the most viewed city pop song on KZfaq. It was the extended intro version of plastic love with that classic Mariya Takeuchi photo we all know and love as the cover. For whatever reason, upon its posting, the KZfaq algorithm at the time continually recommended it to people and they liked it, and with new suggestions for them on the right side they clicked more and more songs and were suggested more and more and they kept listening. That sparked a large part of the viewing of city pop. 40+ years later we’re left with what I perceive to be only 2 new self proclaimed professional city pop artists on Earth, that being Ai Furihata and Kona Kateru, hopefully they will be the next spark that lights city pop up once again with a new generation of artists and a new breath of life into the amazing but yet stagnant genre, forever keeping city pop alive for generations to come.

I got into Japanese music years ago and it wasn't because it was trendy. The first two artists that really made me fall in love with it were Teresa Teng and Akina Nakamori. Then i branched out from there. Bought a lot from CD Japan and on vinyl. A lot of music not only from Japan but also Hong Kong and Taiwan was amazing throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Im a millennial and I have been listening to city pop since at least 2015. I started bc of vaporwave and wanting to find the source music used to make it. Love both genres as well as future funk. Have a few dozen citypop albums on vinyl to include much of Tatsuro Yamashitas work as well as Toshiki Kadomatsu and others.

I was born in 87 and I've been into this music since the early 2010s. I love 80s music but at this point I've listened to western 80s music a gazillions times. Japanese city pop feels both nostalgic and fresh.

I discovered City Pop during the dark times of Covid, I already had a certain passion for Japan but that was limited to Kurosawa films and the Tokusatsu series... So I discovered by pure chance on KZfaq the three artists who will be essential for my karaoke and solo evenings: Mariya Takeuchi, Miki Matsubara and ANRI. I already knew synthwave and vaporwave but city pop is authentic and nostalgic even though I'm only 23 and those aren't my years, everyone thought I was crazy at the time in fact in France city pop has done good for millions of young people but I can't find friends who admire this music. Currently I have become a big fan of Tatsuro Yamishita and Toshiki Kadomatsu, I frequently listen to Tomoko Aran and Momoko Kikuchi, I also listen to the group Saint Four rather j-pop I think. City pop allowed me to travel musically to Japan but this Japan of the 80s perhaps no longer exists, I frequently buy CDs and vinyls because certain artists prefer not to be on musical platforms which makes this music secretly unique. It transformed my life and I strive to introduce this music to my friends, when I listen to city pop I hover in the streets of Tokyo on a rainy evening with blue and pink neon lights, it's a permanent dream.

Thanks to youtube I discovered so many citypop songs that aren't available on spotify that I now love and listen to often. When I went to japan 2 months ago, I bought a vinyle of Junko Ohashi (magical) to bring as a souvenir :)

All of us are obsessed with great music. No matter how old your age is, good music is good music.

I first listened to Plastic Love back in 2017 before it was briefly taken down, then I visited Japan for the first time in November of 2018, then I listened to it again soon after returning and fell into the J-pop/City pop rabbit hole! I was listening to some Junko Yagami and my 10 year old nephew told me he liked that song and had no idea it was about 40 years old! I visited Japan again back in Spring of 2023, and this time had my 80's J-pop/city pop + synthwave playlist for the train rides, and it was sublime!

My wife just bought me Tatsuro Yamashita's For You album on cassette for Christmas. I've loved city pop for a few years now, and I'm glad that incredibly talented artists get to enjoy success and recognition from a new generation.

I love CityPop because I just love how it sounds. Its rythm, melody, Japanese language... Everything is so smooth for me

Two years ago a friend of mine at work introduced me to Japanese city pop music and ever since then it's been a fantastic ride. I've always had a love of movies and music from the the eighties, nineties or earlier. But when it comes to Japan I love Samurai cinema, imperial Japanese military songs, traditional music and city pop.

For me, it began when I heard Plastic Love on a youtube poop around 2016. I simply thought "This sounds nice", searched for even more songs similar to it and fell down the rabbit hole. Nowadays Momoko Kikuchi (especially her RaMu phase) is my favourite and no other genre hits the same. As other people have commented, it brings a feeling of nostalgia even if I've never lived during the times such songs were made

I believe the reason I’m personally into Japanese city pop is specifically because of my mom, she introduced me to 80’s free style music when I was younger, which has personally encouraged me to look around for older music and different genres.

This has been part of the broader nostalgia boom that's mounted for a solid 10 years now. The rise of city pop online was pretty concurrent with pockets of old school music as well as new styles that sampled or directly drew on classic genres, as seen with vaporwave and future funk. I don't think our generation really has any particular innate obsession with older things, but rather we have access. We have unprecedented opportunity to discover and take in art from any time and place in the modern era.

As someone who is 29 years old, who loved anime since 12 and Japanese culture since mid teens, who really does not listen much to Japanese music, I LOOVEEE 70's/80's/90's JAPANESE SONGS!!! PLEASE BRING THEM BACK!

"City Pop", good start...but to really understand the timeless zeitgeist, look at "Enka Pop", a phenomena from mid 1960-early 1980s JUST before City Pop emerged. Enka Pop represents a union between outwardness and inwardness, traditional and Westernness, old and young...that was the time where literally pop songs in Japan were designed to be enjoyed from a 4-5grade schoolkids to grandparents; from a street cleaner, truck drivers to CEOs, ministers/lawmakers...when 3-4 generation of families literally binge-watching NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen pitting their idols...

couldn't care less about the lyrics or how good they sing. those funky rhythms and groovy basslines is exactly what i'm here for

Millennial here. Its like synthwave for me. It reminds me of when i first started watching anime. It reminds me of when i first started watching grey market DVDs from japan. I always wanted more, and at the time, it just wasnt readily available. As a 38 year old adult, i now find many of my favorite types of media to have originated from Japan. I still need to visit soon

I'm 32 and YT started offering me this stuff about two years ago through the MF DOOM + Tatsuro Yamashita mashup album (go ahead, look). Someone commented on the first city pop album tried, "this music finds you when you're entering a new era in life." It was a bullseye: I had never seen or heard anything like it, and I was making big changes. I imagine Google picked that up by my searches & usage, and showed me something new. The right thing new. It's like positive vaporwave, but real primary source. Music with actual optimism to it. I love it.

For me, Citypop represents a time I long for in my own life. No worries, no stress, just thriving, joy, whimsy, and good times with good people. Lasting summer memories and peaceful spring nights, cityscape adventures with friends and new encounters with people who I didn't even think could exist. A time where hardship is hard to come by, and people are just content all around... The opposite of what we live in now, and music that captures that energy is like a portal to another world.

I just saw Ado here in Chicago the other night and she randomly covered "Stay With Me" and a ton of people knew the words and everything.

I was first introduced to City Pop when digging through samples of future funk and vaporwave music. I can definitely tell you its shaped my current taste of music!!

I love I can't stop the loneliess!

It gives you nostalgia for something you werent there for. Its a calm, sunshiney type of music. Not to mention it just sounds great and the vocals and ***BASS PLAYING*** is just incredible

My first introduction to city pop Stay With Me by Miki Matsubara. From there is was just a beautiful aesthetically pleasing rabbit hole. While I was born of the early 90s, I grew up with a fondness for 70s & 80s aesthetics. That never stopped. I never knew Japan's version of that "big city" feel would be so beautiful.

80s-90s Indonesian pop songs are also labelled as city pop. The popularity of it has risen significantly and some artists in Indonesia have tried to imitate the music of that era.

Anri - Heaven Beach, was my first city pop album I purchased. I have heard other songs like plastic love and stay with me but this was the first city pop album I listened too. It holds such a special place in my heart

I was born in 1958 and City Pop reminds me of the Quiet Storm radio format and music defined by the solo Smokey Robinson, George Benson, DeBarge, Luther Vandross, Anita Baker, Frankie Beverly & Maze and many others.

I gotta say, 80s and 90s city pop provides that nostalgic endorphine rush the way new-to-me anime did in the 90s. Also: Retrowave and OutRun.

What i like about citypop is that, as a guitar player, has very cool chord progressions and sounds dope to play.

I'm obsessed with old Japanese music, now I'm listening to tons of 70s Japanese albums, my favourite musician so far is Sadao Watanabe

Im gen z and I'm obsessed with 80s-,90s- music, especially city pop. Its so fresh.

I think "Anklet" by Toshiki Kadomatsu is my favourite song, but "Ocean Side" by Momoko Kikuchi is definitely my favourite album.

I really don't care about how old those songs are; they go hard.

Yamashita's spacy just makes me appreciate this absolute legend of a mans vocals.

I've been a huge fan of city pop since 2015-2016, and my favorite track I found about a year ago was Yoshino Fujimal's Pacific, off of his album Romantic Guys

City pop has such a resurgence because people are discovering that it's genuinely good shit. To think Mariya Takeuchi and Tatsuro Yamashita both had a huge hit when they wrote "Plastic Love" is amazing. Both versions are loved and appreciated, that's for sure. I think it's awesome that this genre has been brought back from the dead. It has a wonderfully, upbeat nostalgic sound with that air of sadness lingering in the background when it comes to the lyrics. You don't need to understand Japanese to appreciate this style of music, but when you do learn the language and come to figure out what each song means, boy does it hit hard. Great and informative video. Thanks for sharing this.

Nightcore is what got me into Citypop. Back around 2013-14 along with vocaloids so many of the classics were reborn, though I had never heard it before youtube. Listening to City Pop now makes me nostalgic for 10 years ago. I think the current trend I'm following is 4th wave of Visual Kei and Vtuber cover songs.

I think City Pop caught on because it gives this nostalgia, for what I call a modernity that was more modern than the actual modernity. It's a sort of lost future in a contemporary world that feels bleak. As someone else said in the comments it was City Pop that caught on, but there were other genres that gives that same sort of lost modernity vibe. In some alternate reality gen-z's are really into High Energy or Italo Disco or Deep House or... You get the idea

I stumbled upon City Pop around 2017 and ever since I’ve been completely obsessed! So many great artists and songs, so many emotions and moods. All the absolute best!

A millennial here, I’ve been listening to City Pop really since 2009 because of anime like Maison Ikkoku and Kimagure Orange Road but I wasn’t aware of the genre at the time but Artists like Anri and Mari Ijima were in my MP3 players roster but I really became a fan, became reborn in the genre in 2013-2014. It’s such a healing genre and makes me long for my teenage days back in the early 00s

Citypop fused and continues in its rebirth to fuse some really iconic musical elements, and has become a very fluid genre as a result. I don't see it as one type of music, so much as a collection of similar genres that all evoke nostalgia. Much as the likes of Steely Dan were a progression from classic jazz, Citypop was able to borrow from new sounds such as synthwave to move the jazz-derived sound forward. My parents happend to listen to jazz-type music when I was a kid, so citypop tickles my brain in a very similar way.

I'm a Xenial and discovered City Pop through Future Funk. While I hadn't any contact with City Pop when I was growing up, the genre influenced a lot of games and animes and that's why (I think) it seems like I already knew the genre and instantly fell in love with it. There are TONS of games influenced by City Pop (Yeah Starman Theme from Mario, I'm looking at you)! My favorite song is from the legend Tatsuo Yamashita - Love Talkin'.

I discovered City Pop back in 2017 through KZfaq since I was taking Japanese courses and then went to Japan and I was in Awe when I came across it while going record/cd/game shopping in Japan. This year I rediscovered it again and have been avid buyer of City Pop CDs, Vinyls since I have been collecting physical media all of my life! I have Miki Matsubara Pocket park album on CD/Vinyl, Chisato Moritaka- Almost all Studio albums even the most sought out 見て(MITE) album, and so much more. I'm so glad I have found City Pop it was a bit life changing for me kinda wierd to say the most but I def recommend everyone I know City Pop artists.

No lie citypop has lifted me up from my lowest lows for the fact that it can make me envision a future where everything will be okay and i’ll be listening to a citypop track while relaxing in my home while the sun shines on a beautiful world

This music just brings memories of good bright life and lifestyle Gen Z and Millenials never had and never will. To be fair Japanese people in the 80s might not have had it either, working 16 hours a day, but at least they lived in beautiful clean country with booming economy, future looked so bright in a way it never will again. Every business seemed to work, computers were magic, future seemed to promise more advanced and dignified civilisation than ever. Now we know that's not the case, wars will go, crisises will repeat and reality we know might well collapse during climate catasthrope and subsequent migration wars. Japan itself is a the very risk of self-destruction from imploding demographics and growing immigration. Not only we won't even have our own homes, we might well experience doom of our world during our lifetime.

I got into City Pop thanks to Future Funk back in 2015, and loved that stuff. I'd gotta say that my favorite piece of music is the entire "JOY" Live Album by Tatsuro Yamashita, the GOAT of GOATs, because it's a compilation album of his best songs, but each of them gets a bit of a live variation and addon that makes them even better.

I'm 41 yo, and I've always loved R&B, Funk, Fusion and Disco. City Pop fits perfectly in my music preferences.

some of favorite city pop songs are Magic Ways, Shyness Boy, Last Summer whisper, Plastic love, Stay with me, 4:00 AM, Flyday Chinatown

Main reason I got into city-pop was because of rap aesthetics, phonk & TikTok audio edits about them hits from the Japan 80s, not so much of vaporwave or future funk which odviously was around the 2010s, but once I heard the like of lilbubblegum sampling Night sky earring’s or 1only sampling stay with me mixing with their rap style with anime, egirls & aesthetics edit vid as background or phonk artist doing the same, idk something about it as Gen Z grew nostalgia on me despite not living the 80s,90s or 2000s y’all heard, but it was that eerie feeling of once living those moments in either my past life or just having a connection to citypop as a whole Than just a Gen Z trend ova TikTok, as long as gen alpha don’t ruin our moment , all good fr

What are the animated characters at 2:14 from? This video was a fantastic watch and I loved the music, and these characters stood out in particular!

Gen Z will be obsessed with Zuiikin English exercise from Japan in the 90s next.

been listening to Japanese City Pop since the 1980’s. My aunt who works in Tokyo as an entertainer bring home numerous tapes of Japanese pop music.

what's that movie at 1:19? asking for a friend

"By The End of Century" by the AB's (1985) is pretty good I enjoy that one.

I was into city pop when I was 12 as a Gen z I was considered the weird kid, but I was amazed by how they made these songs 😌👏

one of my favourite japanese city pop is i can't stop the loneliness. man it's so good, like damn, how did you make that kind of beat and music??? and then i found out that the composer is the same with miki matsubara's Stay with me which is my all time fav

I love City Pop!

City Pop is a genre of Japanese popular music that was popular in the 1970s and 1980s. It is characterized by its upbeat and catchy melodies, funky basslines, and smooth vocals. In recent years, City Pop has experienced a resurgence in popularity among young people, particularly Generation Z. There are several reasons why Gen Z is obsessed with 40-year-old Japanese songs, including: 1. Nostalgia: Many Gen Z individuals were introduced to City Pop through social media platforms like TikTok, where these songs have been rediscovered and shared among younger generations. The nostalgic and retro sound of City Pop appeals to Gen Z's desire for nostalgia and escapism from the fast-paced, digital world of today. 2. Diverse Influences: City Pop is known for blending elements of Western disco, funk, and soul music with traditional Japanese melodies and instruments, creating a unique and eclectic sound. This fusion of genres and cultures resonates with Gen Z's appreciation for diversity and global influences in music. 3. Accessibility: With the rise of online streaming platforms like Spotify and KZfaq, City Pop music has become more accessible to younger audiences who may not have been familiar with it before. The ease of discovering and sharing music online has helped City Pop reach a new generation of listeners. 4. Aesthetic Appeal: The aesthetics of City Pop music videos and album covers, characterized by vibrant neon colors, retro fashion, and futuristic imagery, align with Gen Z's fascination with retro and vintage aesthetics. The visual appeal of City Pop adds to the overall allure of the genre for younger listeners. 5. Timelessness: Despite being several decades old, City Pop music has a timeless quality that resonates with listeners of all ages. The catchy hooks, smooth vocals, and infectious rhythms of City Pop songs have a universal appeal that transcends generational boundaries. Overall, the resurgence of City Pop among Gen Z can be attributed to a combination of nostalgia, diverse influences, accessibility, aesthetic appeal, and the timelessness of

you are missing the crucial aspect of how it became popular. It was the KZfaq algos. I literally saw the old upload of Taeko Ohnuki - 4AM recommended to me in 2016 Dec 16 which had like 500 views 1 week before then. It went to 200k views in under a month (back then you could check view count history). It was all algos. I am so happy that the algos just decided that this music is cool. The video now has 13m views.

I'm 45. Always loved that kind of music. Before knowing it was called "City Pop"...

Love the new renouncing of pop music the kids have great taste

This is happening only outside of japan anyway, japanese GenZ doesn't care much about city pop

I got introduced by my College's radio. They put an Akiko Yano song from her earlier albums when her music consisted on her singing along to a piano. But sounded interesting to me. And listening to some albums I stumbled into what became my favourite city pop song ever: "ラーメンたべたい". A song abut her wanting to get some ramen, but a City Pop masterpiece. And then youtube started recommending me Future funk and City pop

Man, we just long for the good times we never experienced

heck, not just J-pop, but K-pop also as of lately utilizes a lot of city pop

A lot of people said that 80s Japanese city pop makes them feel nostalgic/reminds them of the memories that never existed but don't know why. Honestly I don't believe that's because it got some kind of magic or anything like that, but rather you most likely have really heard it or at least the sounds like it somewhere before, such as from Dragon Balls, Doraemon, Sailor Moon, Ranma 1/2, Yatsure Urusei, Kimagure Orange Road, Maison Ikokku, Regular Show, GTA Vice City, Nintendo games, movies, commercials,... or from the same type of music that your dad usually listens to. So yeah, mystery solved I guess!

It all started with future funk from the Artzie channel repopularizing these songs. At first it was heavily remixed versions that were good, but eventually it became a full throttle transition to just listening to the originals. I'm a millenial and this was back in like 2015-2016 during the vaporwave era. This occurs here at 2:47. This was an Artzie future funk upload and was not the original song. The Artzie composites of anime loops with future funk city pop tracks was a big influence on the resurgence in popularity.

I actually lived in Japan in the 80s, so this is more full circle for me. I loved this music back in the 80s, and love seeing it reach a new generation of listeners today. I've been listening to it for almost 40 years, and get a kick out of seeing it show up now on KZfaq.♫♪

the same reason why we're obsessed with 50 year old rock songs, it's good music

Better music from better times.

i just LOVE Dress down by Kaoru Akimoto. Her singing never fails to give my goose bumps even after listening to it 100 times. Truly a masterpiece

Let’s just say these songs will never fizzle out, no matter what generation you are. I would still love these songs no matter how many years have passed :)