Designing a Tradition: Flyers, Vinyl, and the Quiet Rhythm of the Japanese Arts Foundation. My 4 years of designing gala flyers and DJing at each one.
Before the glow of City Pop reached American shores, and before Japanese jazz collectors started digging in bins across the Midwest, there was a different kind of translation happening. A quiet one. One that lives in a trio of archaic characters: 市俄古.
This is how “Chicago” used to be spelled in Japan.
In this special discussion, artist/designer Manabu Koga is joined by music writer Ryusei Miyakodori and art critic Kiyoshi Kusumi to explore the global revival of Japanese City Pop. Once a niche genre tied to Japan’s 1980s economic boom, City Pop has found new life among international audiences, particularly in Southeast Asia. The panel reflects on how its nostalgic aesthetics—ranging from palm trees and red cars to neon-lit skylines—evoke a retro-futuristic vision deeply influenced by American 1950s West Coast imagery.
Discover how Japan's city pop revival sparked a new wave of bilingual J-pop, with artists like CHAI, Fujii Kaze, Miso Extra, and Hitomitoi blending English and Japanese lyrics. Explore the global rise of neo-city pop, Coachella crossovers, and the algorithm-driven nostalgia reshaping Japan’s music scene.
An historic interview with the legendary producer of Mayonaka no Door/Stay With Me, by Miki Matsubara. I go in-depth with one of Japan’s most iconic and influential figures in music.
2023 is set to be a record year for City Pop with Anri releasing some of her most iconic albums, finally giving fans an affordable option to obtain her music in physical format.
I often lay on my bed at dusk, looking up in my dimly lit room to watch the fading light stream through my curtains while listening to city pop. It's like therapy in a way. It teaches me that no matter what happens during the day, the sun is sure to set again, and I'm forever bound to this celestial movement that governs the cycles of night and day. I find some kind of comfort in this trivial yet profound phenomenon.
2023 is set to be a record year for City Pop. From Anri getting a feature on CNN, to the huge news that a certain king of City Pop is having his entire RCA/AIR years discography repressed. Ofcorse, we’re talking about Tatsuro Yamashita. The significance of this repress event cannot be understated due to how crazed city pop vinyl collectors are when it comes to Tatsuro vinyl. The cream of any collection almost always includes a copy of For You, Spacy, or Ride on Time.
Barber Beats are simply a sub-genre of the micro-genre Vaporwave, or a spin-off, whatever. It was coined by Aloe City Records to refer to Haircuts for Men, who is often credited with popularizing the style and aesthetic. The sub-genre as an established style began gaining notoriety in early 2022, making it one of the newest iterations of Vaporwave.
City Pop, the sound of metropolitan Japan in the 80s has now become more widely known than a few years back. Its magical melodies and sincerely funky rhythms have already captivated millions of people, creating a surge in popularity for many iconic Japanese artists. Even though the world has already become enamored with the most notable of City Pop artists, there exists a plethora of Japanese musicians in the genre that are catching their second wind now that Japanese record labels are starting to re-press
Ah, feel that Yokohama breeze! The azure horizon sparkles in the distance as the ocean whispers its crescent waves coalescing onto the sandy shore to meet your toes. The crystal blue waters look like glass and as you breathe in deeply you feel the kiss of the sun peaking through a perfectly white cloud atlas as you exhale deeply, finally. Summer is here…
For the past 5 years I spent much of my life trying very hard to promote Japanese City Pop music, often neglecting all other facets of my life. I wanted so much to help spread this music that had been left in a state of neglect when I found it. I found a purpose in playing the music and making mixes to spread awareness of these Japanese artists who deserved a bigger audience than they had. Discovering Japanese artists brought a sense of meaning to my life after years of floating around in the Vaporwave scene searching for a deeper understanding of the world we live in.
Vaporwave in 2021 is a bit of a quagmire. Almost everything that can be said about it has already been written or blogged about somewhere online since its early inception around 2010. Countless articles will flood your search pages all theorizing on either the intense faux-philosophical undertones of the music or some pseudo-intellectual analysis of the artwork that permeates the genre like a parasitic neon haze that suffocates your eyes.
City Pop is a nostalgic genre of music for many people in the West for several reasons. Firstly, City Pop was popular in Japan during the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, a time when Japan was experiencing a period of rapid economic growth and cultural expansion. This era is often referred to as the "Bubble Economy" in Japan and is remembered as a time of great optimism and prosperity.
Miki Matsubara is a Japanese singer, songwriter, and composer who has become one of the most well-known artists from the country in the same fashion as Mariya Takeuchi, whose songs are finding a new life after being re-discovered by international audiences overseas that have come to adore the nostalgic mystique of the singer.
Hideki Saijo was a famous Japanese music and television star who drew comparisons to Elvis Presley for his passionate stage persona that defied traditional Japanese preconceptions about music performance. His real name was Tatsuo Kimoto born on April 13, 1955, in Hiroshima.
Depression. A condition many people can instantly relate to. So much of life can be consumed by a never-ending merry-go-round of emotions that lifts us up high only to drop us back down to the rocks below. The tide of time sweeps us into the waves of our subconscious feelings, and it Tokyo-drifts us deeper into the depths of another state of mind. Music has always been that lifeboat on the horizon, waving lights, attempting to locate me in the disaster of whatever temporary trauma caused the annihilation.
Artzie Music was hit with multiple copyright strikes by an agency called ShoPro otherwise known as Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions Co., Ltd. A Japanese production company and a subsidiary of the Japanese publishing group Hitotsubashi Group. The YouTube channel received several violations at once prompting the Google-owned video platform to issue a termination date set to October 27, 2020.
Contemporary City Pop aesthetics are at the intersection of Vaporwave, Future-funk, and Retro Anime design ideologies. Generally a combination of re-occurring motifs combining 80s style-tropes mixed with Japanese sensibilities, pastel colors, and scenery involving city life along with similar concepts.
Korean City Pop is 1970s and 1980s inspired contemporary music re-imagined through the lens of a fictional past of the country’s history. Korean City Pop is pioneered by famous K-Pop stars and many in the indie scene there have also adopted the style adding their unique perspective on the music. While not enjoying the same bubble economy that Japan was experiencing at the time, Korean artists and producers show an acceptance of the style as a legitimate musical movement that focuses on retro elements both Western and Eastern.
In every genre there are albums that exemplify the sound, and City Pop, while more loosely defined than others, still has a distinctive style that is recognizable to those who know what to look for. The checklist for City Pop almost always includes a fusion of two or more elements from genres like Funk, Jazz, Pop, or Disco crowned with English chorus sections, blaring instrumental solo, and warm production quality.
They say things only cost what people are willing to pay and nothing embodies the spirit of that saying more than a very elusive and revered album by a 1980s Japanese singer named Junko Ohashi. We explore why this album specifically has garnered almost a holy grail status among fans of the genre and how City Pop records are becoming cult objects.
A lot of people ask me this question seeing as I have a collection of over 200 City Pop records and know a thing or two about record stores in Tokyo. I've put together this guide to help you plan your trip to Tokyo better...
A closer look at the recent copyright takedowns issued by Tatsuro Yamashita, and others, and the war on the online content creators that helped bring City Pop into the global spotlight 40 years after its heyday.