By Madison Starr Basic History of City Pop:
After the end of World War II, Japan was occupied by Western forces, notably the United States military. With this occupation, Japan continued to rapidly Westernize, its culture becoming largely influenced economically, politically, and artistically by Western ideals (Gordon 1993). One tangible example of this cultural influence is City Pop, a Japanese music genre that began to blossom with inspiration from American soft rock, disco, R&B, and jazz (Zhang 2021). From the 1970s to the 1980s, this genre flourished in Japan, fostering a fanbase in Japan that never seemed to expand beyond the country’s borders. However, this has changed in the past few years as Western culture has suddenly become captivated with City Pop. Notably, within the last few years, there has been a rise in the use of City Pop in popular culture. From artists sampling aspects of existing popular City Pop songs, to producers completely reworking classic City Pop songs, to even the original songs seeing a resurgence in popularity, the Western public has developed a strong relationship with City Pop. Intriguingly, even though these songs did not thrive in the Western hemisphere when they were first written, the Western public now seems to associate this sound with the feeling of nostalgia.
Notable Songs:
“Plastic Love” by Mariya Takeuchi
“Mayonaka no Door / Stay With Me” by Miki Matsubara
“Dress Down” by Kaoru Akimoto
“Fragile” by Tatsuro Yamashita
Modern Influenced Songs:
“Loneliness” by Ginger Root
Cameron Lew, known as Ginger Root, infuses his entire discography, including "Loneliness," with subtle hints of City Pop. In a Texas Public Radio interview, Lew explains his deliberate use of this nostalgic Japanese music style in his current work. He aims to create a sense of nostalgia for the era of Japanese music it represents while crafting something simultaneously familiar and fresh, highlighting the distinct and resurging City Pop sound to convey this intention (Lew 2022).
“Nisemono roughly translates from Japanese as fake or fraud. The whole premise of the EP is that - what if Ginger Root was brought in to write a bunch of songs for an up-and-coming fake Japanese idol from 1983? And so I created this whole fake idol from this artist in Japan, and I pretended to write songs for her. And then she quits. And then, basically, I become the idol because she leaves the spotlight unexpectedly due to the stress of being, you know, an idol. And a deeper connotation with the album is kind of this idea of imposter syndrome and how to grow with it, how to deal with it and hopefully how to overcome it, which I'm still learning how to do” (Lew 2022).
“GONE, GONE / THANK YOU” by Tyler, the Creator
In “GONE, GONE / THANK YOU” by Tyler, the Creator, there's a noticeable similarity in the melodic cadence and sentiment to Tatsuro Yamashita's "Fragile." Tyler's lyrics, "Thank you for the love, Thank you for the joy," echo Yamashita's, "Thank you for your love, Thank you for the heart." However, the songs differ in vocal style and instrumentation. Tyler's vocals are more artificial and high-pitched, with a metallic drum groove, while Yamashita's is warm and resonant with a lighter drum groove. Despite these differences, the melodies are the same, invoking a sense of nostalgia, especially from Yamashita's version. The audience's connection to the interpolated lyrics from "Fragile" is a key source of this nostalgia. The Western audience's nostalgia for "Fragile" despite its late introduction in the Western Hemisphere, is more about an imagined sonic space than a specific historical period they experienced. This nostalgia is linked to the familiar sound of American 1970s/1980s popular music. As Svetlana Boym notes in "Nostalgia," the feeling of nostalgia does not have to relate to the actual past of an individual, rather, “it could merely be another time or slower time” (Boym 2001). Furthermore, when considering the historical origins of City Pop, it becomes evident that "Fragile" shares a strong auditory connection with American popular music. This connection allows listeners to associate with similar sounds and feel a sense of nostalgia for the American cultural vibe of the 1970s and 1980s.
Sources:
Boym, Svetlana. 2001. “Nostalgia | Svetlana Boym.” Accessed March 25, 2023. http://monumenttotransformation.org/atlas-of-transformation/html/n/nostalgia/nostalgia-svetlana-boym.html.
Gordon, Andrew. 1993. Postwar Japan as History. Berkeley : University of California Press. http://archive.org/details/postwarjapanashi0000unse.
Lew, Cameron. 2022. Ginger Root’s Cameron Lew wants his new EP to showcase city pop as familiar yet fresh. https://www.tpr.org/2022-09-29/ginger-roots-cameron-lew-wants-his-new-ep-to-showcase-city-pop-as-familiar-yet-fresh.
Zhang, Cat. 2021. “The Endless Life Cycle of Japanese City Pop | Pitchfork.” Accessed March 21, 2023. https://pitchfork.com/features/article/the-endless-life-cycle-of-japanese-city-pop/.
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