In August, autumn has passed but it is getting hotter and hotter, it is not easy to get out of the haze of rainy days, but it has fallen into the vertigo of midsummer.
The sunshine after the rainy season is particularly precious, and on holidays, three or two friends drive out for a ride, go to the beach, go to the beach, trying to find the natural light and shadow of the summer. In the evening, I came to a bar, and the lights and wine indulged in hormones that could not be broken during the day.
When I returned home at night, sitting in the car half asleep and looking out the window, the night in the city was not dark, the pink neon shadow was refracted in the air, painted with a red halo on half of the sky, and the traffic in front of me was roaring by, and the trance was like a phantom traveling through time and space, returning to the old days of déjà vu.
Everything is beautiful but short, and before long it will really enter the autumn, there will be a trace of coldness, and you will no longer be able to smell the breath of summer, only in August can you grasp the tail of this summer and unleash the whims of the city.
The scene is like the dream world of City Pop: the charming urban atmosphere, unbridled, the summer BGM of the city belongs only to City Pop.
Why not just tonight, let's enter the world of City Pop, just plug in the headphones, ring the melody of City Pop, the city and the night belong to you.
1. Dream back to Showa: The soundtrack of the life of an urban beauty
Speaking of City Pop, many people are not unfamiliar, it has spawned a large wave of retro trend culture in the past decade, such as steam waves, such as nostalgic films and television, and then such as the sunset car of the fire in recent years.
Tropical greenery, blue sea, dreamy beach, retro flying car, and a little nostalgic distortion, relaxed holiday style, this is many people's first experience of City Pop.
City Pop originated in the golden age of Japan's Showa era, when the Japanese economy was booming, the bustling scene stimulated everyone's senses, and the open environment poured into a large number of modern cultural arts in Japan, giving birth to city Pop culture.
Tokyo in 1970
In those days, City Pop was more like a collective growth driven by the times, because a large number of musicians had similar backgrounds:
After the war, Japan followed the example of the United States, and absorbed a lot of new culture, both economically and culturally.
In particular, the US military stationed in Japan and the large number of Japanese in the United States have helped to spread a considerable amount of modern popular culture. Although Japanese rock was still in the stage of English cover at that time, it has developed greatly.
Thus came a new group of Japanese citizens, who grew up in such an environment and had more modern ideas and aesthetics.
A description of Hiroshi Kenshi's short story collection Rhapsody of hot dogs
When they grew up, it coincided with the "Kogayoshi Era" (the beautiful era that passed away), and Japan became an economic power with the efforts of its predecessors, and its material life was extremely rich.
They live in the heart of the city, have a worry-free economy, have a car and a house, and have a stereo sound, and they seem to be standing on top of the world, enjoying the best standard of living.
Young people in Japan's Coca-Cola ads in the 80s
These young people, who grew up listening to modern pop music, did not like traditional bitter folk songs, and pure Western pop music could not meet their actual needs, they needed the soundtrack of a new way of life.
As a result, young people in the new era began to explore the music of their own era.
However, this is not difficult for them, Japan has long established a mature modern music education system, coupled with the fact that they have heard from an early age, they have integrated Jazz, Funk, Disco, new Wave into traditional folk songs and rock music, creating a unique City Pop style.
The representatives of this are Haruto Hosono and Yamadata.
Haruomi Asano
Yamadachi Lang
2. Origins and Development: The Summer Revolution of the Young
Born in post-war Tokyo, Hosono Haruto did not come to a wealthy family, but grew up in a very liberal environment, and his grandfather was a piano tuner and often gave him modern pop music. In junior high school, he became obsessed with rock 'n' roll.
In 1969, he formed the rock band Happy End with Wing Ichi Otaki, Takashi Matsumoto and Shigeru Suzuki, when Japanese rock music was still in the stage of cover English rock music, Happy End broke through the stereotypes and tried to break the trend of wanton imitation in the music world.
In 1970, Happy End released the self-titled album Happy End, which gave birth to the first Japanese rock song, "Spring よ來い":
Although Happy End did not yet have a clear city pop shadow at this time, their pioneering Japanese rock creation had a huge impact on the later Japanese music scene.
In 1973, Happy End disbanded due to various contradictions. Soon after, Hosono haruto and guitarist Shigeru Suzuki went on to form the band Caramel Mama, which was later renamed Tin Pan Alley.
Their music is a fusion of jazz styles such as Fusion and Bossa Nova, with the prototype of City Pop: waves, adventure, and the atmosphere of nature.
But Tin Pan Alley is more like a music production team than a band, the band created and released its own albums, but also mainly supported the performance of various singers.
A large number of singers who debuted in the late 1970s have worked with them.
Tadashi Kosaka, Minako Yoshida, Myoko Okuma, Kento Yano, and Takao Minami, all of whom have a deep connection to Tin Pan Alley. Under their influence, everyone gradually developed a relaxed and pleasant musical atmosphere.
At the same time, the 20-year-old Yamadachi, Myoko Dasco and a group of friends also formed the band Sugar Babe, and sugar Babe emerged as an accompaniment band at the Happy End dissolution concert.
Yamadaburō, who was six years younger than Haruo Hosono, also grew up in Tokyo, and began to listen to modern music played on the radio when he was in middle school, and began to enlighten music.
Under his leadership, Sugar Babe incorporated elements such as Boogie, Funk, and chorus to create unique fusion music:
But at that time, this was a different kind of music scene, and it clashed with the popular folk style and hard rock at that time and failed to become popular, and even received a lot of criticism and slander.
The band released a record that would go down in history, Songs, an album that was avant-garde at the time, but the times didn't seem ready for it, and the work ahead of its time was not recognized.
It can be said that it was Tin Pan Alley, which was dominated by Haruo Minoro, and Sugar Babe, who was dominated by Hosono Haruo, in the mid-70s who created City Pop.
Coincidentally, both bands disbanded in 1976, Tin Pan Alley went their separate ways due to the busyness of the members, and Sugar Babe disbanded with the collapse of his record label, ELEC Records, after releasing only one single and album.
Myoko Ōsa began her solo career, unlike the summer atmosphere of Sugar Babe, when she tunes coldly and sings clearly, which is particularly charming.
Yamadachi, on the other hand, released two solo albums, Circus Town and Spacy, and continued to have music with a distinctly personal style.
In 1978, Hosono Haruo formed the Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO, Yellow Magic Orchestra) with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi, which ushered in the era of Japanese electronic pop and led to the rapid popularization of synthesizer music in Japan.
In this way, with the help of a group of young musicians, the relaxed and freehand city style first appeared in the Japanese music scene in the 70s, but the real popularity of City Pop was in the new 80s.
In 1980, Yamadachi released the album Ride On Time, which topped the Oricon Trust Chart. Officially ushered in the era of City Pop.
Through this album, Yamadachi defines City Pop in songwriting, integrating elements such as speeding cars, beaches, and coconut trees into the song, combined with a strong Funk/Disco beat, composing a refreshing and cheerful summer style, laying the basic impression of City Pop:
In the same year, Yamadaburō's later wife, Takeuchi Maria, also released Love Songs, which sold well with a song called "No Thoughts".
In 1981, Satoshi Terao released the album Reflections and the single "ルビーの指環" (ruby ring), which both won the album annual chart and the first place in the oricon album chart, winning the three major music awards in Japan, pushing City Pop into the mainstream of the Japanese music scene.
The lonely and cold adult masculinity in "Ruby Ring" was once popular with thousands of young boys and girls:
In the same year, A Long Vacation, another lead singer of Happy End and guitarist Otaki, released the album A Long Vacation, which defined the later City pop album design.
Hiroshi Nagai designed the album cover to complement the song content, blue sky, pool, palm trees, direct high contrast, so that the cover design later became the standard for City Pop.
Importantly, most of these City Pop musicians are composers and producers themselves, with strong creative ability, in addition to releasing their own albums, they will also write songs and produce albums for many singers.
In this way, from the following 1982 onwards, City Pop musicians mushroomed, and a large number of singers participated in the City Pop trend, both the song atmosphere and the cover design.
For example, Toshio Kakumatsu, Kengo Kurosumi, Hiroshi Sato, Momoko Kikuchi, Junichi Inagaki, Kiyoki Ikuyama, Naoya Matsuoka, and so on, and idols such as Seiko Matsuda, Yakuza Maru Hiroko, and Kikuchi Momoko have also begun to follow the trend.
Momoko Kikuchi
City Pop was also popularized by car audio technology, and in the mid-1980s car audio began to support the playback of tapes and CDs, so that people could play their favorite music on the go.
In this way, for a full decade from 1980, the City Pop genre became the brightest star in the Japanese music scene.
While City Pop wasn't the only popular trend at the time, for these young people with money and time, it was exactly what they needed. In the circle of urban youth, City Pop has become the most comfortable BGM.
It is worth mentioning that City Pop can not actually be called a musical style, it is not a strict genre term, but a broad atmosphere classification, is a general term for the Japanese 7 and 80s a type of music style, many musicians who are labeled "City Pop" are very different styles.
In general, the City Pop of the 80s can be roughly divided into two kinds, one is the daytime school with the visual impression of the beach, classic cars, and palm leaves, and the other is the night school with neon lights, extravagant nights, and red wine and green lights.
Daytime Summer Style City Pop creates a sense of coastal and beach holiday, blending R&B, Funk, New Wave, Jazz and other genres, highlighting the rhythm of drum machines, synthesizers, Funk, and throbbing BASS Line and Jazz-style guitar performances.
The nocturnal urban style is based on singing, traditional songs, rock and roll music, adding elements such as R&B, Synth-Pop, Disco, Funk, etc., focusing on Tokyo nightlife, depicting a curious night city feeling, and is the best soundtrack for dancing and going out for a ride.
They also reflect on the side the lifestyle of young people at that time:
Dazzling neon lights, noisy crowds, wandering private life, under the summer evening wind, driving a speeding sports car to enjoy the thrill of the holiday...
This is the environment that gave birth to City Pop, and young people under the economic prosperity listen to the music of Bashi and enjoy the leisure and optimism of life.
Unfortunately, the era that belonged to City Pop was beautiful and short-lived, and like all good things, it wasn't long before the City Pop era ended along with Japan's rapidly changing economy.
3. Decline and Resurgence: Bubble or Future?
In the 1990s, Japan's economy began to decline, and in August 1990, stocks plummeted, and the financial collapse brought Japan into the "Lost Decade" (lost decade).
City Pop has also flourished and declined, and while old-school musicians such as Yamadaji, Haruto Hosono, and Wing Otaki continue to create, the mainstream has stopped focusing on City Pop and replaced it with emerging idols and bands.
More importantly, Japan has woken up from a decade-long dream into a less optimistic reality.
Money can't buy happiness, but Japanese music in the '80s actually created a surreal world.
Income carefree, indulgent pleasure, big house, no worries, wrapped in your ears with soft satin-like gentle sound waves, you can almost hear the soft whispers of the times: "Don't worry, go play, everything is fine." ”
The new generation of young people, encountered a different world from their parents, their lives are no longer carefree, they are often troubled by life and existence, of course, carefree City Pop can no longer become the BGM of the new era.
On the other hand, City Pop's ebb and flow in the '90s can't be entirely blamed on the collapse of the economy.
After the 1990s, the electronic and hip-hop trends gradually emerged, and the styles of Funk, Fusion, Disco, boogie and other styles that make up City Pop are no longer the trendsetting of modern pop music, which is a new iteration of music evolution.
However, this also seems to explain why City Pop is still back in the picture today.
Nowadays, with more and more diverse music, stylistic boundaries disappearing, genres of music communicating and merging, and clear boundary classifications blurred, City Pop, which has done this for thirty years, will naturally attract people's attention.
City pop reinvents modern musical styles into new ambient music, jumping out of a single stylized limit, creating for scenes, atmospheres, a lifestyle and attitude to life, and branding the unique era.
Since more than a decade ago, people have begun to look for memories of the past from steam waves and nostalgic films, and City Pop has returned to the public eye, and more and more people are trying to find a record printed with waves, beaches and classic cars in record stores.
Although the era of City Pop has passed for a long time, for those young people born around the turn of the millennium, hearing City Pop for the first time has a feeling of déjà vu.
It is said that this is because City Pop was exported to the world with the prosperity of the Japanese economy and became a childhood accompaniment for millennials, who grew up to pursue this kind of music that existed in childhood impressions.
In fact, whether it is boom or bust, City Pop's optimism has never gone away, and many people still have a pure optimism in their subconscious: living in the present, enjoying time, and looking forward to a future of continuous innovation.
As Yamadahara sang in Ride On Time's "Daydream":
Daydream UH
Daydream You are like a dream
You can see it
Spray depicts rainbow-colored dance steps"
-To Be Contiued-
Raccoon Records will launch a full month of City Pop summer theme in August, the next issue we will introduce several City Pop artists in detail, if you like City Pop, for it If you have your own unique story and experience, or have a unique view, welcome to leave us a message in the background, tell us the story of you and City Pop, we will do an online sharing activity in the follow-up, and select one to send a mysterious summer vinyl record.