It is that time of the year again! The weather outside is frightful, and social media feeds are filled with everyone’s Spotify Wrapped.
You’ll find people spreading the holiday cheer by yelling into the void: “No one cares what you are listening to! Stop spamming!”
Yeah, ok buddy, no one cares about you either.
Some things never change – but something was different for me this year.
My “top genre” was a genre I don’t listen to (aside from the occasional classics like like Mayonaka no Door).
Similar questions were popping up for my friends. We were all ranking for “City Pop”… without listening to City Pop at all.
The Mislabeling of “City Pop”
If you don’t know me yet, my favorite genres are jazz, funk, R/B and soul. Japan has a long, deep history with loving jazz. Even your favorite modern J-pop songs, like the ones you see used for anime openings, have their roots in jazz and use soulful chords.
Thanks to this, Japan produces a ton of (amazing) groovy songs from young artists and new bands.
City Pop’s Origins
City Pop is a genre that started in Japan, also born out of a love for groovy music. The sound captured a short-lived movement in the 80s. And, it didn’t have major long reaching influence within Japan after dying out within a few years.
A historian recalls “many people who grew up with this kind of music considered it as cheesy, mainstream, disposable music, going so far as calling it ‘shitty pop‘.”
The West’s Revival
City Pop saw new light thanks to the online vaporwave and future funk craze of the early 2010s. Fitting into the 80s modern aesthetics perfectly, City Pop was shared around until it went viral in English speaking spaces. Eventually the revival reached back to Japan, but not nearly in the same magnitude as it went viral overseas.
That’s the beauty of sharing cultures. What originally started as a movement influenced by lovers of American yacht rock, was later revived by Americans in love with the 80s Japan… who was in love with the USA. A full circle, and all is right with the world.
But no where there did I see the memo demanding ALL groovy music in Japanese be called “City Pop”.
Because it isn’t. You wouldn’t put death metal in the same basket as pop punk.
It’s like comparing Black Sabbath to Green Day. Imagine Dragons to Megadeath. Machine Gun Kelley to Nirvana.
So, why does Spotify want to call all Japanese music “City Pop”?
If you’d like to think about it with me, I shared a list of some of my top funky picks. A few of them this year include:
And, just for fun, here’s a baby Fujii Kaze covering Virtual Insanity. Not so City Pop, huh?
Did my rant sound just as annoying as the angry naysayers? The ones who write essays telling people to stop sharing their Spotify Wrapped?
Sigh. Maybe I need some holiday cheer too.
I’ll go listen to my favorite FUNK music then.
Happy Holidays guys, and stay warm! ❤
Until next time.
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