Everything from American pop, French songs, Italian music, tango, to jazz. Her family loved music, as they would listen to records from all over the world. To understand how much of a career she’s had, we have to start at the beginning.īorn in 1955, Takeuchi grew up at her family Inn, the Takenoya, in the city of Izumo, Shimane Prefecture, along with her six siblings. And the worst part about it is that everyone seems to focus on that one song by her when she has made a variety (no pun intended) of other music throughout her career. For an event that pretty much exploited the heck out of Mariya’s iconography, even naming the event after her song, you would think that they play more than one song by her.they did not.
They played songs that every City Pop enthusiast has heard a hundred times over already, the most notorious example being Plastic Love by Mariya Takeuchi. The amount of actual City Pop songs they played I can count on one hand, on top of that the songs they did choose, you can easily just find yourself with a simple YouTube/google search. Now don't get me wrong, the event was a blast, I’m not going to pretend that I wasn’t dancing my butt off, however in hindsight, the music selection wasn't what I was looking for. The event itself was called “Plastic City”, an obvious homage to a certain poplar YouTube sensation where for one night only, you can dance to City Pop and other retro 80's J-pop. Enjoy the recommendations! 1.I was at a party a few months ago in Little Tokyo, Downtown LA. This is now a fond inside joke of ours but I thought I would share a couple of the songs somewhat inspired, even if a little bit, by “Plastic Love.” I feel I should mention: This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, serious research. We concluded his current favorite tracks sounded too similar and we discovered the red thread connecting them all was Takeuchi’s popular hit, as Friday Night Plans’ cover softly played in the background. “I couldn’t find any song in my library that would nicely flow to and from,” I said. This realization happened while we were driving south of Kanagawa Prefecture for a weekend day trip, as I explained to him that I found it impossible not to group his songs together at the beginning of the playlist. Before Matsubara though, it was Mariya Takeuchi’s “Plastic Love” that went viral on YouTube in 2018.Īnd my boyfriend loves “Plastic Love.” In fact, he loves the song so much that any recent releases he enjoys enough to add to our collaborative Spotify playlist, we realized, vaguely exude the “Plastic Love” nostalgia of the ’80s (despite my boyfriend being a ’90s baby, but I have learned to not challenge him on that). Just as recently this past January, Miki Matsubara‘s “Stay With Me” was at the heart of a leading trend on Tik Tok and Instagram.
In Japan, the last five years have seen a rise in new music inspired by the ’80s, especially city pop. With the millions of tracks at our fingertips, millennials and boomers alike revisiting their high school favorites, up-and-coming artists have the largest pool of inspiration in human history at their disposal. This is a common occurrence when listening to music, especially of the pop genre. It’s like a tickle in the brain, when you hear a song for the first time and there’s something that sounds familiar.