CITY POP e a saudades do que não vivemos

When night falls, the city lights come on. Plastic loves, melancholy, loneliness, cat eyes, neon night. What do all these things have in common?

Today, I start making a series of videos that I've wanted for a long time. Welcome to the first episode of Neon Machi, where I'm going to talk about City Pop. Hi hi, I'm Henry, filmmaker, publicist and I love City Pop.

Even a few years ago, I produced a lot of content about it on media platforms . vertical videos. I had several videos breaking down different artists and I always thought about trying to bring this to YouTube, trying to better explore what the theme is, how this genre became popular, you know, and this here is the first episode of this project where I will bring several videos about it.

If you are interested in City Pop, if you already liked this theme, leave your like, subscribe to the channel and comment here which artist you want me to talk about in the future, what is your favorite City pop song. After all, I believe that City Pop, in addition to being a musical movement, greatly reflects the cultural movement as a whole at the time. Not only in the melodies, but in its lyrics and themes and even a reflection on youth.

So, I think it's interesting, in this first episode, that we understand what the genre is and also what cultural impacts it had and who were responsible for starting it. So, without further ado: ready to go to the 70s? Japan at that time was going through a very traditionalist era, in music and in culture as a whole, you know.

They were trying to recover traditional pre-war values , that classic Japan. They used the image of the samurai a lot. They promoted the honor thing a lot and obviously, in music, it was no different.

So one of the very strong musical movements there was Enka. But, obviously, Enka was very much considered an old thing. So what happened?

The young people came. After all, as Albert Camus said: With a technological boom and very strong investment from the United States in Japanese technological creation and production, it was possible to see a very large movement towards the westernization of their culture. Since the 60s, with the Beatles' show in Japan, or even in the 70s, with the Runaways performing a classic show there, this inspired many generations of artists later on.

And so two bands were very important for this pre-movement , Happy End and Tin Pan Alley. Together, they began to follow the path of Japanese rock. While, on the other side, New Wave Music emerged, with names like Yumi Arai.

With what is known as the Japanese economic miracle, or also called The Capitalist Bubble, because, obviously, we are talking about technology, but there were also many disadvantages during that period. This is how people had more access to synthesizers and electronic guitars, and this fostered a new generation of musicians. And so a lot of music began to be consumed, such as jazz, disco, AOR and even bossa nova, and all of this, with a little bit of classic funk, ended up inspiring a band: A Sugar Babe.

The band lasted between 73 and 76, releasing only three albums and they were very important for music. In this band, we have had very important names, such as: who, to this day, is known as the king of City Pop, and: who has this wonderful song, which is a classic. And their album Songs is considered the first city pop album.

Of course, if I start talking about order here Chronological history of all the albums, this video is going to be huge. So, I want to focus now on the movement, the theme and the sound. Why are City Pop's songs so relatable in their lyrics, especially with the current generation?

Throughout the 80s, the city streets were used as inspiration for the genre. Luxury living, branded clothing, clubbing and art were the main contributors to City Pop. Even though there was no social network in those years, its popularity grew thanks to the spread of car stereos, opening up space to create a collective image of neon colors, large buildings and even the movement of the night.

As the workload increased a lot at that time, as it does today, it seems that the only entertainment for those young people were quick banal nights on the weekend. So, quick flirtations, the night lights, a lot of the lyrics were about this nocturnal lifestyle. It was a time for young people to let off steam, so we have a lot of themes, like one-night stands, quick flirtations, romances that go wrong.

well what young people go through at that time. But, at the same time, there was a certain melancholic tone in his lyrics, after all, the next day everything would be the same again. So, sometimes you fall in love one night, you go knock on the person's door and everything ends while you ask them to stay with you.

But others already said that they were tomboys and that they wouldn't want to settle down with a guy and that they didn't need to settle down with her. So, it's ironic that the song that popularized the genre was Plastic Love. But what was the exact impact of Plastic Love?

Mariya Takeuchi was a City Pop icon, you know, that face that was well fixed in a video that became popular on YouTube in 2017. A user on the network uploaded the song Plastic Love. The user's name was Plastic Lover, and, out of nowhere, the algorithm started recommending the video to absolutely everyone and, curiously, even after thousands and thousands of views, for completely random reasons, the original video was removed off the air due to a copyright issue, basically, but that's another story.

But curiously Plastic Love was not successful at the time. The album Variety wasn't even Mariya Takeuchi's biggest hit album. We had, a few years later, other songs of hers were very successful.

At that time, Variety was already produced by her husband, Tatsuro Yamashita, but this pearl was hidden there ready to be rediscovered. And this song has these lyrics that summarize a lot of the genre. It was a very important song and the most intriguing thing is how it relates to young people today.

Many who listen to city pop talk about the nostalgic feeling of listening to the songs, even though they have never heard them in their lives. They have that memory as if it were an internal and melancholic thing stored inside them. After all, we are experiencing a capitalist boom to this day.

He is dominating the world, undermining all the spaces we have. So, we get caught up in this banal fun in a certain way, to feel alive, just like these artists felt in that chaos of the technological Boom. At the same time, it had the advantages of access to technology, just like we have nowadays, after all we are talking here on the internet, but we also have this melancholy of.

. . We are just talking, in the early hours of the morning, he knows.

And, at the end of the 70s and beginning of the 80s, many artists, who will most likely have videos soon, made their name in City Pop. Anri, Tomoko Aran, Taeko Onuki, Junko Ōhashi, and obviously Miki Matsubara. The two songs that helped to greatly popularize the genre were Plastic Love and Stay with, me by Miki Matsubara.

But Stay With Me was a huge success at the time, there were several versions, they called Miki directly to sing on programs, but her story will also be included in its own video very soon. In the same way that I'm only going to mention here Yamashita's album Ride on Time, which was an extremely important album and it's ironic how the opening song and title of the album was the theme for Sony Walkman commercials, the which helped much more to popularize and merge these two themes of technology, youth and melancholy. I usually say that city pop is almost an accidental miracle.

It's a good thing that it went viral, it's a good thing that many people rediscovered different artists, popularizing more and more songs, unearthing and making different remixes like Young Bay or even Night Tempo, which also deserve other videos about them. And the genre went so viral and was so rediscovered and connectable with the new generation that recently even singers like Yuki, who is a Japanese singer who was raised in Korea, debuted making songs in the city pop style. And it's also worth saying that we have many creative and different stories in this.

We had a Brazilian singer who was very successful in Japan: Carlos Toshiki, who replaced a singer in the band Ômega Tribe and released the best pun in Brazilian/Japanese music, which was Kimi Wa 1000%. So like, soon I really want to talk about him too. Not to mention that, even though it is not official, there have been movements very close and similar to city pop around the world, which includes Brazil as well.

Not because of the same theme, not because we had access to Japan, but we had a lot of songs that addressed this theme. Sandra de Sá herself with Pela Cidade or even Marcos Valle, with their synthesized rhythms. So, anyway, there is still a lot to talk about this.

The youth of this capitalist chaos unfortunately does not change. So, it's very funny and curious that we are always reconnecting with city pop. City pop had a meteoric passage in history and it seems that it only came back after a long time to be valued.

With a whole new generation that is interested in the style, the message, coming together as a thought, a love, a refuge. He brings comfort in a way, he hugs us, he brings affection and even a necessary melancholy. So, it's very curious, in the middle of 2024, to see so many people united, singing the same song.

- You! Anyway, guys, this was the first episode. This is a pilot.

I don't have any other recordings, but I have a lot of ideas. I hope you enjoyed this one. .

. This endeavor of mine to record in the early hours of the morning, just to show buildings. Ah, the charm of capitalism.

Overall, that's it. If you liked it, leave a like, comment here on your favorite city pop song and I hope to see you in the next video. Henry out.