HOW JAPANESE CITY POP PORTRAYS NATIONALISM
Justin Au
Introduction To World Music 006
November 30, 2018
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During the late 1970s, a new genre of music emerged out of Japan known as city pop
(Onoda 2003). City pop was created as a fusion of multiple popular western genres at the time,
such as jazz fusion, R&B, soft rock, funk, and boogie (Jones, 2015). Even though city pop
combines the sounds of western music, it actually can be seen as a form of pride and nationalism
of Japanese musicians, which can be attributed to the economic prosperity of Japan in the 1980’s.
In the 1980s, Japan was extremely well off economically. The country was a huge leader
in technology, with companies like Sony, Panasonic, JVC creating revolutionary new products
such as the Walkman cassette player, the floppy disk, and the VHS tape. Along with these
products, Japanese car manufacturers such as Honda, Toyota, and Nissan also made plenty of
automobiles, and actually surpassed America as the leader in auto manufacturing. Not only were
these goods and products sold all throughout Japan, they were exported all around the world and
used everywhere. Even Japanese musical instrument manufacturers such as Korg, Akai, and
Roland were creating new electronic instruments such as the Roland TR-808 rhythm composer,
which was used to replace drums and other rhythm instruments (Encyclotronic), and the Yamaha
DX7, which was the world’s first digital synthesizer (Yamaha). The TR-808, the DX7, and many
other new instruments found their way into city pop as the years went on.
This economic growth carries over into city pop’s “big city” theme, because as the
economy grew, Japan’s big cities grew as well. Cities such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Yokohama were
soon filled with towering skyscrapers and became bustling metropolitans. In fact, the whole
genre of city pop was created at the same time Japan’s asset price bubble continued to grow, and
even died out when the bubble burst in the early 1990’s (Johnston and McAlevey 1998,
1107-1112). Simply put, an artist’s goal with the “big city” theme was to make you feel as if you
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were in one of these gigantic cities in 1980’s Japan. City pop artists were able to create this
feeling with the use of elements from western music in big cities, such as jazz tempos and jazz
instruments, along with combining them with the new electronic instruments developed by the
Japanese.
Combined together, the “big city” theme along with Japan’s booming economy can be
viewed as a form of nationalism, since Japanese artists were proud of how well their country was
doing. While artists did not directly sing about how great their country is, the entire genre of city
pop would never have existed if Japan had not hit this economic boom during the 1980’s.
According to “Popular Music Vol. 13, No. 2” (Shepherd 1994, 127), music and culture can go
hand in hand, and affect each other. This carries over into how Japan’s excellent economy had
affected the music being produced at the time to represent how life was in the country. Another
example of this taking place would be the popularity of sad blues songs in the United States
during the Great Depression. Clearly, Japan’s expanding cities during the 1980’s had an effect in
creating the genre of city pop.
One such song that provides a great example of a city pop would be “Plastic Love” by
Mariya Takeuchi, which recently blew up on Youtube, and has 24 million views as of December
9, 2018. First, the song contains the jazzy instrumentation commonly found in city pop songs.
This helps to create the metropolitan sound and the “big city” feeling that city pop is so well
known for. Lyrically, the song tells a story about Takeuchi not taking being in love seriously after
going through a breakup, hence the title “Plastic Love”. Translated lyrics such as “Love is just a
game, I just want to have fun” (Takeuchi 1984), emphasize this idea of not creating meaningful
relationships, which has become a prevalent theme even in today’s music. This theme can be
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seen as nationalism since it goes back to connecting to the whole “big city” theme. Throughout
the 20th century, the inability to love was a gigantic theme throughout literature, film, and music,
appearing in books such as The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, and the 1939 film Golden
Boy. These two books and movies share the theme of an inability to love among the characters,
with “Plastic Love”. Also shared is the fact that all 3 came out of or take place in big cities,
during an economic boom. The Sun Also Rises takes place in multiple cities, such as Paris and
Madrid, Golden Boy takes place in New York, and “Plastic Love” even makes you feel like you
were in a 80’s Japanese city. So, this whole theme, though quite negative, can be linked back to
the effects of these gigantic, wealthy, cities and the metropolitan lifestyles that arose within them.
Another key song to the whole genre of city pop would be “Say Goodbye” by Hiroshi
Satoh. Unlike “Plastic Love”, which consisted purely of typical jazz instruments, “Say Goodbye”
makes use of new Japanese instruments such as synthesizers, drum machines, and even vocal
modulation effects on Satoh’s vocals. The funky, electronic sounds help to define the 80’s sound,
along with providing a nationalistic theme. As mentioned previously, many of these electronic
instruments were being invented and produced in Japan, and the use of unique, new Japanese
instruments in a Japanese song just provide that sense of nationalism, whether it is noticed or not.
To conclude, the Japanese genre of city pop serves as a form of nationalistic music as it
arises from Japan’s economic boom during the 1980’s. Culture and society can affect the creation
of music by inspiring those who create it, and city pop provides a clear example of that
phenomenon.
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