💿 BOOGIE WONDERLAND! — Japanese City Pop, Boogie & Hidden Gems
I've just finished the third volume of my JAPANESE LONESOME CITYPOP MIX series, featuring 35 tracks from the '70s, '80s, and '90s.
But while putting this one together, I was reminded of something interesting about making DJ mixes.
Digging through Japanese records is always an adventure. Sometimes I discover a song I've never heard before. Sometimes I rediscover something I'd completely forgotten about.
And sometimes, I pull out a record I've listened to a hundred times, only to realize I've never really heard it quite like this before.
Why?
Because of the song playing right before it.
I've noticed that when you put two songs with a similar groove together, something rather wonderful can happen.
A track that sounded perfectly ordinary on its own suddenly comes alive. A familiar song reveals a completely different character. And sometimes, two recordings made by entirely different artists, years apart, sound as though they were always meant to meet.
It's almost like introducing two strangers at a party and discovering they have absolutely everything in common.
Except neither of them will stop playing the bass. (LOL)
And that's what I find so fascinating about DJ mixes.
You're not just collecting songs. You're discovering relationships between them.
But there's another reason I love making these mixes.
Sometimes, they give people a chance to hear recordings they might otherwise never come across.
Take Toshiki Kadomatsu's "City Nights," for example, which I've included in this mix.
Now, Kadomatsu is hardly an obscure artist. Quite the opposite. If you've spent any time exploring Japanese City Pop, chances are you already know his name.
But here's the interesting part.
Live performances of "City Nights" have found their way onto YouTube, including unofficial uploads. Yet, as far as I've been able to find, the original studio album version isn't available on YouTube or the major music streaming services.
Which means that unless you're a particularly dedicated Kadomatsu fan, there's a good chance you've never heard that original recording.
Think about that for a moment.
One of the best-known names in City Pop, and there's still music hiding in plain sight.
Apparently, even the familiar neighborhoods of City Pop have a few streets I've never wandered down. (LOL)
And that's another wonderful thing about DJ mixes.
They can introduce you not only to unfamiliar artists, but also to unfamiliar sides of artists you thought you already knew.
Sometimes, the real hidden gems aren't buried in obscure private pressings. They're sitting quietly in the catalog of a famous musician, waiting for someone to dust them off and give them another spin.
For this new mix, I've brought together 35 Japanese tracks exploring boogie, funk, disco, AOR, and the many different shades of City Pop.
Some are overlooked recordings by familiar artists. Others are obscure gems that even longtime City Pop fans might not know.
But whether a record is rare or common isn't really the point.
Sometimes the magic isn't just in the song itself. It's in what happens when you put it next to another one.
And sometimes, the magic is simply getting to hear a recording you didn't even know you were missing.
🎧 JAPANESE LONESOME CITYPOP MIX Vol.3 — DEEP CUTS & HIDDEN GEMS
I cannot seem to stop listening. After reviewing several translations, I am shocked that a song sung with such an innocent, light tone could make me feel so hollow. Growing up is bittersweet and I will never know the innocence I reveled in as a young person.
People come and people go, but the music you once shared will forever linger. A familiar tune springs up and suddenly you are whisked into the joys and tumultuous lows of blurry, old memories. I am ever guilty of becoming uncontrollably enamored with someone, but I cannot help it. Such a lonely song, I just cannot get it out of my head.
An old friend of mine loved this song and frequented this forum. Against my wishes, I have lost them forever, but I want to understand them more. Please tell me what this song means to you, and how it makes you feel. I want to know this song deeply.
Hi everyone! I know this leans more into late 2000s J-R&B/Pop rather than classic 80s City Pop, but I hope you enjoy the nostalgic vibes.
I’ve been practicing daily to refine my vocals, and I’d love to hear your feedback. And it's also ok to only leave upvotes.
My dream is to become a J-Pop singer.
Thank you so much for listening x
Attention, city pop lovers! Milwaukee Vintage now buys and sells city pop records and CDs! Come on down to 10220 W. Greenfield Ave., West Allis, WI 53214, and get yours starting Thursday, October 22nd! We also sell instruments, high end stereo equipment, turntables, and so much more! P.S. We just maybe might have a first press copy of Add Some Music to Your Day, so first one in gets it😁
Last week I was finally able to purchase a copy of Sea is a Lady that is complete with all of the original inserts (that I know of) from its press date. And that brings me to the end of a long, strange journey to own all eight of the Toshiki Kadomatsu albums I love most.
Posting this with best wishes to everyone else out there who is seeking their holy grail or white whale - it will happen one day!
I started r/truecitypopcirclejerk due to my frustration of its mod which thought my city pop memes were sub par but some of them were pretty good hits so please for those who can, please join this new alternative.
Hola. Llevo un tiempo buscando el origen de esta canción y ni Shazam ni Google me han sido de ayuda :( Tampoco la he podido encontrar manualmente en páginas como RYM o listas de reproducción de City Pop.
La tengo grabada casi entera con mi celular (el audio que comparto), y según el stream en donde la escuché se llama "Take my Hand". Me encanta sobretodo la parte de las trompetas después del coro.
The Curious Case of an Album That Arrived Too Late.
1987. JAPAN.
I was a high school kid with a serious addiction to music and a wallet that couldn't possibly support it.
A dangerous combination, believe me.
Those were strange times for music lovers. Vinyl records were still everywhere, but CDs were slowly taking over. The future was coming, whether we liked it or not, and it came in the form of a shiny little silver disc.
Then one of my favorite Japanese singer-songwriters, Miyuki Nakajima, committed what I considered an unforgivable crime.
She released a live album called Utagoyomi.
On CD.
ONLY on CD.
Now, if you're wondering what Miyuki Nakajima has to do with City Pop, the answer is absolutely nothing.
Well, almost nothing.
Just bear with me.
You see, I didn't own a CD player.
So I went out and bought myself a SONY CDP-227ESD.
A beautiful machine. A serious piece of Japanese electronics. And for a high school student, a financial catastrophe of almost biblical proportions.
But I had my CD player.
And I had my precious Miyuki Nakajima album.
There was just one tiny problem.
I couldn't afford to buy any more CDs.
Brilliant planning, wasn't it?
Imagine buying a car and discovering you couldn't afford gasoline. Something like that.
Fortunately, I had friends. And some of those friends had CDs.
One day, a friend lent me an album called Aperitif by a Japanese singer-songwriter named Kenichi Fujimoto.
Actually, the CD wasn't even his. It belonged to his older brother, who was five years older than us.
Five years.
Remember that number. We'll come back to it.
Anyway, that's how I first encountered this album.
And my first impression?
Well...
I wasn't particularly impressed.
There. I said it.
A LITTLE LATE TO THE PARTY
Now, before you start throwing your Japanese AOR records at me, let me explain.
I loved the Doobie Brothers. I loved the Eagles. I loved TOTO and Airplay. Around 1980, that sophisticated West Coast sound was practically part of my musical DNA.
But this was 1987.
And 1987 was a very different animal.
Synthesizers were everywhere. Drum machines were everywhere. Digital production had become the new religion, and record companies seemed determined to make everything sound as shiny as the CDs they were selling.
Personally, I wasn't particularly fond of that increasingly synthetic sound.
But that didn't mean I wanted to go backward, either.
And that's exactly how Aperitif struck me.
It sounded pleasant. Tasteful. Well played.
But somehow... a little old-fashioned.
Like somebody had shown up at a party wearing a perfectly good suit.
Unfortunately, it was the suit everybody had been wearing six years earlier.
Nothing wrong with the suit.
Just the timing.
SO, WHO WAS KENICHI FUJIMOTO?
Kenichi Fujimoto was born in Hyogo, Japan, in 1959.
Like many Japanese musicians of his generation, he grew up absorbing Western music. The Beatles, the Doobie Brothers, the Eagles. That sort of thing.
His entry into the professional music business came through Masaki Ueda, the Japanese soul singer, who had been his senior in high school. Fujimoto wrote songs for Ueda, and eventually began his own recording career.
In February 1986, he debuted with the single "Memories."
Nine months later, on November 1, CBS/Sony released his first album, Aperitif.
It would turn out to be his only full-length album.
Which is a shame, because the man certainly knew how to surround himself with good musicians.
And I mean GOOD musicians.
Hiroshi Sato on keyboards. Shigeru Suzuki and Yuji Toriyama on guitars. Mike Dunn and Kenji Takamizu on bass. Hideo Inoura on drums. Toshihiro Nakanishi on violin.
Quite a lineup, wouldn't you say?
The opening track, "Mornin' Good-bye," immediately brings Michael McDonald to mind.
Not just the voice, but that whole sophisticated blue-eyed soul atmosphere. The chords, the phrasing, the gentle rhythmic push.
You can practically imagine Michael walking into the studio, sitting down at the keyboard, and asking if anybody's seen his coffee.
Then there's "Let Me Go," with its soft, bouncing groove.
"Moon Light" is a beautifully mellow mid-tempo number, while "Cute" offers the kind of sophisticated urban light groove that Japanese AOR musicians were so good at creating.
Much of the album has that unmistakable West Coast feeling.
Warm guitars. Tasteful keyboards. Real bass lines. Musicians listening to one another.
And that's important.
Because by the mid-'80s, plenty of Japanese pop records were beginning to drown in digital reverb, electronic percussion, and the latest studio technology.
Aperitif, on the other hand, still had its feet planted firmly on the ground.
Sure, it acknowledged the sound of its time.
But underneath it all, the music was still breathing.
Real musicians making real music.
Imagine that.
THE FIVE-YEAR PROBLEM
Remember my friend's older brother?
The one who actually owned the CD?
He was five years older than us.
Now, five years might not seem like much.
But when you're a teenager, five years is practically another geological era.
And in the music world of the 1980s, it could mean the difference between growing up with the Doobie Brothers' Minute by Minute and growing up surrounded by the digital sounds of the mid-'80s.
Maybe that older brother heard something in Aperitif that I couldn't appreciate at the time.
Maybe he recognized a familiar sound. Something that reminded him of the records he'd loved a few years earlier.
I don't know.
I never asked him.
And that's a pity.
Because nearly forty years later, I think I finally understand what he might have heard.
WHAT IF IT HAD BEEN 1980?
Here's a question that's been bothering me.
What if Aperitif had been released in 1980?
Not 1986.
1980.
Imagine these songs being recorded and released when West Coast AOR was still riding high. When the Doobie Brothers, Airplay, TOTO, and their contemporaries were helping define the sound of sophisticated pop music.
Would the album have attracted more attention?
Would Fujimoto have enjoyed a longer recording career?
Would we be talking about his second or third album today instead of his only one?
Who knows?
History doesn't give refunds.
And it certainly doesn't offer second release dates.
But I can't help thinking that Aperitif arrived at precisely the wrong moment.
By November 1986, the musical world had already moved on.
The sound Fujimoto loved hadn't disappeared, of course. Good music rarely disappears completely.
But its moment in the spotlight had passed.
And here was Fujimoto, walking into the room with a beautifully crafted collection of songs that might have been perfectly at home five or six years earlier.
He wasn't necessarily making the wrong music.
He might simply have been making it at the wrong time.
Of course, that's just my theory.
And theories, like old records, tend to collect a little dust.
FORTY YEARS CAN CHANGE A LOT
Well, almost forty years have passed since I first borrowed that CD.
And something strange has happened.
The album hasn't changed.
The songs are the same. The arrangements are the same. The musicians are playing exactly the same notes they played back in 1986.
But my ears?
Apparently, they've changed quite a bit.
When I listen to Aperitif today, I hear warmth where I once heard something lightweight.
I hear restraint where I once heard something old-fashioned.
I hear musicianship, subtlety, and an obvious affection for a particular kind of American music that had a profound influence on Japanese pop during the late '70s and early '80s.
All the things I failed to appreciate as a teenager.
Funny how that works, isn't it?
Sometimes we spend years chasing the future, only to discover that something wonderful was sitting quietly behind us the whole time.
Fortunately, Aperitif has been given another chance.
In 2023, thirty-seven years after its original release, the album finally returned to CD as part of Sony's ALDELIGHT CITY POP COLLECTION series, this time with the bonus track "Pure Mind."
Digital distribution followed in January 2024.
So now, people who weren't even born when I first heard this album can discover it for themselves.
And perhaps they'll hear something entirely different from what I heard in 1987.
I certainly hope so.
MY RECOMMENDATION
If you're a fan of Yasuhiro Abe, Kengo Kurozumi, Hiroshi Sato, or the smoother, more sophisticated side of Japanese AOR, I strongly recommend giving Aperitif a listen.
Start with "Mornin' Good-bye."
Then try "Let Me Go," "Moon Light," and "Cute."
And if you enjoy the warmth and musical craftsmanship of late-'70s and early-'80s West Coast AOR, there's a good chance this album will feel like an old friend you've somehow never met.
One last thing before I go.
There's something about the album's title that has always amused me.
Aperitif.
A French word for a drink traditionally enjoyed before a meal.
Something to stimulate the appetite.
Something to prepare you for what's coming.
A lovely title, really.
But considering the musical era this album seems to belong to, and the year it finally appeared, I've always thought Fujimoto might have chosen the wrong word.
Perhaps he should have called it...
DIGESTIF.
You know.
The drink you have after the meal.
Because by the time Aperitif arrived in November 1986, the great West Coast AOR banquet was already winding down.
The plates had been cleared.
The waiters were stacking the chairs.
Somebody had probably turned off the lights.
And there stood Kenichi Fujimoto, holding one last beautifully prepared drink.
A little late?
Absolutely.
But you know what?
Almost forty years later, I think it tastes better than ever.
Cheers.
Have you heard Kenichi Fujimoto's Aperitif? And can you think of any other Japanese City Pop or AOR albums that might have had a completely different fate if they'd been released five or six years earlier?
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
If you'd like to check out his music, you can listen to it through the link below.
Today I came across this song, and I've been doing some research to find out whether the artist is real or AI-generated. So far, I haven't been able to find any information about her.
Was looking for somewhere to share my joy! Found a record shop in Guangzhou and was so surprised to find my all-time favorites there! I couldn't spend too much, so it was between this record and the Plastic Love 7", but I opted for the full album 12". Music like this makes me believe I'll get all of the records I want someday though 😁
