The feeling of passion, glamor, and night-life. Being swayed by the charm of bustling streets and flashing lights. The world never seems to sleep as you keep on dancing. These are a fraction of feelings City Pop is able to convey.

City Pop is a music genre that can be traced back to Japan in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s after a huge boom in Japan’s economy, which allowed for quick urban development. As more technologies were being created and new goods were being bought and sold, Japanese producers were able to get access to electronic instruments. Alongside the use of these electronic instruments, some artists also began to stray from the traditional style of music in Japan and started to take influence from Western music genres, such as funk, disco, techno instead.

The purpose of City Pop was to capture the fast-paced, glamorous lifestyle of the people living in urban areas, to whom the genre was catered towards. The use of electronic instruments and western influence really fit the aesthetic at the time, which contributed to its success. As the popularity of walkmans, car stereos, and other new technologies began diffusion in Japan, City Pop simply fit right in as a perfect anthem.

As do most things of their time, City Pop began to fall out of the mainstream in the late 1980s.

One of the most influential City Pop artists of the time was a woman named Mariya Takeuchi. Takeuchi was born on March 20th of 1955 and has sold well over 16 million records. One of her well known songs is titled “Plastic Love.” Little did Takeuchi know, this song would revive the City Pop genre decades later.

Plastic Love was released on March 25th, 1984. On release it was moderately successful and sold over 10,000 copies. On July 5th, 2017, more than 30 years later, a YouTube user known as “Plastic Lover” uploaded an 8-minute remix of Takeuchi’s song.

The YouTube recommendation system began flooding user’s pages with Plastic Lover’s remix, attracting over 63 million views as of May 2021. We can assume YouTube began recommending the song to so many people because of other electronic music genres trending at the time. Unfortunately, Plastic Lover’s account was taken off of YouTube over a copyright dispute because of the photo Plastic Lover had used for the video background.

Although the remix was removed, Plastic Love’s nostalgic beat resonated with many and caused the pop-up of many other City Pop playlists/mixes by new fans of the genre, garnering it its own cult following. Without Plastic Love, some City Pop songs that became extremely popular on apps, such as TikTok, may have never even been brought over to the platform. Some trending City Pop songs that you may know include Yasuha’s “Fly-Day Chinatown” and Miki Matsubara’s “Mayonaka no Door/Stay With Me.”

Even though the original Plastic Love remix was deleted, its existence forever impacted the City Pop genre, with its influence found through new fans, trends, covers, remixes, and more. Plastic Love will forever be known as the song that gave City Pop its life back.