The other day, we were talking about music that made it big in the US, despite sporting non-English lyrics. I believe what kicked that off was talking about Rammstein and their 1997 song “Du hast”, which managed to make waves around the globe. Additional mentions were La Bamba (1958 or 1987, for the two most famous versions), Macarena (1993), and Gangnam Style (2011). (Hit me up with other songs you can think of!)
On one hand, there’s something to be said here about the difficulty of breaking into a foreign market with a song that wins audiences beyond or, perhaps, despite its text. On the other hand, it’s a testament to English (and more often than not American) cultural and linguistic hegemony, because you are surely all aware that the inverse of our initial idea is very common: Most popular music in the Western World, and I admit that I don’t have numbers to back this claim up, tends to stem from the US or is at least sang in English. (Fun fact: Contestants in the Eurovision Song Contest had to sing in their local languages until 1999)
Interestingly, Rammstein featured the song “Amerika” on their 2004 album, “Reise, Reise”, which looks with bitter irony to the fraught idea of the world having to march to the beat of the US’ drum (“This is not a love song/I don’t sing my mother tongue/No, this is not a love song”), is, to my knowledge, their only song in sang English.
But worry not, I am actually not here to speak of Rammstein and the ‘Neue Deutsche Härte’. Instead, I would like to focus on the 70s and 80s, and a music genre that goes by City Pop and has its origin in Japan.
The genre combines elements of pop, soft rock, jazz, funk, and other sounds, all the while having what can be described as an urban aesthetic. The result is squeaky-clean, sophisticated sounding pop that can at times verge on being overproduced or cheesy – from today’s perspective, it could almost be understood as persiflage, if it weren’t so genuine in its inception and indulgence. The sound is rather distinct, the songs are heavy in synths, sax, trumpets, fancy electric guitars – you’ll notice.
Notably, many of the songs that characterize the genre, while being predominantly sung in Japanese, feature English language phrases as key parts of the chorus (and in part as the songs’ titles). [*cough* something something cultural hegemony *cough*]
It may be related to the fact that I first came across Mariya Takeuchi’s “Plastic Love” in the first spring that Corona was coming on, giving me plenty of time to go on YouTube deep dives, but the music has such a jovial vibe that I cannot help but connect it to the feeling of the sun returning, and the flowers and trees starting to bloom. Seeing how the weather on the weekend is looking to be great, I feel it fits right now – actually, I’d been thinking about writing about city pop here for a while now, but somehow this week feels extra “yay, winter is over” to me.
Feel like dipping your toe, but not sure where to start? I got you: city pop
良い週末を。
Coryphe 