City Pop Juke-Box

City pop VS vaporwave

City pop is a Japanese music macro-genre that developed in the second half of the Seventies and reached its peak in the following decade. In recent years it has drawn a degree of interest from Western listeners devoted to the vaporwave phenomenon, which has drawn heavily on city pop for samples and references.

It's worth noting, in any case, how droves of people discover they're fans of Eighties Japanese pop only on the condition that some virtual hero of theirs slightly tweaks the arrangement (just enough to pass it off as a vaporwave remix).

If this led to an actual exploration of the genre, vaporwave reworkings wouldn't be a problem at all. Unfortunately, most people simply revel in the new versions and stop there, often ignoring the original artists entirely. When the more daring listeners do set out to dig deeper, they usually only get as far as the original version of that specific song, more rarely to the album it's taken from, but it's rare for them to go any further.

The distortions that result from this are enormous, with entire swathes of Western listeners convinced that a minor record by Artist X is their most important work, while remaining completely unaware of the rest of their output. To grasp the situation, imagine if abroad there were crowds of people unanimously considering "Orizzonti perduti" the central work in Battiato's catalogue, with no idea whatsoever that "L'era del cinghiale bianco" or "His Master's Voice" even existed.

Then there are artists known to insiders or barely more than that, suddenly turned into national heroes by some clueless DJ, or, conversely, historic figures of the genre who, not having been sampled yet, are completely ignored (Akira Terao is a glaring example).

Western listeners, in short, don't care about the original dynamics of the scene and blithely dismiss its entire historical framework, as often happens in these cases. But if it's true that art is the product of its context, treating this material this way effectively discredits its nature and its meaning.

For this reason, the guide below tries to look at the matter from a perspective that takes into account the cultural impact these artists had in Japan. What we hope readers will take away from this article is the awareness that, between an artist who worked within the genre across their entire career, bringing it to a wide audience through consistently relevant work, and an unknown who made one good record before vanishing without a trace, the former will inevitably have to be considered more important. That doesn't mean you can't still prefer the latter: everyone can draw their own conclusions, but it's always best that those conclusions rest on as accurate an account of the facts as possible.

Content and instructions

Giving an exact definition of city pop is pretty much impossible. Even just pinning down its birth is a mess. There are books on the subject that trace it back to Eiichi Ohtaki and Haruomi Hosono's Happy End, others that lump in anything vaguely soft rock regardless of date, others still that treat it as a simple synonym for Japanese pop of the Eighties. Because in the end, more than a precise musical style, city pop denotes a mood. Music with an urban sound for people used to city life. Music that effectively symbolized Japan's period of peak economic growth, just before the harsh awakening of the 1991 crisis. Still, from these rather vague premises, through a steady accumulation of meaning, it's been possible to establish a few coordinates. As important as they were, the Happy End can hardly be considered the originators of city pop, since they were essentially a folk-rock band, with musical coordinates that were therefore quite distant from it.

It's far more plausible that it all started in 1975, with the debut of Sugar Babe, the project led by Tatsuro Yamashita and Taeko Ohnuki. Not that that record created the new genre outright, but it effectively marked the debut of two of its heavyweights, almost single-handedly capable of defining its hallmarks (if a third name were needed, it would be Eiichi Ohtaki, not coincidentally the album's producer). So, if a big bang absolutely has to be pointed to, this one seems fairly credible.

City pop blends a vast number of ingredients, from AOR to West Coast-style pop, from funk to fusion, absorbing the influence of disco music in the Seventies and post-disco in the Eighties. A certain balance, however, proves necessary for something to actually count as city pop.

The disco component, for instance, is a source of debate, since city pop was by no means a synonym for it. One useful rule of thumb is to consider an album, or a song, city pop only when disco's influence doesn't overwhelm the other elements. Otherwise, it would be a mistake to label the track as city pop, since Japanese disco music had a large roster of artists of its own, none of whom are considered part of this strand.

A similar argument applies to the AOR component, which is why historic bands such as Anzen-Chitai and Alfee won't find room in this article.

As one might guess, this is music tightly bound up with American music, though the blend is nonetheless original and unmistakably Japanese, especially where the vocal parts are concerned. The level of musicianship is extremely high, and the musicians involved are on a par with the finest English-speaking session players of the era.

The list below features thirty songs; the ranking is simply a bit of fun meant to encourage reading, not to be taken as gospel. Some artists made the list more for a single standout track than for their career as a whole, others are essential in general terms, but not for city pop specifically (Motoharu Sano is a giant of Japanese music, but he only brushed against the movement in passing, and has therefore been placed in a somewhat marginal position).

The most important names in this context are Tatsuro Yamashita, Eiichi Ohtaki (the two gentlemen pictured above the article's title) and Toshiki Kadomatsu. The more material you track down from these three, the better. Other standout moments are represented by Char's self-titled debut, Masayoshi Takanaka's live albums, Akira Terao's "Reflections", and the Omega Tribe's singles (documented over the years in numerous compilations).

Finally, it should be noted that in some cases whether or not something belongs to this strand is simply a matter of convention. Yumi Matsutoya, probably the most important female singer Japan has ever produced, boasts, for example, a considerable number of songs that could be classified as city pop, and according to some she should be counted among the originators of this aesthetic. However, her inclusion is fairly debated and controversial, perhaps partly because of the length of her career, the sheer breadth of her collaborations, and how wide-ranging her audience is. For these reasons, she has not been included in this selection.

30. Akira Inoue: "Samayoeru Holland-jin no you ni" ("Samayoeru Holland-jin no you ni"), 1983

The song's strong new wave streak raises some doubts about its legitimacy on this list. There are none, however, about the man behind it, even though he's more appreciated as the éminence grise behind city pop giants like Junichi Inagaki and Akira Terao, or rock bands like Alfee. As a solo artist he never actually made any records of great note, perhaps also due to his crooked songwriting and his shortcomings as a vocalist. At least on this track, which opens the album "Splash", the machine runs perfectly. The stop-start rhythm pairs beautifully with the ethereal guitars, while the fretless bass adds jazz-fusion shades to the melody.

29. Makoto Matsushita: "First Light", 1981

One of the emblematic figures of city pop, or at least so believe those who listen to vaporwave and love to pillage its grooves. In truth, he's a marginal figure, unknown to the Japanese mainstream, whose reputation rests mainly on the esteem of a few prestigious peers, such as Toshiki Kadomatsu. His debut album, "First Light", is nonetheless a trinket box of calligraphic artistry. A close relative of the soft rock that dominated American radio, depending on the track it recalls Alan Parsons Project, Supertramp, Toto, Hall & Oates, Christopher Cross, Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan and so on and so forth. The title track, a blend of all these influences, is its most representative piece.

28. Eiichi Ohtaki: "Koi no Knuckle Ball" ("Koi no Knuckle Ball"), 1984

Co-founder of the seminal folk rock band Happy End, it was as a solo artist that Eiichi Ohtaki became one of the most beloved figures in the history of Japanese pop. His cult status remains strong today, even though he died in 2013 and his last album, "Each Time", dates back to 1984 (after that he only released three singles). "Koi no Knuckle Ball", taken from "Each Time", is a playful pop tune that shows Ohtaki as a great alchemist, capable of blending the sense of fun of a producer like Joe Meek with the baroque leanings of Brian Wilson, all filtered through the clean production values of the Eighties.

27. Yoshitaka Minami: "Monroe Walk", 1979

He probably reaped his biggest rewards as a songwriter for idols of the calibre of Seiko Matsuda and Hiroko Yakushimaru, but the public remembers him above all for the couple of hits released under his own name: "Monroe Walk" (1979) and "Slow na Boogie ni shite kure" (1981). The former, in particular, is a gem of vintage Japanese pop, even though its inclusion on this list might seem out of place given its overwhelming disco music component. Still, the points of contact are clear: its funky groove brings it close to Tatsuro Yamashita, while its exotic, Latin-tinged flavour makes it something of an appetiser for "Reflections", Akira Terao's landmark album. Arranged by Ryuichi Sakamoto.

26. 松原みき (Miki Matsubara): 「真夜中のドア〜Stay With Me」 (“Mayonaka no Door – Stay With Me”), 1979

She died of cancer in 2004, before turning forty-five, and Matsubara is remembered chiefly for her debut album, "Pocket Park" (which reached number 13 on the charts), and for composing the theme songs of some classic anime (above all, "Creamy Mami, the Magic Angel"). The pick here is her debut single, which perfectly captures 1979 in city pop, with one foot in the muffled Seventies-style funk of the past and the other pointing toward the shimmering, technological future of the decade to come. "The Winner", a masterpiece of sci-fi rock that opens "Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory" (1991), would also deserve a mention, even though by that point city pop was already a thing of the past.

25. Tatsuro Yamashita: "Kaze no kairo" ("Kaze no kairo"), 1985

The greatest genius of Japanese pop rock? For cultural relevance, impact on the public, innovation and sheer consistency, only Yellow Magic Orchestra, Yosui Inoue and Yumi Matsutoya can sit alongside him. A devotee of American music in all its forms, from funk to jazz, from sunshine pop to soft rock, Yamashita is the man who stitched all these pieces together into a single body, Japanese to the core. A superb producer, a refined guitarist, a singer with an immensely powerful voice and a great perfectionist, he's well represented by "Kaze no kairo", an anachronistic union of the Beach Boys and synth-funk, as well as the lead single from his eighth album, "Pocket Music" (541,000 copies sold in 1986 alone).

24. Epo: "Escape" ("Escape"), 1981

Eiko Miyagawa, better known as Epo, is a cult name in Japanese pop. Backed by two giants such as Yamashita and his wife Mariya Takeuchi, she boasts prestigious collaborations and numerous TV appearances, unsurprisingly concentrated in the Eighties. Her offbeat, somewhat intellectual persona, however, never fully won over an audience that at the time demanded either seasoned professionals in the Yumi Matsutoya mould or squeaky-clean idols. While it's true that her albums often convey a sense of quirkiness for its own sake, it's equally true that the buoyant piano pop of "Escape" is close to perfect.

23. Junko Yagami: "Wonderful City" ("Wonderful City"), 1980

Hugely popular between the late Seventies and early Eighties, Junko Yagami may not be the most representative artist of the city pop scene. Over the course of her career she dabbled in a multitude of styles, from Latin-tinged disco music to AOR, occasionally veering into the glossiest, most saccharine J-pop. A venial sin, easily forgiven, for what remains in fact an important name in Japanese music. "Wonderful City", a splendid mood-drenched funk track, can be found on the album "Mr. Metropolis", which reached number 2 in April 1980. Although it wasn't chosen as a single, it remains her track that most faithfully honours the tenets of the genre under discussion.

22. Motoharu Sano: "Tonight", 1984

One of the icons of Japanese rock, and one of the figures that, in the local collective imagination, everyone associates with the Eighties. His eclecticism has led him, over the course of his career, to embrace the most disparate sounds, at times seemingly at odds with one another. Not only have his songs drawn comparisons to David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Weller and Waterboys, but he's also the man who introduced rap to Japan. In truth, he only brushed up against city pop in passing, which is why he's represented here by just one song. Taken from the album "Visitors", which shot straight to number 1, "Tonight" sounds like a glorious mashup of an anime theme song and a track by Style Council.

21. Bread & Butter: "Summer Blue", 1979

The Iwasawa brothers, better known as Bread & Butter to the few who still remember them, received support in their day from some of Japan's most important musicians. "Late Late Summer" is their sixth album, arguably their best, featuring "Ano koro no mama", penned by Yumi Matsutoya, which later became a standard. The peak, however, is entirely their own work: "Summer Blue", a syncopated ballad built on liquid electric piano tones, gentle synth solos, jazzy guitars, funky bass and vocal harmonies that conjure relaxed, dusk-stroll atmospheres. With the arrival of the Eighties, the duo would unfortunately gradually drown in the syrup of the blandest J-pop.

20. Sugar Babe: "すてきなメロディー" ("Suteki na Melody") 1975

Released in 1975 under the name Sugar Babe, "Songs" is now considered the starting point of city pop, perhaps because it marked the recording debut of two heavyweights of the genre: the already-mentioned Yamashita and singer-songwriter Taeko Ohnuki. Unlike her colleague, Ohnuki never reached the same mainstream success as a solo artist, though she went on to build a long career rich with important collaborations. The eleven songs on the album are credited to the two artists in turn, with the sole exception of the joyful, brilliant pop-funk of "Suteki na Melody", chosen here so as not to slight either of them. Largely overlooked at the time, the album reached number 3 upon its 1994 reissue.

19. Taeko Ohnuki: "4:00 A.M.", 1978

The title immediately lays bare city pop's obsession with nighttime atmospheres. The sound only confirms it further, with funk progressions, brassy jabs, fluttering flutes, lounge synthesizers, droplets of piano, imposing disco-style choruses and a splendid guitar solo courtesy of Tsunehide Matsuki. Ohnuki's performance stands out, with that detached delivery now regarded as a trademark by lovers of the most refined Japanese pop, the perfect counterpart to that of her friend and colleague Akiko Yano, all quirks and vocal oddities. The track is taken from "Mignonne", Ohnuki's third solo album, arranged by Ryuichi Sakamoto, with whom she still collaborates today.

18. Ginji Ito: "こぬか雨" ("Konuka ame"), 1977

Ginji Ito is a niche singer-songwriter whose records are hard to come by today, despite having collaborated with heavyweights of Japanese music (from Ohtaki to Yamashita, by way of Motoharu Sano). "Deadly Drive", released in '77 and overlooked at the time, nonetheless seems to have built up a small cult following over the years, likely thanks to the presence of the masterpiece ballad "Konuka ame". Turned into a standard through a long series of covers (Epo, Rika Tanaka, Yamashita himself), the melancholy melody is cradled in arrangements of unreal beauty: Taeko Ohnuki handles the choruses, Sakamoto the keyboards and orchestra, Ito the rest.

17. Junichi Inagaki: "ドラマティック・レイン" ("Dramatic Rain"), 1982

From his breakthrough in 1982 through to the early Nineties, Junichi Inagaki was one of Japan's most respected singers. Since 1994 his record sales have plummeted, and not even his outstanding skills as a performer, always marked by elegance and restraint, have been able to stop the slide. Still, his earlier classics remain alive and well in the collective imagination. Among the most memorable is the track that established him nationally, "Dramatic Rain", a fierce, dark slice of AOR that pushed the album "Shylights" all the way to number 2. Inagaki himself plays drums on the track, and he's rather good at it, still proving as much in concert to this day.

16. Toshiki Kadomatsu: "52nd Street", 1987

Kadomatsu is one of the most creative musicians within the city pop scene. Never a superstar on Yamashita's level, he nonetheless carved out an important place for himself among more discerning listeners. In 1986, "Touch And Go" had brought him into the top 5 for the first time, but rather than capitalize on the momentum to break through for good, the following year he released "Sea Is A Lady", an instrumental album blending Jan Hammer-style soundtrack work with jazz virtuosity worthy of fellow countrymen Casiopea. Its infectious melodies, meanwhile, pointed toward video game music, as demonstrated by "52nd Street". The album still reached number 4, cementing itself as a symbol of creative freedom.

15. Sugiyama Kiyotaka & Omega Tribe: "ガラスのPalm Tree" ("Glass no Palm Tree"), 1985

Both incarnations of Omega Tribe rank among the most celebrated names of 1980s Japanese pop rock. The first is the one fronted by Kiyotaka Sugiyama, lasting from spring '83 to the end of '85. Despite being made up of skilled musicians such as Shinzi Takashima (guitars) and Toshitsugu Nishihara (keyboards), the band actually had no control over the music, which was entrusted to the deus ex machina Tetsuji Hayashi. A tyrannical setup reminiscent of the Motown machine, where everything rested in the producers' hands. Hayashi, however, was a pop wizard, capable of grandiose keyboard-driven AOR like this track, which opened the album "First Finale" and pushed it toward 540,000 copies sold.

14. 1986 Omega Tribe: "Stay Girl Stay Pure", 1987

Kiyotaka left to try a solo career, replaced by Japanese-Brazilian singer Carlos Toshiki, and the band briefly renamed itself 1986 Omega Tribe. The people pulling the strings behind the scenes changed too, with the new songs entrusted to composer Tsunehiro Izumi and arranger Hiroshi Shinkawa. The fifth single of this new incarnation, "Stay Girl Stay Pure" is a synth-funk ballad with an atmospheric verse and a triumphant chorus. The video is legendary, mixing signs and objects with footage of Toshiki walking on the beach, awash in color contrasts and blinding double exposures. But the tide was about to turn, and the album "Down Town Mystery" would prove to be their last top-5 hit.

13. 安部恭弘 (Yasuhiro Abe): "We Got It!", 1982

The lack of commercial success for Abe's records remains a mystery, given his work as a songwriter for stars such as Masayuki Suzuki and Junichi Inagaki, not to mention his excellent skills as a singer and producer. He may not have had the consistency of Kadomatsu or Yamashita, but he did land a couple of moments that would have deserved a place in the history of Japanese pop — just think of the 1987 album "Slit", a true synth-funk delight. Or "We Got It!", his debut single, later included on the 1983 album "Hold Me Tight". A sweeping, atmospheric slice of AOR, it's the perfect song to play in the car while cruising at night through the buildings of a sleeping metropolis.

12. 山下達郎 (Tatsuro Yamashita): 「マーマレイド・グッドバイ」 ("Marmalade Goodbye"), 1988

Yamashita's ninth album, "Boku no naka no shounen", is the only one with a title in Japanese. Although he has always sung in his own language, the artist prefers English for the covers of his records. Unfortunately, the hit that came out of it was "Get Back In Love", a big ballad one step away from the worst moments of Whitney Houston and Michael Bolton. Far more deserving would have been "Marmalade Goodbye", a hybrid of J-pop, sophisti-pop and synth-funk, with a majestic bassline and a sax solo that takes your breath away. The record runs more or less at this level throughout, and stakes its claim as the singer's masterpiece, clumsy single notwithstanding. It was the fifth of his eleven number-one albums.

11. Char: "Smoky", 1976

He hasn't had a genuine hit since the Seventies, yet Hisato "Char" Takenaka can still fill an arena today with a mere snap of his fingers. Not so much for his singing, which is excellent in its own right, but because, as every Japanese music fan well knows, those fingers handle a guitar like few others can. At the self-celebratory concert held in 2015 at the Budokan, half the history of Japanese rock turned up to pay tribute to him. Needless to say, the lion's share went to tracks from his superb debut album, "Char" (1976), among which the frantic jazz-funk acrobatics of "Smoky" stand out. And in the moments when the guitar steps back, no offense to Stevie Wonder, it almost sounds like listening to Jamiroquai.

10. 高中正義 (Masayoshi Takanaka): 「渚・モデラート」 ("Nagisa Moderato"), 1986 live version

A founding member of the iconic Sadistic Mika Band, Takanaka later made a name for himself as one of the most celebrated Japanese guitarists, alongside Char, Tomoyasu Hotei and a select few others. His records, influenced by Brazilian funk, are mostly instrumental, though they don't shy away from filtered vocals, female choirs, spoken passages and the like. Still, there's a sense that his true nature only comes out during live shows. "Nagisa Moderato", for instance, is a tight four-minute pop tune in the studio version, while on the 1986 double live album "Jungle Jane Tour Live" it becomes an overflowing jam, all futuristic keyboards and dramatic solos, constantly accelerating. Poetry through shredding?

9. 山下達郎 (Tatsuro Yamashita): 「メリー・ゴー・ラウンド」 ("Merry-Go-Round"), 1983

It wasn't among the singles from the hugely successful album "Melodies" (over a million copies sold), but that it's one of its finest moments is clear to the artist himself, who has often revived it live, including it on the excellent 1989 double live album "Joy". A pure distillation of Eighties funk, the sound drifts between nighttime hazes, neon lights, champagne ghosts and mazes of offices in glass skyscrapers. Yamashita plays guitars and keyboards, aided by the synthesizer of Satoshi Nakamura, one of the most sought-after session musicians and arrangers in the city pop scene. In 1990, Philip Bailey of Earth Wind & Fire would reinterpret it in a deep house key. To this day it remains Yamashita's finest English-language cover.

8. 杏里 (Anri): "Cat's Eye (New Take)", 1983

After five years spent under the radar, Anri saw her popularity surge when she was chosen to sing the theme song for the anime "Cat's Eye". Released as a single in August '83, the song shot to number 1 and sold 820,000 copies. Its electronic arrangement was, in effect, a hair's breadth from contemporary European dance music. Four months later, opening the album "Timely!!", however, came this second version, with assaulting brass and hard-hitting funk bass lines. The man behind the boards was Toshiki Kadomatsu himself, the architect of the most interesting period of Anri's career. Once their partnership ended, she would find herself stuck in a string of rather cloying, watered-down ballads.

7. Mariya Takeuchi: “Plastic Love”, 1984

Wife of Tatsuro Yamashita, Takeuchi is herself one of the most beloved figures in Japanese music, both as a performer and as a songwriter (she's written songs for practically everyone). Her records are arranged and produced by her husband, who on the ballads goes for orchestral flourishes and sugary codas in the name of romance, but on the more driving tracks allows himself to return to his old loves. "Plastic Love" proves it, a perfect blend of nocturnal soft rock and urban funk, the kind of thing that would even make Donald Fagen jealous. It's part of the album "Variety", which marked the singer's return after a three-year hiatus and shot straight to number 1.

6. Off Course: “Tasogare”, 1985

If it isn't the finest male voice in Japanese pop-rock, Kazumasa Oda's is at the very least the most luminous. With its gentle, crystalline intonation, it gives every note a poetic sense of fragility. Leading Off Course from 1969 to 1989 and hugely popular as a solo artist afterward, Oda boasts a career so long and multifaceted that many are skeptical about placing him within the city pop lineage, much as happens with Yumi Matsutoya. Still, at least in the case of the ethereal electronic ballad "Tasogare" one can make the case, given lyrics that paint urban landscapes and a sound that slows fusion and synth-funk down to an extreme crawl.

5. Toshiki Kadomatsu: "Can't You See", 1988

After the instrumental album "Sea Is A Lady", on which he decided everything himself, Kadomatsu wanted to put out a record where, while still writing all the material himself, he'd hand the arrangements and production over to other musicians. Not many pop craftsmen — usually control freaks to a man — would have been willing to take on such a challenge, but Kadomatsu has never been one to care much for rules. On the tracklist of "Before The Daylight", the romantic synth-funk of "Can't You See" isn't exactly the famous cut, but production by the Ambitious Lovers (Arto Lindsay and Peter Scherer) makes it an unmissable crossover with New York's pop avant-garde. The album peaked at number 2.

4. Akira Terao: “Niki monogatari”, 1981

Western film buffs likely remember Terao as the actor and protégé of Akira Kurosawa, in films such as "Ran" and "Dreams", but few know of his work as a musician. To be fair, the artist himself considers it secondary, having released just five albums from 1970 to today. Yet the second of these, "Reflections", was the best-selling Japanese album of the Eighties, moving 1.65 million copies. The centerpiece of the record is "Niki monogatari", an imaginative eight-minute epic in two movements, one a lounge ballad, the other a funky midtempo. Terao wrote and produced the track, as well as singing it with the voice of a seasoned crooner. The remarkably refined arrangements are courtesy of Akira Inoue.

3. Minako Yoshida: "Town", 1981

Little known to the general public, Yoshida can nonetheless claim real influence on the development of Japanese music, as a co-writer for Yamashita and a collaborator with the likes of Ann Lewis and Akina Nakamori. Her own albums, marked by a powerful and perfectly controlled voice, unfortunately suffer from a fair share of rather saccharine ballads, which often take up more than half the running time. A shame, because when she leans into funk she's capable of tracks like "Town", a genuine metropolitan apocalypse — arranged by Yamashita himself — where guitars, sax, orchestra and sirens build a wall of sound that's pulsing and menacing. City pop has never sounded this dark.

2. Eiichi Ohtaki: “Ame no Wednesday”, 1981

Having spent the Seventies more or less in the underground, Ohtaki suddenly found himself at the center of the storm. The impact of the album "A Long Vacation" was comparable to what "His Master's Voice" had in Italy. With a million copies sold in its first two years and another million over time through repeated reissues, it has by now even overtaken Akira Terao's "Reflections". Ohtaki showed everyone what a collaboration between Phil Spector, Burt Bacharach and Brian Wilson might have sounded like in 1981, on a diet of ramen. It's hard to pick the best moment from what is a bona fide pop masterpiece, but it's even harder to put into words the sheer enchantment of a song like "Ame no Wednesday".

1. Tatsuro Yamashita: "Ride On Time", 1980 single version

The album "Moonglow" had already done well, but it was with "Ride On Time" that Yamashita became a star. Released in May 1980, the single reached number 3 (to date it has sold around half a million copies). The song opens on piano notes before surging into a sparkling funk chorus that perfectly captures the emotional spectrum of city pop. Lightness, nostalgia, danceability and hope intertwine in a modern sonic backdrop that evokes big cities and sunset beaches, all plastic guitars and punchy horns. "Ride On Time" would later be re-recorded for inclusion on the album of the same name, but the melancholic splendor of the original version remains unmatched. It's the anthem of an era, and of an entire way of making music.

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