Japan’s bubble period ended greater than 30 years in the past. The soundtrack for these heady occasions remains to be going sturdy.
On Aug. 7, almost 15,000 folks gathered at London’s Crystal Palace Bowl for Metropolis Pop Waves, a competition headlined by 73-year-old fusion-jazz legend Masayoshi Takanaka and that includes singer Junko Yagami and keyboardist Himiko Kikuchi. The group was strikingly youthful, waving alongside to Takanaka’s instrumental tracks performed on his surfboard-shaped guitar.
It was a placing demonstration of how a once-nebulous label for Japanese music has mutated right into a full-fledged style — and one of the vital standard kinds related to the nation at present. Metropolis pop now could be broadly understood as Japanese music influenced by funk, disco, R&B and different Western sounds, significantly from the late Seventies and early ’80s, with an emphasis on an city, refined aesthetic. Name it yacht rock’s Japanese cousin.
