001 / PUBLISHED
Beyond the Algorithm: What City Pop Actually Is
From Sugar Babe and 1970s new music to the 1980s boom, overseas rediscovery, visual culture and the problem of defining a genre that was never one sound.
READ ARCHIVE 001 →K89 / PROJECTS / CITY POP
City Pop Archive
Researching the music as it existed in Japan—and the City Pop that listeners, DJs, collectors and algorithms reconstructed from it decades later.
ARCHIVE STATEMENT
City Pop is often presented today as if it were a neatly bounded genre: a polished soundtrack to neon Tokyo in the 1980s. The historical reality is more complicated. The label reaches backward into 1970s Japanese new music, soul, singer-songwriter pop and studio experimentation, then outward through funk, disco, AOR, jazz fusion, boogie and electronic music. Its contemporary meaning has also been transformed by an international rediscovery that happened decades after many of the records were made. The K89 City Pop Archive examines both histories—and treats the records themselves as historical objects whose pressings, formats, catalog numbers and reissues matter.
ARCHIVE INDEX
002 / FORTHCOMING
The Sound of City Pop
The musicians, arrangers, studios and production practices behind the polished surface: rhythm sections, horns, synthesizers, fusion technique and American influence.
003 / FORTHCOMING
The Records Behind the Revival
How collectors, DJs, reissues, YouTube, sampling, vaporwave and future funk reshaped the international understanding of Japanese popular music.
004 / FORTHCOMING
Collecting Japanese City Pop
Original releases, later pressings, CDs, cassettes, catalog numbers, JAN codes, reissues and how to identify the physical edition actually in front of you.
LISTEN / COLLECT / SOURCE
Japanese physical editions in the K89 catalog
Browse current Japanese music listings or ask K89 to locate a specific artist, catalog number, format or edition through the Find Request service.
BROWSE JAPANESE MUSIC SUBMIT A FIND REQUEST