I write about Japanese music a lot, but I’ve been motivated to write about it even more as of late. I’ve recently covered the whole “city pop” thing a few times now, mostly to the extent that I just don’t get it. It’s fine, and there are some artists in that scene that I definitely do dig, but to me it just seems like such an odd subgenre of J-pop for people to be interested in, mostly because there’s just so much more interesting stuff out there, especially in terms of Japanese synthpop (or, as they call it, “technopop”).

And no, I’m not just talking about YMO and their related acts (although, for fuck’s sake listen to YMO and their related acts) but other artists too. The early-80s was simply jam-packed with amazing Japanese synthpop, and now, finally, a lot of the better stuff that was lost to time is being re-isssued, many for the first time on CD. So I thought I would take a quick look at three amazing artist worth checking out whose albums have recently gone back into circulation.  Continue reading →