CD Review: Pacific Breeze – Various Artists

For a genre of music that I don’t really like all that much and barely even constitutes as a genre of music in the first place, I sure do find myself writing about “city pop” a lot.

For the uninitiated, “city pop” is a very loosely defined genre of music that is often assigned to a certain type of Japanese pop music that was moderately popular in the late-70s and early-80s. It’s legendarily hard-to-define, but in broad terms, “city pop” is jazzy, well-produced pop music with disco influences that is upbeat and fun. For some reason, it became the sample source-de-jour for vaporwave and future funk scenes. A few labels have tried to ride the city pop neon gravy train to success, releasing several compilations of what they deem to be songs that fit in the obtusely-defined genre. Now, Light In The Attic has decided to don their day-glo and hop aboard that iridescent train as well, with their new compilation, Pacific Breeze.

The thing to keep in mind when talking about “city pop” (and why I use quotes around the term so often) is that it’s not really a thing. People in Japan who I know who like music never use the term, most of the artists who are often associated with the term are lesser-known b-grade idols, often forgotten or relegated to has-been status. The liner notes to Pacific Breeze say that the songs on this album served as the soundtrack to Japan’s boom economy of the 70s and 80s, but most of these songs were not hits. A more accurate collection boom-era music would feature artists like Pink Lady, Kenji Sawada, Seiko Matsuda and Yumi Matsutoya. Putting an album like this together and claiming it is indicative of the era would be like putting Hukser Du, The Pixies and Sonic Youth on a compilation and saying it was representation of popular American rock music in the 80s. It’s wishful thinking. The city pop revival (as it is) is almost entirely an online creation, and largely one cultivated and maintained by westerners who have assigned the city pop designation to old Japanese pop songs they like (largely because they were sampled by vaporwave/future funk producers). 

Pacific Breeze is self-described as a collection of “Japanese City Pop, AOR & Boogie.” Judged on those terms, the album is a near-failure. But when judged as a collection of good music, origins or post-modern genre designations be damned, it’s pretty good.

Yes, there are some city pop standards here. Taeko Ohnuki, Masataka Matsutoya, and Tomoko Soryo are all present and accounted for, with oversized shades and beach balls in tow. But alongside them there are artists like YMO alumni Haruomi Hosono. And while Hosono certainly did contribute to songs that fall under the city pop banner (one such collaborative effort, the excellent “Mykonos No Hanayome” is included here) most of his solo stuff and side-project material was far more on the synth-pop and techno side of things. Hosono solo track “Sports Men” and “In My Jungle,” by Hosono side-project F.O.E. have about as much to do with city pop as Phil Collins. The same goes with fellow YMO alumni Yukihiro Takahashi and his track “Drip Dry Eyes,” a electronic-driven synthpop track that features none of the lyrical nor musical brightness and optimism that most associate with songs deemed city pop.

The synth-pop tracks are in the minority here, there are only about four or five at most, but many of them are so far removed from the album’s intended goal that they really stand out. What also makes them stand out more than the city pop fair their surrounded by is that they’re far superior in nearly every way imaginable. I get that the city pop sound has its fans. It has a feeling that you just can’t match with a lot of other music from any other era or any other country, but it just gets old fast. There are only so many slickly-produced, jazz-influenced pop tracks I have in me.

Like seriously, that number is probably in the low 20s at most.

It all sounds the same. This stuff is good background music for a reason and the title Pacific Breeze is an apt one because this stuff just breezes through you like a nice cool summer wind. Refreshing, and immediately forgettable. I actually prefer this stuff when it’s used as sample material for future funk and other new micro-genres. It allows for the most memorable and catchy parts to be isolated and magnified via big beats and other effects. Someone should be working to make a proper compilation of that stuff, there’s so much of it that needs to be curated.

Despite claims by Light In The Attic that Pacific Breeze is only for sale outside of Japan, plenty of retailers in Tokyo are currently carrying the collection, both on CD and vinyl. The analog package looks nice, but I went with the CD this time around because the record cost a fortune and didn’t come with a download code. I get that the exclusion of a download code is a cost-cutting measure by Light In The Attic, but that doesn’t make me like it anymore. As a package, the CD version is fine, with great cover art by Hiroshi Nagai, whose art often graced a lot of pop albums. However, the liner notes are a disaster, formatted with style for far over substance that large portions of them are nigh-unreadable thanks to the formatting.

This is a good compilation of solid tunes from the era, even if some of its tracklist beguiles its alleged intent. If you buy this and want to dive deeper into music like it, I highly recommend the Tokyo Night compilation that Cultures of Soul Records put out in 2017, as well as the Midnight in Tokyo series by Studio Mule.

And then pick up some YMO or something. Let’s make a Japanese techno-pop revival a thing in 2019.