The first time I encountered the singer Hitomitoi（一十三十一）was on Marcos V.'s "Retro Grooves and Underground Aidoru Gems Playlist" which was written up back in early 2014. Not only was I drawn in by that most symmetrical kanji name but that mix of light technopop and City Pop provided by Marcos' contribution of her "Dive" was quite irresistible. And frankly speaking as my friend put it so succinctly in his article, Hitomitoi is pretty easy on the eyes as well.
Well, Artzie Music put up another one of his creations yesterday titled "kissmenerdygirl - Hypnotic Eyes" and the remixed song was another potential earworm. This time, I got lucky in that one of the comments actually provided the source singer and song, and it was indeed Hitomitoi again.
The song is "So no Me wa, Hypnotic" (Those Eyes Are Hypnotic) from her 8th album from October 2015, "The Memory Hotel". The urban contemporary beat is there adorned with some of that blippity-bloppity technopop that itself reminds me of "Koi wa Ryuusei"（恋は流星）, a Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）City Pop masterpiece from decades back. That repeated techno phrase is an earworm all by itself!
As for "The Memory Hotel", it got as high as No. 69 on Oricon. Singer-songwriter Hitomitoi was born Hitomi Shimomura（下村 一十三）in 1978 in Sapporo, Hokkaido but spent her childhood living in a number of countries. After graduating from college, she spent some time working in the music industry in New York City before debuting in 2002 with her first single "Kemuri Iro no Koibito-tachi"（煙色の恋人達...Smoke-Coloured Lovers）. She has professed to have the greatest respect for and influence from City Pop maestro Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）.
No one in Japan calls it City Pop BTW, this is what Americans call Japanese pop music from the 80's, in Japan it's just known as the pop music from that era.
ReplyDeleteAlso Hitomitoi's music is not 80's pop music, it's a type of fusion music. It's mostly an electro and pop fusion style, however even jazz is integrated.
The music in her songs isn't unique, but her singing style can be said to be unique, however the music style itself is seen in many other artists.
Hello, Annono, and thanks for your comments. I think that you're right in that there are a lot of Japanese who probably have never heard the term and therefore wouldn't even use it. In the past few years, I think they have been hearing about it through media such as NHK and the commercial networks and newspapers because they have been covering the fact that people outside of Japan have been going crazy about it, and their reactions may have included some bemusement that non-Japanese would fall in love with Japanese singers from 40 to 50 years ago. I mean, as I've mentioned in a few other articles, I didn't even know about the expression "City Pop" until 2009. Up to that point, I had kinda considered some of the stuff by folks like Akira Terao as really funky enka.:)
DeleteHowever, although I'm not sure whether "City Pop" as a term was ever widely used by the public back in the day and according to J-Wiki there was never one person identified who came up with it, the expression did exist from the 1970s according to a 2019 Chris Matsumura article in "BRUTUS" through liner notes and obi for original LPs, and one example that was brought up in the J-Wiki article for City Pop was the obi for Tomoko Soryo's "City Lights by the Moonlight" that mentioned "City Pops", so perhaps at the very least, people in the music industry were probably using it.
At the same time, though, I could see people simply using "Pops" to describe the works of Mariya Takeuchi and Tatsuro Yamashita just to distinguish it from enka and aidoru. I mean, I heard the term enough times when I was a kid visiting the country.
Basically, I realize that City Pop is not so much a genre but a blanket term for music that has influences such as bossa nova, disco, jazz, etc., and it's just an easy way to describe that certain type of music from the late 70s into the late 80s with that "city" sound.
I agree that Hitomitoi's music and for that matter, the music of Ryusenkei isn't 80s pop music but I have been using the term City Pop in my Labels since I feel that it is an updated form of it. I do understand if you disagree with that, though. Even in a newspaper article that I've read, Cunimondo Takiguchi of Ryusenkei wasn't too thrilled about having his music referred to as City Pop, an old term from the 80s.
Anyways, enough blathering from me. How do you feel about the genre and how it's been covered in the media? Do you think City Pop, term or genre, has been nothing but a media-generated thing?