What can a city pop artist release when they settle into their 30s?
Toshiki Kadomatsu has an answer. Starting in 1991, the album covers of his works stopped featuring scenes of the seaside or city, instead, he started to release albums with titles such as "All is Vanity". His musical style started to incline towards fusion rather than the city pop sound that he was used to producing.
Kazuhito Murata has an answer. Instead of ditching his old style completely, he chose to build his new style upon it. He did not throw away his theme of the seaside but instead slowed the music down to create a more breezy and nostalgic sound. An example of this transition is shown in the song "Paradise Road", released in his 8th album "空を泳ぐ日" in 1990.
Most of the city pop fans know Tatsuro Yamashita for his funky songs, such as "Sparkle", "Bomber", and "Ride on Time". It was the same for me. When I was initially introduced to Tatsuro Yamashita, it was the funkiness in his music that really attracted me, but as my music taste and experience matured, I started to like his ballad songs more and more. I find that the funky city pop songs are like canned beer. It gives you that pleasure and you are supposed to consume them fast in order to gain more pleasure, but these ballad tracks are like fine wine. You are supposed to sit down, listen to them slowly and taste every emotion it brings to you.
"Get Back in Love" is just such a song. Yes, the arrangement does sound fairly simple, but in the same way literature does not need scientific terms to express meaning, music does not need complicated arrangements to convey emotion. When Yamashita's other songs definitely have better arrangements, "Get Back in Love" is the one I go back most often to. Yamashita does not create the funkiest of music, but he definitely does create some of the most emotional and healing songs I've ever heard. In fact, his ballads are what took me through some of the hardest and most stressful parts of my life. However cloudy the weather may be, I can always find a bit of sunshine in songs like "Futari", "The War Song", "Christmas Eve", and "Get Back in Love".
People change, and so do these city pop musicians. They've all had to respond to the question that I proposed at the beginning of this article, and it is interesting to see how each one of them gave an answer to us. I think the result of Tatsuro Yamashita's transition shows how he has changed as an individual and how he matured as an established musician. These ballads definitely do not give him as much space to flex his expertise, but to compose a truly good slow song that conveys emotion and heals souls takes something beyond technical skills, and it is only when one has had enough understanding of music and life is he able to condense his experience and produce songs like "Get Back in Love"
Hi, HRLE92. Thanks very much for your thinking piece on how the above singers learned to move on or evolve during their careers. I figured that Tats started transitioning away from that famed City Pop sound around the late 1980s. Can't be partying all night every night for the rest of one's life. :)
ReplyDeleteYour article also had me thinking of Tatsuro's wife and also his former bandmate, Mariya Takeuchi and Taeko Ohnuki respectively. Although neither of them were purely City Pop singers despite their famous songs internationally in the last few years, I think that both of them illustrated their own turns in their music in the form of albums. Mariya had "Variety" in 1984 and Ohnuki had "Romantique" in 1980.