Variety: 40 Years On
Looking back on Mariya Takeuchi, City Pop, and 80’s Japan
“When do you leave Japan?”
“How long will you be in Japan?”
“How many more weeks do you have in Japan?”
These were questions I was frequently asked as a foreign resident of Japan. Rather than how long I had been in the country, whether I liked Japan, or what brought me there in the first place, so often the first question that seemed to automatically come to everyone’s mind was when I would inevitably leave. In my case it was after a year and three months.
Had they asked me if I loved Japan, the answer would have been yes. There is no doubt in my mind that I greatly appreciated the time I spent in the country that had so long held a place in my imagination. I will always compliment the politeness, courtesy, and respectful nature of Japanese people and society. There is much to admire in Japan’s culture, history, and heritage, and I enjoyed everything from the food to the distinctive character found in the towns and cities.
The reason I left a country for which I hold so much affection is because today’s Japan is in many ways a sad place to live. A nation that once had a higher GDP per capita than the United States and most of Western Europe is now plagued by economic stagnation and a level of annual population loss that is truly staggering. Japan is approaching a population crisis and was in a state of negative growth when I left, having been in and out of recession for more than a 30-year period. Called the ‘Lost Decades,’ beginning in 1991 the economic growth the country had enjoyed for years came to an abrupt end, and Japan entered an era of decades upon decades of economic contraction. Living in Japan, I grew accustomed to the constant articles and headlines lamenting everything from low wage growth to a weak currency, and was dismayed by the general sense I felt of a society in decline. As much as I may have loved the country, I struggled to see a future for myself in a weakening nation of declining prestige.
While the Japan of today is gradually growing weaker economically and demographically and is expected by few to ever make an economic comeback, this wasn’t always the case.
Japan’s economy grew quite remarkably throughout the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, and at one point had a realistic chance of overtaking the United States as the world’s largest economy.
The prosperous decade of the 1980s was a Japanese success story; an era of affluence and prosperity that seemed to promise the nation was destined to become the world’s top economic power.
Mariya Takeuchi is a Japanese singer and songwriter who rose to fame as part of the City Pop genre of the 70’s and 80’s. City Pop was associated with Japan’s economic boom and, as the name would suggest, a cosmopolitan way of life in the nation’s thriving big cities. Yutaka Kimura described the genre as “urban pop music for those with urban lifestyles.”
The New York Times calls late 80’s Japan “a time of Champagne, garish colors and bubbly disco dance-floor anthems, and the last time many people in Japan felt rich and ascendant.” It was in this era and world in which City Pop reached its apex of popularity and cultural significance. When Tokyo was prosperous, City Pop and artists like Mariya Takeuchi provided the soundtrack.
What does Japan’s economic rise, and then fall, have to do with Takeuchi, a pop star who wrote often of love and romance?
Takeuchi’s music is a memento of a different world, and of a Japan that no longer exists. While the nation of today is struggling, the Japan of 40 years ago was one of the world’s wealthiest and most advanced societies. Takeuchi’s bright vocals, cheerful melodies, and elegant production carry memories of this distant period of Japanese prosperity. Her music is both fun and listenable and a product of a time of growth and optimism for the future. In a modern Japan that is experiencing steady economic and demographic decline, Takeuchi’s songs are a reminder of different times.
Takeuchi and City Pop have recently found an audience outside Japan, particularly among younger listeners. Rob Arcand, writing for Vice, describes how “Japan’s era of economic prosperity would come to an end with the stock market crash of the early ’90s (taking the unbridled optimism of city pop with it),” but notes that the genre enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the late 2010s. A feeling of hope for the future is particularly strong in this era of Japanese pop music, and at least some part of City Pop’s newfound success, I would argue, is that it captures the feeling of a different world.
Takeuchi’s music seems to evoke a similarly unique reaction from younger, Western fans: an inexplicable nostalgia for an era they never experienced.
I recall a conversation at a restaurant in Kichijōji, Tokyo. I was asked why I, a millennial, would love this particular brand of Japanese pop music that came long before my time. I answered that Takeuchi and City Pop made me feel something; a feeling and sense of a different time, the era of a prosperous and wealthy Japan that I and many others in my age group were never around to experience. A world I missed out on. Other listeners describe a similar reaction to City Pop and Takeuchi specifically.
I cannot recommend more highly Takeuchi’s 1984 album Variety.
With lyrics and vocals by Mariya Takeuchi, and production and arrangement mainly by her husband Tatsuro Yamashita, also a prominent figure in City Pop, Variety is a reflection of this decade of the 80’s and of a time of growth and optimism.
The album shines with cheer and enthusiasm from the opening track. The first song, “Mouichido,” or ‘One More Time’ in Japanese, describes a couple who rekindle their relationship. The female singer, backed by a male chorus, sings of a man and woman looking forward to a better future together. From the beginning we’re introduced to the bright, energetic melodies, lyrics sung in a combination of English and Japanese, lavish production, and general feeling of positivity and optimism that will define much of the album. Takeuchi’s sound is a clean and polished one in which I am immediately transported to a place of musical bliss. The moment we first hear Takeuchi’s big, confident voice triumphantly roaring the opening lyrics, there is a distinctively positive energy.
The second song is one that could be the subject of an entire essay on its own. It is the most famous track on the album and is responsible for introducing Takeuchi’s work to an entirely new, Western audience. This is “Plastic Love,” also a romantic song sung in both languages. Over a bouncy, energetic melody, Plastic Love is told from the perspective of a woman jaded by the superficial nature of modern relationships, the ‘Plastic’ in “Plastic Love” suggesting an artificial, phony quality to dating and romance. Plastic Love went Internet viral in the late 2010s, bringing this anthem of superficial romance in a time of fast, party lifestyles to a contemporary, younger audience. In the English chorus, Takeuchi sings, “I’m just playing games, I know that’s plastic love…,” relationships being a ritual the narrator sees as fake; a casualty of the world as it existed when the song was written. The Japanese lyrics describe a woman who dances at the disco and wears fancy clothes but is ultimately lonely and empty. Plastic Love paints a portrait of the modern Japan and the superficiality of the city people who led busy lifestyles, and conveys the vibe of a bustling, fast-paced urban life. One can easily picture the fun and excitement of 80’s Tokyo while listening to this song. Writing for Vice, Ryan Bassil describes listening to Plastic Love: “you are in the tune — in this case, sitting in Tokyo’s Kabukichō district, desolate and desperately heartbroken, but also lubricated with a passionate sense for adventure, thirsting for stimulation and Asahi.” This is a song that succeeds in transporting the listener to a different time and place.
Plastic Love is catchy and upbeat pop music with an unmistakable energy. A soft, gentle piano opening precedes a launch into a fast, buoyant tempo. The song charges forward with a rhythm and intensity that makes me want to instinctively get up and dance. It’s an exciting song that creates a vivid image of a fast-paced life of parties and fun. While the whole of Variety is excellent, Plastic Love is one of the clear highlights of the album, and it’s no accident that this song has enjoyed an enduring popularity and cultural relevance after a fan remix went viral on YouTube in 2017.
The third song, “Honki de Only You (Let’s Get Married),” like the opening track, carries a message of youthful romance, as Takeuchi narrates a story of a couple in love who support one another and look forward to a future together. Written in English and told from a woman’s perspective, Takeuchi sings with palpable warmth and affection for a man the song’s narrator loves. It is a cheerful, fairytale portrait of love with the characteristic positivity and cheer that pervades much of the album.
Track four, “One Night Stand,” follows a formula similar to the preceding songs: a romantic story presented in both English and Japanese, sung beautifully by Takeuchi and elegantly produced and composed. This song is slower, and from the opening piano chords we feel a distinctly sobering and serious tone. Takeuchi is credited for the piano, and her lyrics in Japanese describe a woman who regrets going to bed with a man. He will completely forget their experience together, and she laments that it isn’t real love. Like Plastic Love, this is the modern lifestyle of the urban Japan that Takeuchi observed and likely lived and experienced firsthand.
Not every song is optimistic. The fifth track, “Broken Heart,” sung entirely in English, depicts a woman longing for the love of a man who left her for someone else. The sounds of a saxophone and the soothing backing chorus provide comfort as we hear some of the saddest words in the entire album. Takeuchi sings mournfully of missing a man she loves, but stills holds out for him to come back, saying she “would do anything to make the time return.” Even when Variety strikes a sad tone, there is still a faint hint that a happier future awaits.
In the sixth song, “Night at the Amphitheater,” we’re quickly greeted by a pounding drumbeat, roaring guitars and a fast tempo as Takeuchi invites us in English to “rock and roll.” This is another track that is upbeat and easily, readily enjoyable. After Broken Heart’s gentle sadness, the enthusiasm of Variety is back.
“Todokanu Omoi,” the seventh track, is slower and more introspective, carrying a hint of mournfulness. In Japanese, she speaks of a struggling relationship. One of Takeuchi’s great talents was in her ability to convey unmistakable feelings in her words and vocals. We may not understand the song’s Japanese lyrics, but we know the sense of sadness she is trying to express. By contrast, in the eighth song, “Mersey Beat de Utawasete,” the mood and tempo are immediately upbeat. Variety tells some sad stories, but consistently bounces back to a tone of positivity.
Track nine, “Mizu to Anata to Taiyo to,” is sung in a loving, affectionate tone by Takeuchi, and the liner notes credit Yamashita for the “vibe.” If this album deserves credit for anything, it is for the atmosphere it creates, consistently bringing its listener to a warm, comforting, and, above all, fun place.
“Going Steady,” the tenth song, is another bright, fun, and infectious depiction of romance, Yamashita crooning “We are going steady…” in the background as Takeuchi performs in Japanese. In the final song, “Shetland Ni Hoho o Uzomete,” Takeuchi closes Variety in English with, “I say I love you, and I always will, my dear…,” a final note of gentle tenderness in an album defined by many heartfelt expressions of emotion. As a writer and singer, she moves the listener with moving, real, and relatable stories of love.
At first glance, Variety is pop music and a collection of romantic songs like any other.
It’s catchy, fun, and the production and instrumentation are impeccable. The linear notes show impressive and attractive pictures of a young Takeuchi. One shows her in a flowered dress, red gloves, a bow, and gripping a purse; a youthful, beautiful woman in the prime of life. On the cover she wears a uniform like that of a schoolgirl, posed as if in a school yearbook portrait. The album is told from the perspective of a young, forward-looking Takeuchi. Even while some of the songs tell sad stories, her lyrics consistently capture feelings of palpable joy and excitement.
Her words and vocal performances are impressive, and the songs of Variety exude brightness, optimism, and positivity. As a product of the Japan of the 80’s, it serves as a window to a better time in the country’s history, and to the era of City Pop.
Noting that the genre was “tied to a tech-fueled economic bubble and the wealthy new leisure class it created,” Jon Blistein writes that “City Pop was ultimately optimistic music, utopian even in the way it reflected Japan’s booming economy and the drive at the time to build better machines, better lives, and a better country.” This is the tone and mood that Variety consistently captures, one in which there was a sense of hope, in which people had a future to believe in.
I have an even more specific, unique reaction, however. When I listen to Variety, and City Pop in general, I’m overcome with an unusual feeling: an aching nostalgia and longing for this era that existed before I was born. I get a sense of awe for a time that I, born in the 1990s, was never around to experience and have no memories of. I find myself visualizing the world in which the music was made, and the time period for which it was developed. Listening to Plastic Love makes me imagine the feelings and vibes of this era when Japan was one of the world’s wealthiest countries, on track to become a great economic power. I envision Ginza, Tokyo, where the song was recorded, and I visualize the 80’s nightlife. To hear City Pop and Variety is to get a feeling of being in a time and place that I as a millennial wasn’t around to experience. When I listen to this distinctive breed of Japanese pop music, I picture myself living an exciting life in the vibrant, glistening 80’s Tokyo of the ascendant Japan.
What is interesting is that many fans of City Pop encounter similar feelings.
Miranda Remington describes Variety as “melodically transporting listeners all at once to the magical bliss of Japan in the year 1984.” The songs of Variety, and Plastic Love specifically, are “urban love stories for those who yearn for an idealized past,” discussing City Pop’s rediscovery and popularity among young people.
On Plastic Love, Haley Kennis asks why “so many people who have never lived in Japan,” and “weren’t even alive during the 80’s” have such a strong reaction to the song. She describes the “breezy and energetic city pop sound” as “perfect for picturing oneself on a fun night out in the city,” and states that “people who were born in the 1990s or 2000s clearly never experienced that era and have to imagine that world.” Kennis points to YouTube comments that all express a similar sentiment: a nostalgia for a moment in time that is long gone and can never again be experienced.
It’s hard to find much to be optimistic about in the Japan of today’s world. What was once one of the most prosperous countries in the world recently fell behind Germany in nominal GDP, the first time in my lifetime the country wasn’t the world’s second or third largest economy, and the first time in many, many years that Japan was as far behind as fourth place. Japan lost an astonishing 800,000 people in 2022, and at least half the nation seems to be perpetually gripped by mask wearing. As a foreign admirer of Japan, I do not feel optimistic about the country’s future. The Tokyo of the 80’s is not the one I experienced in the 2020s.
I recall another conversation: at a gathering in Shibuya, I spoke to a Japanese American man originally from Hawaii, who told me of the Tokyo he remembered and visited in his youth, particularly in the bubble era of 1986 to 1991. He told me the nightlife was incredible and that both a feeling of optimism for the nation’s future and a sense of real affluence was palpable. We both lamented that today’s Japan felt very different.
City Pop is cheerful and powerfully upbeat, while today’s world is not. Fun songs like Plastic Love are a welcome reminder of a different era, and Variety is a crowning achievement of the City Pop genre.
I was asked repeatedly when I would inevitably leave the country. I often found myself visualizing the nation as it existed during a period of high economic growth, in which the country still carried so much promise, and imagining a life in that Japan. This is a part of what makes City Pop valuable for me; it carries feelings of a time I wish I could have experienced but never can.
In light of Mariya Takeuchi’s Variety celebrating its 40th anniversary, let’s both remember this beautiful album and the distant world that it represents.
