Ten Japanese city pop albums

Most people arrive at city pop through a video, and the video never tells you which label the record came out on.

The catalogue entries do. They also tell you something else, which is that these ten records carry ten different catalogue numbers between eight different labels, and one word repeated in the country field of every single one of them.

Japan. Not one of these was pressed anywhere else.

Listen while you read

1980

Miki Matsubara, Pocket Park (See･Saw, C25A0077, 25 January 1980). Eleven pieces, and the oldest entry on this page by two years.

1982

Tatsuro Yamashita, For You (Air Records, RAL-8801, 21 January 1982). Twelve pieces, on the label that also carries the Kadomatsu two years later.

Hiroshi Sato, Awakening (Alfa, ALR-28036, 21 June 1982). Ten pieces. Wendy Matthews sings them. Her name sits alongside Sato’s in the credits rather than under them.

1983

Meiko Nakahara, Mint (Eastworld, WTP-90240, 1 September 1983). Ten pieces, and one of the four records here that didn’t turn up on the 21st or the 25th of a month, a pattern worth holding on to for a moment.

Anri, Timely!! (For Life Records, 28K-63, 5 December 1983). Ten pieces on the vinyl. The streaming edition counts eleven.

1984

Toshiki Kadomatsu, After 5 Clash (Air Records, RAL-8812, 21 April 1984). Nine pieces. Same label as the Yamashita, eleven catalogue numbers further along.

Mariya Takeuchi, Variety (Moon Records, MOON-28018, 25 April 1984). Eleven pieces, four days behind the Kadomatsu.

Junko Ohashi, Magical (Philips, 28PL-79, 1 July 1984). Twelve pieces, and the catalogue files it as a compilation rather than an album.

1986

Kaoru Akimoto, Cologne (Invitation, VIH-28248, 21 March 1986). Ten pieces on a label nothing else here shares.

Momoko Kikuchi, Adventure (Vap, 30183-28, 25 June 1986). Ten pieces, and the last record on the page.

What we couldn’t find

Three of the ten aren’t on Spotify as far as we can see: For You, After 5 Clash and Mint.

With the first two it isn’t the record that’s missing, it’s everything: search Tatsuro Yamashita or Toshiki Kadomatsu as artists and no albums come back at all. Meiko Nakahara is there with other titles. Mint isn’t among them.

That’s our search and nobody has declared any of it. Worth saying anyway, because the name most people reach for first when city pop comes up is the one the platform doesn’t have.

What the catalogue numbers say

Eight labels across ten records, and no two of them number things the same way. C25A0077. RAL-8801. ALR-28036. WTP-90240. 28K-63. MOON-28018. 28PL-79. VIH-28248. 30183-28.

None of that is untidiness, it’s a market that never had to speak to any other market, and the records were never built to cross a customs desk in the first place.

It’s also why they’re awkward to find now, because a record issued in one country and carrying a number that means nothing outside it comes back forty years later by the longest road there is. Somebody uploads it. Somebody else presses play.