Mariya Takeuchi Portrait RCA RHL-8515 Japan VINYL LP OBI. Mariya Takeuchi Original Pressing Vinyl LP Set, 'VARIETY' & Rare PROMO 'MISS M' C 216.66. Here are some of the more interesting videos that I found. Mariya Takeuchi Variety (Plastic Love) Cassette USED. And yet, given city pop’s prevalence in the vaporwave and future funk genres, it feels surprisingly contemporary, and maybe even a wee bit futuristic.Īnd so I recently found myself going down a “Plastic Love”-inspired rabbit hole on YouTube. And I’m no different every time I listen to the song, I feel like I’m opening a time capsule into another era. (The song ends with the following refrain, sung in English: “I’m just playing games/I know that’s plastic love/Dance to the plastic beat/Another morning comes.”)ĭespite being 35 years old, the song has taken on a life of its own in recent years, with adoring fans gushing about the song and the nostalgic urban fantasies that it inspires in YouTube comment sections.
Originally released on Takeuchi’s 1984 album, Variety, “Plastic Love” feels like the platonic ideal of city pop thanks to its breezy horn and string arrangements, some tasteful guitar licks, and funky rhythms - and all of it wrapped up in production that’s been polished to within an inch of its life.Īnd then, of course, there’s Takeuchi’s lovely voice, which walks a fine line between coy, plaintive, and heartbroken, which makes sense given that “Plastic Love” is about a woman coping with heartache by indulging in shallow, empty behavior. Mariya Takeuchi - Variety (30th Anniversary Edition) Audio Preview remove-circle Share or Embed This Item. There’s a lot of great music to be found in the genre - a YouTube search for “city pop” will return any number of mixes - but for my money, one of the definitive city pop songs is Mariya Takeuchi’s “Plastic Love.” Few things evoke the heady 1980s bubble era Japan more than city pop tunes. I was curious to know more so I went and purchased the album and let me tell you, it was worth every cent. About this time last year, I discovered “ city pop,” an ultra-slick and highly polished form of pop music that emerged from Japan in the early ’80s, and served as a celebration of the upscale, urban living brought on by the country’s economic success. Written and sung by Mariya Takeuchi, Plastic Love is pure city pop, a loosely-defined, breezy genre that has been described as music made by city people, for city people. Like a lot of youngsters who didn't live in the 80's, Mariya Takeuchi's plastic love was my foray into city pop.
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