Piper and City Pop

[scooter]

So [mention]yachtrockmiami[/mention] dropped a tune while [mention]CrazyCraftLady[/mention] was working, called "Night Shore" by Piper, and caused me to fall down the rabbit hole of city pop. It's basically Japanese yacht rock...given that it is Japan's take on the genre, there is a certain neat and slightly unexpected vibe to it. Of course, now that I've said that, "Night Shore" is basically straight-up yacht. If you've heard the genre/vibe before, you might have heard Mariya Takeuchi's "Plastic Love", which somehow ticked every single happy note on YouTube's arcane recommendation algorithm, to the point that everybody had it on their "you might like the following" list in the mid-2000s. (Which come to think of it has been on YRM as well.)

I think that's part of that vibe: very consciously hitting the proper checkboxes of "listenability". I can appreciate it from a detached and somewhat sardonic point of view. I mean, I also get into Kraftwerk, and there is a certain overlap there -- a strong rejection (really a shattering) of earlier local traditions, embracing deliberate artificiality.

[scooter]

I resurrect this thread to bring you more completely mellow sounds with lyrics that you can only intermittently understand: a collection of 80s city pop!