The Endless Life Cycle of Japanese City Pop

> I tend to listen to music with no lyrics or with lyrics in languages I don't understand because it lets me program without becoming distracted.

This! When I started programming full time my music interests started shifting into what they are today which is just that. Either music with no lyrics or are mostly in a foreign language to prevent being distracted by it.

> Speaking for myself, I tend to listen to music with no lyrics or with lyrics in languages I don't understand because it lets me program without becoming distracted.

Same here, plus it helps me better appreciate the human voice as an instrument. Composers tend to rehash the same few topics over and over, even across languages, so rarely does understanding the lyrics actually add to my listening experience.

I'm sure lyrics are just as hokey in other languages, but this way I don't need to care!

(I'll also use this as an opportunity to recommend songs by Tinariwen [1], Mazouni [2], and Stromae [3])

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vACZA9dGvV4 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnsa9dazW04 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiKj0Z_Xnjc

It’s complete BS. People can like whatever the F legal thing they want to like no explanation necessary.

This is absurd. So overseas people can’t listen to American music or cinema unless they “understand us” and the culture? Likewise I can’t like French wine unless I’m a connoisseur? Or I can’t listen to Swedish pop or death metal unless I immerse into Swedish culture etc?

Or I can’t eat tacos unless I’m Mexican or no one can eat hamburgers or play basketball but Americans, etc? Eff off.

People can fetishize whatever they want when they want. Some guys like Kanye and Tiger fetishized blondes. Guys like Nick Cage and George Soros fetishize Asians, etc. Get over it.

This is just childish and absurd.

Nothing. I don't think it is Orientalism, to me that implies dehumanizing or infantilizing Japanese people or fetishizing their culture, but city pop and other vaporwave genres just appreciate the aesthetic. It has a particularly nostalgic quality for a lot of Westerners who grew up with Japanese media.

And Japanese culture does the same thing with Western pop culture, Western music and English.

Legitimately thank you your comment saved me a click.

Pitchfork editorials almost always skew more political than musical.

There are some points I want to make about the article; firstly, the article doesn't paint listeners (including myself in that group as an owner of ~100 Japanese 70s/80s records) as orientalists. Rather, it claims that the surge in the popularity of city pop has emerged out of stereotypes and biases about Japan, the past, and past Japan. Those stereotypes, and being built into a fetish, is the orientalist element.

The Pitchfork writer doesn't say that's a problem. It's more of an article along the lines that the unexamined life is not worth living. Neither the writer (nor the academic they cite) are going to be starting a campaign to get Google to take down city pop album rips on YouTube. They're not on a campaign to get it banned. They're not going to be breaking into your house to confiscate your headphones. They're not calling me racist.

If someone had written an article about the rise in popularity of Jazz in the 50s being founded in the idea of the black entertainer to be appreciated for his amazing skill in contrast to other blacks (think along the lines of the movie Green Book for an exploration of the ideas), that might be a valid observation, and something to think about. What attracts you to jazz? Do you know what attracts you to jazz, and how do you know that? It doesn't mean you're a racist, in the same way liking porn doesn't mean you're a misogynist.

So there is no 'problem', but maybe it's something to think about and reflect on. I think the article prompted me to do that, but maybe not in the way it intended. Desires and preferences (as much as people can pass things off as 'just what I like') may be worthy of moral consideration, according to some philosophers. I'll keep listening to my records, but I'll also examine what's behind them in my mind. The article does a good job of pointing to the phenomenon of 'Cool Japan' without actually mentioning it. In particular, the last sentence.

On the other hand, it's worth considering what effects articles like these have on listeners. If they come away with the impression that it's wrong to listen to city pop or any music that isn't from "their culture", there's been a failure in communication that would seem to encourage people to become cloistered in the superiority of their own cultures, which reduces the recognition of what we have in common as humans.

It's a complicated issue. I don't think the article does a great job of addressing it.

The problem is that journalism doesn't pay much anymore and confers less status and prospect than a coal miner. To make up the difference, they pick up arms against imgainary foes (secret, undetectable yet very dangerous orientalism) to give their lives a meaning it wouldn't otherwise have. Young woke liberals roughly go through the same as the members of UFO cults in the 70s: Unable to accept being discarded by society, they place themselves at the center of a galactic conspiracy.

The Rainbow Goblins is great! Really fun storytelling musical journey.

> I was born in '96. My bad for not being born in Japan in the '70s.

Yeah... Yeah. It's like that sometimes. Keep listening to the good music, not the baseless hate.