'80s japanese boogie/r&b/freestyle

thread inspired by a friend on facebook posting a junko yagami youtube, i.e. this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQGvlemqUpE

song is really, really incredible. i downloaded the album and it's a bit weighed down by drab ballads, but the followup communication is 100 percent blinking synth bass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18F2Fa1czMM

anyway relying on ilm hivemind for anyone who knows of more music like this??? it's definitely probably the source of the forms that deliberate throwback j-pop groups like especia are inhabiting

the only other artist in this mode i know of is toshiki kadomatsu, who started off making steely dan-ish smooth jazz rock (which is amazing) but at some point he started incorporating harsher, freestyle-ish textures

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVmHJkm6qqU

I don't know this style too well either but I really like that "communication" track

prob too obvious but nami shimada "sunshower"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDIlsV81JgA

again, really obvious, but wink have a lot of freestyle in their sound:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMYOJYDx7Fk

nothing is obvious, i don't know any of this stuff!

oh man "sunshower" is unbelievable

yeah, I know, right?!

you may want to check out more soichi terada tracks. he produced that one. the larry levan remix is definitely what gave it worldwide traction but I prefer the original mix. the far east recording comp has some really material by him on it. unfortunately, there's nothing else with a pop vocal track on top and that's what I really love about "sunshower".

and speaking of stuff that finds its way into house sets, one of my faves on the smoother, more r&b end of 'city pop' - yasuko agawa "l.a. nights":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjZF1wh4NMs

excellent thread idea. challenge accepted

might be a bit earlier than what yr after on the disco end of boogie, but daniel wang's always boosted a bunch of stuff like minako yoshida's "town":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Jy0_p8nPQ

https://soundcloud.com/funk-jap

this guy has some bits. seems to be p alone in focusing on this kinda sound in particular rather than straying into jazzfunk fusion, ymo type synth pop, city pop (now a popular vaporware™ subsidiary)..

http://originalv1.unblog.fr/tag/1984/

more on his blog too, audio links still work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpYxsBGZMEM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BcacNcpQ3c

bit pseudo, very sweet tho

yea, I like the chiemi manabi album. a couple nice ones produced by hosono on there.

two v useful mixes in this link http://boingboing.net/2015/02/02/a-70-minute-mix-of-japanese-19.html

Tomoko Tane - Blue Light Yokohama:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MavgjnJr1xc

that bassline!

wow, i love it

rly interesting (and kinda ineffably delicate sideways japanese) penthouse-and-pavement short circuit between the rarefied shade of sade ('love is stronger'-ish) with the proper uk streetsoul soundsystem reggae bassline n breakbeat

would appear this came out as relatively late as 95, and given it's the pizzicato five guy producing i guess that evidences an element of (lightly) kitsch homage

wowwww

this thread is blowing my mind

tomoko tane song might be in homage to

http://www.discogs.com/%E3%82%B8%E3%83%9F%E3%83%BC%E7%AB%B9%E5%86%85-%E3%82%A8%E3%82%AD%E3%82%B5%E3%82%A4%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC%E3%82%BA-Blue-Light-Yokohama/release/3649881

??

http://convertibletoyokohama.com/post/42773199942/toshiki-kadomatsu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYfsYdo28SM

it's explicitly a cover of a song from 1968 but that's not the homage being made sonically

the covering of something of that vintage in itself is a meta reference, like smith & mighty doing 'walk on by' or 'remember me' etc

ah, i see. i didn't realize it was a cover! i can't read japanese :(

https://soundcloud.com/hothausrecs/whats-a-girl-to-do-dj-haus-44-edit

this isnt rly relevant like at all but since soichi terada and far east recordings was mentioned briefly upthread (and since i love crossposting to inappropriate threads so much) i may as well mention here that i have been heavily summerjamming this recent super smart dj haus flip of some glasgow wanker indie disco tune, and terada is kinda what it makes me think of... haus knows the sensibility enough to deliberately channel it too

oh incidentally last year i uploaded the extended "bay city" for everyone's benefit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaYdzP5Lr3A

that is insanely catchy

i completely missed this thread

has this been posted already?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqmkTy8V_Iw

no it hasn't! hello

oh yeah, that album is a great one.

Was posted upthread, but the link is now dead, so repost:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIrmfoX3lVw

Wink has been mentioned but I wanted to share this song, cause it drove me wild in '11.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIVGQ-B9G38

i especially love the delay on her voice during the verse starting at 1:52. Great production.

it's shocking how many of these japanese pop records of the 1980s have some input (songwriter producing or just guest playing) from hosono. hardest working man in showbiz, i guess.

Thank you guys so much for this thread, incredible! I only knew LA Nights and was always curious if there was more music like it.

OTM this stuff is grate

more minako

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmAA_8TzGqI

monster boogie jam from 1980, it's way better than "town" imo.

I go back to the first mari iijima album a lot. esp love the outro on this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGPSQKYxYmc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4yCIu0oobI

probably my favorite japanese song of the 80s. though that's tough because i think 80s japanese music (both pop and not) is the best period of music ever

was a little embarrassed to be jamming out to this recently

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DULR826A54

not boogie by a stretch, this is pure city pop (do we have a thread on that?)

i'm not entirely sure what the difference between "japan boogie" and "city pop" is. folks like the ymo peeps and tatsuro yamashita are pivotal figures in city pop, but i see a lot of their stuff called "boogie". my gut feeling on this, given that knowledge of city pop as a genre didn't seem to permeate to the english-speaking internet until around 2013 or later, is that they refer to roughly the same thing. is there a such thing as '80s japan boogie that wouldn't qualify as city pop?

i feel like boogie has to have more dance/funk influences while a lot of city pop is pure MOR. but obviously there's plenty of overlap.

what's up, favorite thread i ever started. a fellow ilxor posted this on my facebook page the other day and it fuckin rules:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-akuHHopkKM

i suppose everybody here already knows this song but just in case

this is the catchiest thing i've heard in... a decade?

it's been on repeat in my house for months

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUQjdwRno5g

I've probably gone too far with this, but I've been enjoying the smoother side of city pop, like Horii Katsumi Project and Kingo Hamada.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvXOHIlY1KA

there's definitely a point when i listen to some of this when i'm like, "wait a minute, am i listening to dave koz?" and question the very foundations of my taste.

Really enjoying this thread. Friend sent me Soichi Terada - Sumo Jungle which is wicked

this whole album is really great, but damn, this ひと夏のタペストリー in particular...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8K0zJ5x_GE&t=1423s#

argh, scratch that "this" :-/

hmmm:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8K0zJ5x_GE&t=1423s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8K0zJ5x_GE

ok, guess timestamps are tricky

tomoko aran "ひと夏のタペストリー"

good shit

Toshinobu Kubota - Groovin'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQZYdaBD6mo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKmPfdYy5y8

wow @ this book (from the same publisher that did Obscure Sound.) another tantalizing catalogue of awesome looking records

https://www.dustygroove.com/item/752875

Japanese Groove Disc Guide A to Z (paperback)

This time around, the folks at Rittor – who've given us other great record books over the years – turn their talents to the world of Japanese groove, particularly from the 70s and early 80s – a time when so many Japanese artists were picking up on the best styles in American soul, and using the music to come up with some great grooves of their own!

SEXY ROBOT

I've been enjoying this compilation a lot lately:

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Lovin-Mighty-Fire-Nippon-Funk-Soul-Disco-1973-1983/release/9886561

'rainbow paradise' by masayoshi takanaka on that is a keeper

I'm still working through the entire thing (thanks for the rec) but the Hosono track seems like the best composition so far.

ya that one's great too. could listen to the jam in the last minute and a half of it for a long time

Live streaming city pop tunes on YouTube w/ driving footage - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IiPLJfANrM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojqKOE9Ezf0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbpS_elm8Q4

oh yeah that's the stuff

lit

I posted this in the future funk thread but have you guys figured out why this has 8 million plus views https://youtu.be/3bNITQR4Uso

combo of youtube suggestions algorithm + autoplay afaict? comments section is full of the phrase "randomly stumbled upon this." very dissimilar form the comments section on my "bay city" upload which is at least 30 percent yung bae and vaporwave references

what a jam also

the youtube embeds in this thread all disappearing is a bummer :\

oh man it's such a shame having only looked in here for the first time.

That Junko - Communication album is so whopper!

This may well have been posed in a previous YouTube upload, but deserves its place in here. Also the artwork is stellar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdBEwe1KKmg

plastic love's yt popularity seems to be entirely a quirk of The Algorithm. it constantly appears as a recommended video for basically any japanese music on there and even more now, to the point where it's become a joke among some jpop fans i know. I'm presuming it at some point early on was very successful at getting recommend video clicks which snowballed to make the algorithm push it extremely heavily

props to the Singles Jokebox for sending me to this endless City Pop mix

oh yeah that's been in my youtube recommendations for months lol

it's seriously excellent

(I was directed via comments on Yubin's "Lady" which also slaps)

been jamming this a lot: https://cultures-of-soul.myshopify.com/products/tokyo-nights-female-j-pop-boogie-funk-1981-to-1988

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnXrLjVODaw

Anyone itt fuck with Hoodoo Fushimi?

https://youtu.be/1s8aWYlAuZg

That^ whole album, Thanatos of Funk is extremely strong front to back

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRgLhEGEetc