Its spread was also aided by internet memes, discussions on Reddit, and fan art of the "Sweetest Music" cover on platforms such as DeviantArt. Coinciding with the vaporwave genre's rise in popularity, which itself takes cues from the city pop scene, the video spread rapidly throughout YouTube through the platform's recommendations algorithm. The video showed a cropped version of the cover of Takeuchi's earlier single "Sweetest Music", taken by Los Angeles-based photographer Alan Levenson.
On July 5, 2017, an eight-minute remix of "Plastic Love" was uploaded to YouTube by a user known as "Plastic Lover". "Plastic Love" was written and performed by Takeuchi and produced by her husband, Tatsuro Yamashita he also played guitar for the song, while Yasuharu Nakanishi played electric piano, Kōki Itō played bass guitar, and Jūn Aoyama played drums.
The single, embodying the city pop style, was moderately received and sold around 10,000 copies. A twelve-inch single was released on March 15, 1985, which included an "extended club mix" and "new re-mix" of the song and reached 86th on the Oricon Singles Chart. The song was included on Takeuchi's 1984 album, Variety, and also released as a single on November 19 that year. Mariya Takeuchi: The Pop Genius Behind 2018's Surprise Online Smash Hit from Japan.įollow Last."Plastic Love" is a song performed by Japanese singer Mariya Takeuchi. How Youtube's Algorithm Turned an Obscure 1980s Japanese Song Into an Enormously Popular Hit: Discover Mariya Takeuchi's “Plastic Love". On top of that, Takeuchi is also set to put out a three-disc compilation album, Turntable, on 21 August 2019. With the release of the “Plastic Love" music video, albeit abridged, Takeuchi fans worldwide, old and new, now have something to discover and revel in together. However, looking at YouTube's comments section for 'Plastic Love' now, many viewers don't really seem to care what language it's in." “Considering that it was mostly performed in Japanese, we figured it would be impossible to go abroad. “It never occurred to me to try to (release) work in the west," Takeuchi said looking back on the Variety era in an interview with The Japan Times. But now, it's also where her two worlds of fame merge.
“Plastic Love" is one of the many milestones in Takeuchi's career, the single coming off her number-one album, Variety. These days, she's dropped a couple new singles as well as Souvenir The Film, a documentary to celebrate the 40th anniversary of her career. In Japan, Takeuchi has long been a well-renowned pop star with 12 studio albums under her belt, selling more than 16 million units by 2009. Likely a combination of all factors, the viral success of “Plastic Love" has launched Takeuchi into a different, obscure-yet-massive realm of fame compared to the kind she's cultivated in her motherland.įuture funk producer Night Tempo's “Plastic Love" remix. Others, such as YouTuber Stevem, discuss meme culture and the rise of sample-based genres like vaporwave and future funk spreading city pop's influence, and more specifically, Takeuchi's. Sources like Open Culture take into consideration YouTube algorithm magic. It isn't explicitly clear how Takeuchi's 1984 single resurged into the international mainstream in such a big way. Textured with haze and grain, the music video also plays on the romantic, nostalgic factor that city pop offers today. These fun, dreamy, and colorful atmospheres are brought to life by Hayashi's saturated, neon-lit snapshots of urban Tokyo. The genre emerged during Tokyo's tech and economic boom in the '70s and '80s, drawing influence from the latest gadget crazes (think, the Walkman) to music reminiscent of city life (disco, soft rock, and funk, to name a few). Directed by Kyotaro Hayashi, the “Plastic Love" music video reflects the way city pop framed the world back then.
0 kommentar(er)
