Mariya Takeuchi
Singer-songwriter whose sophisticated pop and songwriting for idol singers shaped 1980s Japanese music. Born in Shimane Prefecture, she studied at Keio University and spent a year as an exchange student in Rock Falls, Illinois, before joining the music scene. Her early RCA albums featured American songwriters and session players including David Foster, Jay Graydon, and the Toto rhythm section. After marrying Yamashita in 1982, she spent years writing hits for idol singers like Naoko Kawai and Yukiko Okada before returning with the chart-topping album Variety in 1984, featuring "Plastic Love." She never considered trying to export her music to the West—as she told Billboard Japan in 2024, "The language barrier seemed insurmountable." Her approach has always been making "music that is universal, both the words and the sound, and won't be considered old even after 20 or 30 years. That's what Tatsuro Yamashita is most careful about. He does the same when making his own music, and he does it when producing mine." When "Plastic Love" went viral in 2017, she discovered comments written in Russian and Korean, and her niece in Canada told her people were surprised to learn the singer was her aunt. In 2024, she released Precious Days, her first studio album in a decade, with 18 tracks illuminating daily life through a wide variety of musical styles.
Listen
Featured in
Discography
Love Songs
Takeuchi's chart-topping third album featuring American songwriters and session players including members of the Toto rhythm section. Her early RCA work established her sophisticated pop sensibility before her hiatus and later comeback, demonstrating the international collaborations that characterized city pop's production approach. The album showed her ability to work with Western musicians while maintaining her own melodic and lyrical voice.
Variety
Comeback album featuring "Plastic Love," which became city pop's most famous international export decades later. Released in 1984 after Takeuchi's hiatus, the album topped the Oricon chart. "Plastic Love" was sophisticated and slightly melancholic, a well-crafted piece of pop with a memorable bass line that charted modestly and faded. For thirty-three years it lived in obscurity until someone uploaded it to YouTube in 2017 with an anime-style illustration. The algorithm began suggesting it. Views accumulated: thousands, then hundreds of thousands, then millions. Vaporwave producers discovered it. Future funk artists sampled it. When Takeuchi checked to see who was listening, she saw comments written in Russian and Korean. Her niece in Canada told her people were surprised to learn the singer was her aunt. The song's revival happened entirely outside her control, driven by an algorithm and a community of listeners who experienced it as pure aesthetic.
Impressions
Best-selling compilation selling over 3 million copies, demonstrating city pop's enduring appeal despite genre's fall from fashion in the 1990s. Released in 1994 when most city pop was being dismissed as overproduced nostalgia, the compilation's success showed that the music's craft and sophistication retained commercial appeal even as musical trends shifted toward grunge and alternative rock. Takeuchi's commitment to making "music that is universal, both the words and the sound, and won't be considered old even after 20 or 30 years" proved prescient.