At a glance
- Artist
- Mariya Takeuchi
- Released
- 1984
In the issue
Its song 'Plastic Love' shows how city pop became the genre's most famous international export decades later.
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.
How it was made
Recorded in 1984 at Alfa Studio and Sound City in Tokyo, Variety was Takeuchi's fifth studio album. She wrote all tracks and worked closely with arranger Tatsuro Yamashita—her husband, though both kept their professional distance—to craft pop that balanced commercial punch with compositional depth. 'Plastic Love' was an album track. Never a single. The label didn't consider it the strongest material. The album hit No. 2 on Oricon and moved over 800,000 copies, one of Takeuchi's biggest successes. Contemporary reviews focused elsewhere. 'Plastic Love' went unmentioned. Only decades later would the song's significance surface, but in 1984 Variety was just another strong showing from one of Japan's most consistent pop stars—studio-polished, emotionally direct, commercially viable city pop.
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More by Mariya Takeuchi in the issues
- Love Songs1980
- Impressions1994