Takeuchi’s success, however, has long been limited to her home country (save for a few niche audiences devoted to vintage Japanese pop). “Despite almost no live activity, she has done what many singers and songwriters haven’t been able to do and maintain her popularity,” Kanazawa says. Music journalist Toshikazu Kanazawa commends Takeuchi for striking a work-life balance. The two of them are arguably the most famous couple in the domestic music industry today. In 1982, she married fellow musician Tatsuro Yamashita, now 65, who has arranged and produced her creations from the start. She has written and arranged songs for J-pop royalty - from Akina Nakamori to SMAP - and her “Sutekina Holiday” is an entrenched part of the country’s Christmas canon. Since debuting in the late ’70s, she has racked up sales of more than 16 million copies, with her best-of album, “Impressions,” accounting for around 3 million of that number alone. Takeuchi’s career has been anything but ordinary, however.
… I can’t think of anything special in my daily life.” “I go to the supermarket, I buy groceries, I cook, sometimes I clean or watch a movie. “It’s usually so ordinary,” she says with a laugh when asked to describe her day-to-day activities. “Because of all this promotion, I’ve been busy,” Takeuchi says, sitting in a spacious room decorated with vintage furnishings in Warner Music Japan’s Tokyo offices. Plastic Love (2021), a single by CHAI, is available on Sub Pop Records.Pop revival: Mariya Takeuchi poses for a portrait at Warner Music Japan’s Tokyo offices in September. In spite of the irony of the post-internet age, a heartfelt joy shines through. The journey through Tokyo that CHAI takes listeners on is also a historic one, connecting the time of Mariya Takeuchi to the reality of current urban life. Their video’s lo-fi dreaminess alludes to the peculiar mark that 1980s Japan made on the popular imagination through the lens of the internet-but in sharing their favourite places, the band addresses audiences in the present. While showering listeners with immaculate City-pop instrumentation, their up-to-date production style is matched by soft and playful Shibuya-keivocals, echoing other moments of the band’s post-modern legacy.
Meanwhile, as the new flag-bearers of Japanese pop music, CHAI’s rendition shows a self-awareness towards the band’s own position in cultural phenomena by forming connections through time. For future generations, ‘Plastic Love’ has become an imaginary reference point for a historical moment of extreme optimism. But now, having had one of her hit singles circulated ubiquitously online in various remixes and mashups by fans, she has become known as a figure of vaporwave meme culture. She was a best-selling legend of the bubble era, forever immortalised in the ongoing international craze for City pop music. Shortly beforehand, CHAI released their cover of ‘Plastic Love’, the most iconic single of chart-topping 1980s idol Mariya Takeuchi, alongside a video in which the band, dressed all in white, guide viewers across Tokyo.ĭuring the disorientating changes that rapidly unfolded in Japan’s 1980s post-war economic boom, Mariya Takeuchi’s song was a universal anthem for modern love amongst idol-obsessed youths. While known for an explosive sound and chaotic performances, amidst disruptions of the 2020 global pandemic, the band reinvented themselves through the softer melodies of their most recent release, WINK (2021). Originally based in Nagoya, the ‘neo-kawaii’ frenzy of MANA, KANA, YUUKI, and YUNA has become an international phenomenon since the releases of albums PINK (2018) and PUNK (2019). Linking back to the era, CHAI’s rendition recharges Tokyo’s urban scenery with joy. Their cover of 1980s city-pop star Mariya Takeuchi’s ‘Plastic Love’, released by Sub Pop Records in November 2020, pays tribute to a moment in Japanese pop-cultural history that was as age-defining as it was timeless. Japanese four-piece rock band CHAI have been gaining a reputation for their self-conscious song writing, going far beyond the surfaces of bubblegum pop. The moment CHAI begin performing-with the sweetest incantations of the line ‘I’m just playing games, I’m just playing games’-listeners are electrocuted by a sugar-fuelled sense of deja vu. Artwork for ‘Plastic Love’ Single (2020) Courtesy of Sub Pop records.