City pop (Japanese: シティ・ポップ, Hepburn: shiti poppu) is a loosely defined form of Japanese pop music that emerged in the mid-1970s and peaked in popularity during the 1980s. It was originally termed as an offshoot of Japan's Western-influenced "new music", but came to include a range of styles—including funk, disco, R&B, AOR, soft rock, and boogie—that were associated with Japan's nascent economic boom and leisure class. It was identified with new technologies such as the Walkman, cars with built-in cassette decks and FM stereos, and various electronic musical instruments.
There is no consensus among scholars regarding the definition of city pop. In Japan, the term referred to music that projected an "urban" feel and whose target demographic was urbanites. Many city pop artists did not embrace Japanese influences, and instead largely drew from American funk, soft rock and boogie. Some songs feature tropical flourishes or elements taken from disco, jazz fusion, Okinawan, Latin and Caribbean music.
The singer-songwriter Tatsuro Yamashita, one of the most successful city pop artists, is sometimes called the "king" of city pop. The band Yellow Magic Orchestra and its members are also credited for influencing the styles of mixing and arrangement that became central to the genre.
City pop lost its mainstream appeal after the 1980s and was derided by later Japanese generations.
