It’s unfortunate that city pop isn’t listened to more today — I guess saying “I listen to ‘80s Japanese disco” gives off a very particular flavor of that musically-holier-than-thou ...

You might have heard city pop recently on TikTok or on The Weeknd’s track Out of Time – this is why the soundtrack to Japan’s boom years of the 1980s is having a viral moment.

Amid the K-pop boom, young South Korean artists are revisiting songs from the late 20th century. City pop is a funky urban sound from Japan, and is enjoying a revival in Seoul and on YouTube.

In the 1980s, Japan found its regional answer to synth pop and disco in the form of city pop. This once mostly unknown genre is currently attracting a global interest thanks to reissuse labels like ...