There's a ton of city pop songs on Youtube. :yeshrugTrue, but believe it or not a lot of these copies live off pirate tapes/records and continue to thrive in playlists.
Japan's music industry is one of the world's strictest when it comes to distribution of art/music, and there isn't a scene of preserving music/art through digital means as there is here.
As a result, a lot of albums that got a decent amount of play are sometimes not available in its entirety outside of some record/vinyl shop dives.
Additionally, there are entire musical genres and periods that have no recorded history attributed to them.
For instance, there was this absolutely huge underground scene of Japanese ambient music that served as a precursor to World Music. It wasn't until a recent music archival group started investigating its rather crazy history, conducting interviews etc. that there was any history attributed of the genre-- leading to people actually discovering records in 201X that were produced in 1980's. A lot of times you'll find them in playlists or on YouTube with millions of views because there exists no way to legally stream those, listen to the full albums those songs are featured on etc.
Art history/circulation in Japan is a wild thing to study about.
There's a ton of city pop songs on Youtube. :yeshrugTrue, but believe it or not a lot of these copies live off pirate tapes/records and continue to thrive in playlists.
Japan's music industry is one of the world's strictest when it comes to distribution of art/music, and there isn't a scene of preserving music/art through digital means as there is here.
As a result, a lot of albums that got a decent amount of play are sometimes not available in its entirety outside of some record/vinyl shop dives.
Additionally, there are entire musical genres and periods that have no recorded history attributed to them.
For instance, there was this absolutely huge underground scene of Japanese ambient music that served as a precursor to World Music. It wasn't until a recent music archival group started investigating its rather crazy history, conducting interviews etc. that there was any history attributed of the genre-- leading to people actually discovering records in 201X that were produced in 1980's. A lot of times you'll find them in playlists or on YouTube with millions of views because there exists no way to legally stream those, listen to the full albums those songs are featured on etc.
Art history/circulation in Japan is a wild thing to study about.
Yeah, not a lot of love for JASRAC around these parts.