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Tokyo Nights: Female J-Pop Boogie Funk 81-88

A very noble goal, that of Cultures of Soul: to recover and save from oblivion all the most brilliant funk, soul, and R’n’B gems recorded in past decades by artists from the most remote corners of the planet, most of whom are completely unknown in our parts. After showing us what was danced in India, Brazil, and South Africa during the golden age of disco music, the Boston label now takes us to the roaring Japan of the eighties with this compilation entitled “Tokyo Nights: Female J-Pop Boogie Funk 81-88.”

A decade of economic boom and enormous technological progress for the Land of the Rising Sun, which was beginning to timidly open up to the rest of the world by exporting immortal pop symbols such as manga and Nintendo video games. Cities began to transform into metropolises with millions and millions of inhabitants, crowded with young people attracted to a more modern lifestyle in line with Western taste. Who knows how many of them danced in the clubs of Tokyo and Osaka to one of the twelve tracks of this album, which brings together the best female voices from that glamorous melting pot of styles and sounds that went down in history as city-pop. The progenitor of modern J-pop was born as a sort of grand reinterpretation in a Japanese sauce of the most popular genres on American and European radio: from AOR to disco, passing through boogie and synth funk made famous by artists like George Clinton and The Gap Band.

The results were convincing enough to conquer the airwaves and Japanese dance floors without too much trouble, where it's not hard to imagine the ranks of yuppies who, after long days of hard work in Shinjuku offices, went to unleash themselves on the infectious Earth, Wind & Fire groove of "Exotic Yokogao" by Hitomi Tohyama, also present in the collection with another little disco gem entitled "Wanna Kiss," which, despite the bass line borrowed from Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust," is appreciated for its brass inserts and backing vocal interventions.

In many cases, they limited themselves to creating tracks fully modeled after the examples of the most fashionable international producers: in this sense, "Dancin'" by Junko Ohashi and "I’m In Love" by Aru Takamura would not be out of place in works by Quincy Jones or Nile Rodgers. Much more original and interesting are the less conventional episodes, like the tropical pop-rock pastiche "Kareniwa-Kanawanai" by Mizuki Koyama, the princely "T.N.T" by Rie Murakami, and the languid "Mystical Composer" by Kikuchi Momoko, the ideal soundtrack for an episode of Miami Vice set on the beaches of Okinawa. Amidst highs and lows, “Tokyo Nights: Female J-Pop Boogie Funk 81-88” is a journey through time worth undertaking even just for a listen, dreaming of the blinding neon lights of Japanese metropolises in an era as frenetic and exaggerated as the eighties.