How to Make City Pop: 80s Japanese Chords, Slap Bass, Gloss

What is city pop?

City pop is a loosely defined Japanese pop style from the late 1970s and 1980s, with R&B and jazz influences and a glossy, expensive-sounding production. Pitchfork ties it to Japan's boom years, when the Sony Walkman and better car stereos made listening on the move part of daily life, and describes the music as drawing on funk, yacht rock, boogie and lounge^[1].

The label came later. Pitchfork quotes a professor of Japanese pop music noting that at the time "people just called it music"^[1]. For producers, that is a useful reminder: city pop is not a preset. It is a way of arranging songs with session-player detail, big harmony and a clean, bright finish.

Tatsuro Yamashita, Mariya Takeuchi, Anri, Miki Matsubara and Haruomi Hosono's early band Happy End are the usual starting points. "Plastic Love", written and sung by Takeuchi and arranged and produced by Yamashita, pairs a funk bassline and flamboyant brass with a melancholic lyric^[2].

Which chords make music sound like city pop?

City pop harmony runs on seventh, ninth and eleventh chords moving by small steps, with frequent secondary dominants. The signature move is the royal road progression, IVmaj7-V7-iii7-vi, or Fmaj7-G7-Em7-Am in C major^[3]. Its history in Japanese pop runs through singer-songwriter Yumi Arai to 1970s and 1980s city pop artists such as Hiroshi Madoka and Akiko Yano^[3].

Voice chords with the root in the bass and the seventh and ninth on top, and keep the top note moving smoothly from chord to chord. If extended voicings are new to you, start with 9th, 11th and 13th chords and come back to the table above.

What instruments and synths define city pop?

City pop is a full studio band: drums, a busy bass, electric piano, guitar, brass, strings and synth pads. The "Plastic Love" arrangement alone includes electric guitar, synthesizer, a brass section of trumpet, trombone and saxophones, strings and a rhythm section^[2].

Why the DX7 matters

Yamaha released the DX7 in 1983, and synth programmers who worked on Japanese pop in that era told Yamaha it quickly became the go-to instrument for electric piano sounds. One of them, who still programs for Tatsuro Yamashita and Mariya Takeuchi, says his company's synth bass tradition blends FM tones with a Sequential Circuits Pro-One^[4]. That FM-plus-analog layer is an easy trick to copy with free plugins. For more options, see the best free electric piano plugins.

What tempo and groove does city pop use?

Upbeat city pop usually sits in a relaxed disco-funk pocket around 100-115 BPM, with ballads well below that. SongBPM lists "Plastic Love" at 103 BPM^[5] and Miki Matsubara's "Mayonaka no Door / Stay With Me" at 108 BPM^[6], both in 4/4.

• Drums Kick on 1 and 3 or four-on-the-floor, snare on 2 and 4, straight 16th hats with an open hat on the offbeat of 4. Keep a light 10-15% swing on the hats only.
• Bass Octave jumps, dead-note ghosts on 16ths and a slap or pop every bar or two. Leave space when the vocal phrase lands, then fill in the gaps.
• Guitar Muted 16th strums on a single chord shape with accents on the offbeats, panned to one side; a second guitar plays short riffs on the other.
• Keys Electric piano comps on the "and" of beats, not on the downbeat, so it answers the drums instead of doubling them.

The same pocket drives a lot of 80s-inspired dance music, so nu-disco production is a good companion read for bass and drum programming.

How do you get the glossy 80s city pop mix?

The gloss comes from clean parts, careful layering and bright, wide reverb rather than heavy saturation. Yamaha's panel of veteran Japanese synth programmers describes several habits worth copying^[4]:

• Mono first Tatsuro Yamashita likes recording synths in mono, and with only 16 tracks available early on, many parts were tracked in mono. Pan mono parts to build width instead of stacking stereo patches.
• A glue pad Producers in the 80s and 90s often laid down a simple chord pad at the start of a session to fill the gaps between piano, guitar and other instruments. Keep it quiet, just felt.
• Layered pianos A DX electric piano layered over an acoustic piano was a popular studio sound. Try the FM piano an octave above the acoustic, mixed 6-10 dB lower.
• Reverb and chorus Plate reverb on snare and vocals (1.2-2 s), a longer hall on strings, and chorus on the electric piano and clean guitar. Start with a 20-40 ms pre-delay so the vocal stays clear.
• Bright top end A gentle high-shelf boost around 10-12 kHz on the mix bus and light bus compression (1-2 dB) give the polished sheen.

Why is city pop popular again, and how do modern producers use it?

City pop returned through YouTube and TikTok, not through radio. "Plastic Love" sold a modest 10,000 copies on release, then spread after an anonymous user uploaded an eight-minute version to YouTube in July 2017; that video passed 55 million views. In late 2020, "Mayonaka no Door / Stay With Me" reached No. 1 on Spotify's viral charts after a TikTok trend^[1].

Before that, fans had traced city pop samples in vaporwave and future funk remixes, and a 2016 Night Tempo remix of "Plastic Love" briefly outranked the original in search results^[1]. The sample-based side of that story is covered in how to make vaporwave.

If you want to release your own track, write original parts in the style instead of lifting records. The U.S. Copyright Office says that to use another artist's sound recording or song you generally need a public-domain work, permission or a license, or a statutory exception such as fair use^[7]. Clear any sample before release; this is general information, not legal advice.

How to make a city pop track step by step

1. Set tempo and key
   105 BPM in 4/4. Pick a major key that sits well for the singer, and try dipping into the relative minor in the verse for contrast.
2. Write the chords
   Verse on IVmaj7-III7-vi7, chorus on the royal road IVmaj7-V7-iii7-vi, with a IVmaj7 to IVm7 turn before the chorus.
3. Program drums and bass
   Tight kit with 16th hats, then a bass part with octaves, ghost notes and a pop at the end of each 2-bar phrase.
4. Add keys and guitar
   FM or Rhodes electric piano on offbeat comps, a muted 16th funk guitar on one side and a short riff guitar on the other.
5. Arrange brass and strings
   A brass fanfare for the intro and chorus hits, strings holding long chords in the chorus and a quick run into the final chorus.
6. Write the topline
   A melody that leans on the 9th and major 7th of the chord. Double it in the chorus and add a simple harmony a third above.
7. Mix for gloss
   Plate on snare and vocal, chorus on keys and guitar, a quiet glue pad, then a gentle high shelf and 1-2 dB of bus compression.