Tatsuro Yamashita — Sparkle
For You · 1982
Label: Moon Records · Genre: City Pop / City Pop / AOR · From: Tokyo, East Asia
Tatsuro Yamashita is known as the King of City Pop, and For You is the record that earned the title. Recorded in 1982 at the height of Japan's bubble economy, it synthesised American soul, AOR, and studio perfectionism into something that sounded expensive in every dimension. Yamashita reportedly spent weeks on individual snare drum sounds. Sparkle is the album's centrepiece: a seven-minute slow build that feels simultaneously like a memory and a promise.
Did you know: Sparkle was used as a Suntory beer commercial in 1982 — the year the album came out. Yamashita married Mariya Takeuchi, the singer behind Plastic Love, that same April. The couple have never performed publicly together, yet he has produced and arranged much of her work from behind the scenes for over forty years.
Listen / buy: Juno · YouTube
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