RECORD TURNOVER 80s HITS #96
I have contributed a couple of articles to what was meant to be a book about Japanese music, published in conjunction with the Olympic Games last year. Due to the postponement of the event to 2021, the series has been published digitally on BCNVT (Bläck Charm Nostalgi och Vassa Tänder) instead. The series is called Omiyage Pop and documents songs and albums by Japanese artists from throughout the previous century. My first article is about Cornelius and his previous band Flipper’s Guitar (before going solo and inventing Shibuya kei).
Translation
The year is 1987. The year that the new UK guitar music begins to spread around the world. What will later become known as ‘indie pop’ is cemented by the Bristol record company Sarah Records. Within a few years copycat labels The Bus Stop Label, A Turntable Friend and Summershine are launched around the world (USA, Germany and Australia respectively). Together they stand for a uniformly inoffensive sound. But in Japan something else was brewing. When Keigo Oyamada started his record company Trattoria in 1991, he was more inspired by Mike Always’ él Records, which took off as early as 1986 with a large number of flirtatious releases. Above all, Oyamada loved the French artist Philippe Auclair (Louis Philippe) who was one of the musical figureheads for él. So much so that he gave him a record deal in Japan.
…Read the full article in Swedish here.
