Shibuya-kei
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Shibuya-kei is a microgenre of pop music or a general aestheticTemplate:Sfn that flourished in the mid to late 1990s. Emerging as Japanese retail music from the Shibuya district of Tokyo, artists purveyed a cut-and-paste style that was inspired by previous genres based on kitsch, fusion, and artifice.Template:Sfn Shibuya-kei inherited musical characteristics from earlier 1980s Japanese city pop, while incorporating strong influences from 1960s culture and Western pop music, especially the orchestral domains occupied by producers Burt Bacharach, Brian Wilson, Phil Spector, and singer Serge Gainsbourg.
Unlike other Japanese music scenes, Western audiences did not necessarily cross over into anime fandoms, but rather indie pop enthusiasts. This was partly because many of its bands were distributed in the United States through major indie labels like Matador and Grand Royal. Flipper's Guitar, a duo led by Kenji Ozawa and Keigo Oyamada (Cornelius), formed the bedrock of the genre and influenced all of its groups, but the most prominent Shibuya-kei band was Pizzicato Five, who fused mainstream J-pop with a mix of jazz, soul, and lounge influences. Shibuya-kei peaked in the late 1990s and declined after its principal players began moving into other music styles.
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