Shibuya-kei (渋谷系) is a sub-genre of Japanese pop music which originated in the Shibuya district of Tokyo. It is best described as a mix between jazz, pop, and electropop.
Shibuya-kei gained popularity from the Japanese music corner of some foreign-affiliated retail music chains in Shibuya (Tower Records, HMV[1]) early in the 1990s and it spread through Japan rapidly.
The term was applied to bands strongly influenced by French yé-yé music and its most notable proponent, Serge Gainsbourg.
Typical artists are Flipper's Guitar, Pizzicato Five, and Original Love.
As the style's popularity increased at end of the 90s, the term began
to be applied to many bands whose musical stylings reflected a more
mainstream sensibility. Although some artists rejected or resisted being
categorized as "Shibuya-kei," the name ultimately stuck, as the style
was favoured by local businesses, including Shibuya Center Street's HMV
Shibuya, which sold Shibuya-kei records in its traditional Japanese
music section. Increasingly, musicians outside of Japan, such as
Britain's Momus, France's Dimitri from Paris, and the US artists Natural Calamity and Phofo are labelled Shibuya-kei.
The term "Shibuya-kei" comes from Shibuya (渋谷), one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo known for its fashion stores, night life, and being an epicenter of Japanese pop culture, and the Japanese word kei (系), which literally means "system"[2] or, in this context, "style".[3] So, Shibuya-kei translates to "Shibuya style".
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