City Pop on Wax
I’ve always been envious of people who collect vinyl. Not the aesthetic of it—though there’s that—but the actual commitment involved. You go to a record store or hunt online, you pay real money for a specific pressing you’ve been tracking for months, and then you play it. Just that one record, all the way through. Streaming promises infinite choice and then delivers infinite mediocrity. Every song matters equally, which means nothing matters at all.
Zag Erlat collects Japanese city pop from the 70s and 80s. He’s based between London and Istanbul, and his collection is almost unnaturally complete—Taeko Onuki, Marlene, Ruriko Ohgami, records that are basically out of circulation now. I’ve spent enough time in city pop forums to know that some of these pressings just don’t come up anymore. They’re gone. But he has them.
He posts videos sometimes of himself playing tracks from his collection, and there’s something disarming about it. He’s not making content or building a brand. He just has this music, it means something to him, and he’s playing it. The generosity of sharing something rare—something most people can never own—hits different when you understand what he’s actually showing you.