Tatsuro Yamashita – For You

This album's finally getting a repress! You can pre-order here:

https://www.amazon.com/You-Remastered-Tatsuro-Yamashita/dp/B0BQVRL485/ref=tmm_vnl_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8pHAQc4rxA

On the off chance anyone here hasnt heard this...MF DOOM meets Yamashita's "For You" :)

For You aka Tatsuro Yamashita’s Big Book of Hits. This whole thing is loaded front to back. I had a visceral reaction to Hey, Reporter! but every other bit of this is some of the best city pop you’ll find. Glitzy and glamorous ballads that are hard to beat. Not far behind Big Wave or Ride on Time.

Reissues of the early Tats discography releasing throughout the year!

https://www.hmv.co.jp/en/select/vinyl/list/?itemtype=0&keyword=Tatsuro+Yamashita

Not just this album, the whole damn discography needs a repress!

Why is this so expensive at the moment? I mean it's a great record, and I already have a copy so I'm happy it's gone up in worth, but it's not particularly rare or a hard to find album relatively speaking.

I predict a reissue coming in a year or two.

As other reviewers have alluded to, this could be the best City Pop album ever.

The songs are tremendous and full of lush harmonies, incredible changes, and just top notch vocal performances by Tats.

"Loveland, Island" a personal fave!

This album is Yamashita at its best. It maintains a coherence almost from beginning to end, but still, each and every song shines on its own. 5/5

For You...is temptingly close to Tastu perfection.
It begins with what is likely among his best individual songs across all his works - Sparkle - and also the probable reason we see this record going for +$100 prices these days. This song alone makes the price almost worthwhile.
Everything flows together wonderfully on Side A, though no song can quite match the highs of Sparkle.

Side B is a bit weaker for me, but still wonderfully Tatsuro - and still gets off to a strong start. We have the inclusion of the incredibly popular "Love Talkin'", an undeniable theme for City Pop and the second reason this album goes for the current price.

Unfortunately, the album then completely stumbles and flops face down onto the dirty City Pop concrete with "Hey Reporter!", which can only be described as "Tatsuro Goes to a 1980s Strip Club". It's completely, entirely out of place on this album, upends the saccharine, airy flow of the previous songs, and ends the album on a rather awkward note. To make matters worse, it's also one of the lengthier songs on the album.

So off-putting is the inclusion of this song that it drops the album from an easy 5-star to a pretty amazing 4-star.

The vast majority of this album is Tasturo at his City Pop prime - blissful, airy melodies and rhythms make this album an absolute delight to listen to. If you were to rate this album simply by the average rate of its individual songs, it'd easily be a 5-star.
As a cohesive album, though, it scores less, as all that hard work of building up a cohesive album is burned down with the random inclusion of a single song.

While I can't necessarily justify the current price of the vinyl album due to that, it certainly is an excellent representation of the early 80s City Pop from one of the masters of the genre.
Perhaps, it's best to purchase this on CD, where you can easily skip the single song and complete the perfection it could've been, for a much more manageable price.