The oddest things keep showing up on my YouTube homepage. Like this music video just released today by an obscure 33 year old singer named Machi Akari who performs Showa-era style songs of her own composition. This one is called "Daishitsuren Hasshou no Ji" which means "Birthplace of A Great Heartbreak," and is meant to be "new folk" genre. The MV is shot like a VHS home video on a Ferris wheel.
She sings:
"The amusement park where we were supposed to go together, until the call this morning.
You didn't even tell me why.
I can't go home like this just to be alone in my room.
Kids are having a good time.
The amusement park where we were supposed to go together is from now on the birthplace of great heartbreak."
Her account has less than 700 subscribers. Yet she has a couple of songs with hundreds of thousands of views, such as this one from a few months ago called "Joban Disco Minatomachi." Again it's kind of kitschy and looks/sounds like something from the 1970s or 1980s.
But digging further it seems that this is her second YouTube account, her previous one being from about 9 years ago where she sings some self-composed tunes and some covers, accompanied by her guitar and no real video or sound production.
Here she is doing a lovely rendition of the 1976 enka classic by Niinuma Kenji called "Yome Ni Konai Ka." And here below she's performing her own composition "Usso Mitai." After she sings she talks adorably to her bunny doll.
Anyway she's been plugging away since 2013 and has a pretty extensive discography, despite only having only about 4,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Imo she's clearly talented; shows how hard it is to crack into the Japanese music scene without being pushed by a major agency.
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3geYjyLElXQXs635IlQNtshttps://music.apple.com/artist/machi-akari/712114035