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lead=yes is a song by the Japanese singer Mariya Takeuchi from her 1984 album Variety. Written by Takeuchi and arranged by Tatsuro Yamashita, it was released as the album's third single on March 25, 1985. "Plastic Love" is a city pop song; its upbeat arrangement contrasts with melancholic lyrics that describe a woman who embraces a hollow, hedonistic lifestyle after being scorned by a lover.
Upon its initial release, the single reached number 86 on the Oricon Singles Chart and sold around 10,000 copies. In the late 2010s, an eight-minute remix of "Plastic Love" viral video after being frequently recommended by the YouTube algorithm. By 2019, it had received over 22 million views, and it received over 55 million views by 2021 before being removed due to a copyright strike. The song's popularity led to an international resurgence of interest in city pop. Along with Miki Matsubara's 1979 single "Mayonaka no Door (Stay with Me)", "Plastic Love" introduced younger fans to city pop, and it has been regarded as the most well–known song in the genre.
In 2018, a cover of "Plastic Love" by Friday Night Plans peaked at number 30 on the Oricon Singles Chart. A re–issue of Takeuchi's original single on vinyl record peaked at number five on the Oricon Singles Chart in 2021, and became the best–selling analog single of 2022 in Japan; Warner Music Japan also released a music video for the song. A cover by the Japanese idol group Juice Juice reached number three on the Oricon Singles Sales chart in 2021 and number 85 on Oricon's 2022 year–end Singles Chart.
"Plastic Love" was recorded and mixed at Onkio Haus in Ginza, Tokyo. It was written by Takeuchi and arranged by Tatsuro Yamashita; Yamashita also produced the song and performed backing vocals. Yamashita mixed the song with Yasuo Sato.
In contrast to the song's upbeat arrangement, the song's lyrics are melancholic. Most of the song's lyrics are in Japanese, although portions of the chorus ("Don't worry" and "I'm sorry") as well as the closing refrain ("I’m just playing games/I know it’s plastic love/Dance to the plastic beat/Another morning comes") are in English. "Plastic Love" depicts a woman who has been scorned by a lover and becomes convinced that true love does not exist. Instead, she treats love as a game. According to Takeuchi, the song's character "lost the man she truly loves" and "couldn’t shake the feelings of loneliness that the loss created." Ryan Bassil of Vice described the song as "ode to a specific breed of loneliness: of being broken yet surrounded, lost to the night in fancy shoes and dresses; seeking out love beneath glowing lights while tip-toeing around the fear of commitment".
On November 3, 2021, "Plastic Love" was re-released as a single on 12–inch vinyl to commemorate "Record Day", a day to encourage people to purchase analog records. The release included the "Extended Club Mix" featured on the 1985 single as well as the original version of the song. It debuted at number five on the Oricon Singles Chart for the week of November 15, selling a total of 14,000 copies in its first week exclusively on analog. Simultaneously, a reissue of Variety charted at number six on the Oricon Albums Chart, also exclusively based on analog sales. According to Oricon, this was an unusually strong performance; it is rare for singles to chart in the top ten purely off of analog sales, despite the vinyl revival. The single spent 28 weeks on the chart in total. According to SoundScan, "Plastic Love" was the best-selling analog single of 2021 in Japan. SoundScan credited the song with popularizing city pop overseas.
Between 2017 and 2019, the video was picked up by the YouTube recommendation algorithm and viral video, acquiring over 22 million views. The song became "near-inescapable" on YouTube, where it frequently appeared in the "recommended" feed. It was briefly removed due to a copyright strike from Alan Levenson, the photographer responsible for the video's thumbnail; the photograph was originally used for Takeuchi's 1980 single "Sweetest Music", not "Plastic Love", and was used without permission. According to Plastic Lover, Levenson was barraged by hateful messages, some of which were anti-semitism, and was initially "unwilling to negotiate". He ultimately agreed to lift the copyright strike once he was credited as photographer. By February 2021, the video had over 55 million views on YouTube. The video was eventually removed from YouTube due to a separate copyright claim.
Thomas Calkins of Vassar College's Musical Urbanism noted the strong connection fans had to the specific upload by Plastic Lover, and outrage at its removal, as a social phenomenon; "users could’ve moved on to any number of clones of the video, or the myriad remixes and copies. For some listeners, that digital copy had specific meanings that others did not... What the Plastic Love phenomenon suggests is that through this threat of loss, even digital copies can have a kind of aura for music listeners". Levenson's "Sweetest Music" photograph has become strongly associated with "Plastic Love" due to the remix video; the 2021 re-issue of the single used the Levenson photograph. Kotaku writer Brian Ashcroft attributed the song's renewed success to a "combination of the now iconic photo, the instantly catchy vibes, and the earworm appeal of Takeuchi’s performance".
Because "Plastic Love" was not officially available on streaming platforms until November 2020, it has been described as an "invisible hit song". In October 2018, Colin Marshall of Open Culture described the song as having become the "best-known example of city pop". In February 2021, Cat Zhang of Pitchfork said that "nearly every young city pop fan I’ve talked to has cited “Plastic Love” as their gateway to the genre, and the YouTube algorithm as their route". NME writer Tanu Raj noted the song, along with "Stay with Me" and Takako Mamiya's "Midnight Joke", functioned a "gateway for a younger generation to discover city". According to Miranda Remington of Pen Magazine International, "mashups with famous Western songs; fan-made English-language lyrics; and most prevalently, retro-futuristic ‘vaporwave’ takes" have circulated "ubiquitously" online. She felt "Plastic Love" and its fan-made remixes had become an "important site of virtual commentary, as urban love stories for those who yearn for an idealised past from the present".
Takeuchi has expressed surprise at the song's popularity among foreign listeners. In an interview with The Japan Times, she said that "it never occurred to me to try to (release) work in the West... Considering that it was mostly performed in Japanese, we figured it would be impossible to go abroad", and was curious about how the city pop "movement" began. Shoumik Hassin of Bdnews24 felt the song connected with audiences because of its "melancholy" vibe, pairing the "shiny, plastic surfaces" of city pop with "hints of confusion, yearning, and loneliness"; "even in a language you might not know, and amid the bouncy beat and the bright brass, it feels like taking a smoking break and getting slightly too honest." In Heichi Magazine, Joni Zhu noted the appearance of "Plastic Love" as expressing "a yearning for an eternal 1980s, and a Japanified future when Japanese trademarks would dominate the world". The popularity of "Plastic Love" in the 2020s is an example of Showa retro. 歌って味わう!昭和レトロポップス (4)シンガーソングライターの時代. NHK. 23 August 2023. 80年代シティポップの異常なヒットの裏 現場で感じる熱量とは. . 18 November 2021. 松田聖子、中森明菜、松原みき、Z世代＆海外でも話題の「昭和歌謡」令和の時代に刺さるこれだけの理由. 週刊女性Prime. 12/9/2024.
A full version of the video was released on Takeuchi's Souvenir the Movie – Mariya Takeuchi Theater Live video album in November 2020. The full video was released on YouTube on November 11, 2021. Starring Japanese actors Sawa Nimura and Shuhei Uesugi.
/ref> indie pop musician 9m88 covered the song in 2018. A cover of "Plastic Love" by was used as the theme song for the 2021 Japanese film .
In 2018, Friday Night Plans released a cover of "Plastic Love". It spent three weeks on the Oricon Singles Chart, peaking at number 30, and number 40 on the Billboard Japan Top 100 Top Single Sales chart. In December 2021, Japanese idol group Juice=Juice released a cover of "Plastic Love" as a triple-a side single with "Familia" and "Future Smile". The single spent eight weeks on the Oricon Singles Chart, peaking at number three, and number eight on the Billboard Japan Hot 100. It ranked at number 85 on the 2022 year-end Oricon Singles Chart.
At the "Bunnies Camp 2024 Tokyo Dome" fan meeting held at the Tokyo Dome on June 26 and 27, 2024, NewJeans member Hyein covered the song.
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