is the debut single by Japanese singer

Miki Matsubara was a Japanese composer, lyricist, and singer from Nishi-ku, Sakai, Osaka, Japan. She participated in the opening and ending theme songs of the TV anime "Gu-Gu Gummo" under the name of "Susie Matsubara." Her 1979 debut song " Mayonaka no Doo ...

, released on November 5, 1979. The song saw a resurgence in popularity in 2020, 41 years after its original release.

Composition and release

Matsubara recorded "Mayonaka no Door" when she was 19 years old; two years prior to her debut, she had moved from her hometown of

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

and performed in clubs in the city.

Tetsuji Hayashi Tetsuji Hayashi (林哲司, ''Hayashi Tetsuji''; born on August 20, 1949) is a Japanese composer, singer-songwriter, and arranger. Hayashi got his start after he was influenced by American pop music when he was kid. He started to compose and arra ...

, the composer of the song, created a track that followed the emerging "new music" style that drew influences from Western music, a genre that would come to be known as

city pop is a loosely defined form of Japanese pop music that emerged in the late 1970s and peaked in the 1980s. It was originally termed as an offshoot of Japan's Western-influenced "new music", but came to include a wide range of styles – including ...

. The song's particular use of the English phrase, "Stay With Me", was noted by Billboard as grabbing "the interest of non-Japanese listeners" while paying homage to its Western influence. In an interview with ''

The Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...

'', Hayashi praised the upcoming singer's voice, saying: "I didn’t expect her to have a very mature voice, much more than her actual age, but it was jazzy... even sexy." The song itself is about a woman who wants her lover to stay with her, especially after having a memory of him from the previous night. The song was commercially successful: it peaked at 28th on the

Oricon Singles Chart The Oricon Singles Chart is the Japanese music industry-standard singles popularity chart issued daily, weekly, monthly and yearly by Oricon. Chart rankings are based on physical singles' sales. Until 2017, Oricon did not track download sales. In J ...

and boosted the popularity of both Matsubara and Hayashi. While Matsubara would release a lot more music in her career, "Mayonaka no Door" is widely considered her greatest work.

Resurgence

In late 2020, "Mayonaka no Door" saw a surge in popularity among international audiences. ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' attributes this wave to Indonesian singer

Rainych Rainych Ran ( ; born 20 October 1992), better known mononymously as Rainych, is the pseudonym of an Indonesian singer and YouTuber. She is notable for her renditions of city pop, vocaloid, anime, and J-pop songs, such as " Mayonaka no Door" and ...

, who regularly covers Japanese songs. In October, Rainych uploaded a cover of "Mayonaka no Door" to her

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

channel, resulting in the song gaining popularity in Indonesia, where it then spread to the rest of the world. The song appeared on the popularity charts of

music streaming A music streaming service is a type of streaming media service that focuses primarily on music, and sometimes other forms of digital audio content such as podcasts. These services are usually subscription-based services allowing users to stream d ...

services such as

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...

and

Apple Music Apple Music is a music, audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users select music to stream to their device on-demand, or they can listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the Internet radio stations Apple M ...

. Around the same time, the song was used in an internet trend on the video-sharing platform

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

, where people played the song for their Japanese mothers and recorded their reaction as they recognized the melody. On 4 February 2022,

, the composer of the song, during an interview with

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestri ...

, said that he believed the key to the song's resurgence was that people were used to streaming music. He also said, "This song was Miki Matsubara's debut, but I felt she had already perfected it as a singer. This kind of thing is not often the case."

Charts

References

{{reflist 1979 debut singles J-pop songs Songs about heartache Viral videos Internet memes introduced in 2020

Composition and release

Resurgence

Charts

See also

References