Welcome to episode 70 of Holly Jolly X’masu! In this episode, I’ll be talking about the virtually unknown 1988 City Pop compilation, “Christmas Lovers” from BBM Records.

This is one of those albums that gave me goosebumps the first time I heard it. I’d spent hours listening to City Pop Christmas songs and playlists on YouTube, and I was familiar with all the really popular songs and most of the more obscure ones as well. Everything here was entirely new to me, and each of the songs was fantastic. How it’s flown under the radar for so long escapes me. It was the same feeling I had the first time I listened to ZE Records’ “A Christmas Record” in the late 90s.

While the artists here are all extremely obscure and don’t seem to have done anything beyond this one album, I hope I help to shed a little light on their work. This has become one of my favorite Japanese Christmas albums, and I feel it holds its own against the other better-known 1980s compilations.

Be sure to join me back here next week for my special New Year’s Eve episode. This time, I’ll be covering the Blue Diamonds, who were known as the Indonesian Everly Brothers. It’s a short, wonderful album on par with the Christmas music from their American contemporaries. If you like early American Rock, you’re sure to enjoy it.

As always, any feedback on this episode would be appreciated. If have any suggestions, or if you’d like to recommend a song or album for a future episode, drop me a line and let me know.

Remember, I’ve added a button to my Ko-fi page. If you’d like to support me one cup of coffee at a time, a donation is only $3. I’ve also opened a Redbubble store. I only have a couple designs up, but keep an eye on it as I’ll be trying to add more. Half of any proceeds or donations received will be donated to support the people of Ukraine, while the rest will be used to purchase new Japanese Christmas music to review for future episodes. You can also find me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And if you get a chance, leave me a review on iTunes. Thanks!