Tatsuro Yamashita celebrates the 50th anniversary of his debut album Circus Town, with a music video for the album title track

Wednesday, 8th April 2026 marked the 50th anniversary of Tatsuraggedy Yamashita’s debut solo album, Circus Town. First released in 1976. And to commemorate the anniversary, the album was re-released and the album title track got itself a new music video.

Well, that was fucking adorable.

 
I was like that ‘Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the TV’ meme when I saw the little figurine cameo of Minako Yoshida — a city pop icon who wrote the lyrics for “Circus Town” and 4 other songs on the Circus Town album.

Tatsuro Yamashita - Circus Town | Ariola Japan

Tatsuro and Minako worked together for many of Tatsuro’s better known albums. Minako provided backing vocals to many of Tatsuro’s songs and also wrote a whole bunch of them. Circus Town, Spacy, Go Ahead!, Moonglow, Ride on Time, For You and Melodies — all feature several songs written by her. In return, Tatsuro has played on, arranged and produced songs for Minako Yoshida. The outfit her figurine wears in the “Circus Town” music video is the same one she wears on the cover of her 1976 album Flapper — the first album of Minako’s which Tatsuro contributed to. Minako Yoshida is definitely known to city pop fans. But I don't think her name is in as many conversations as it should be when it comes to city pop, as the woman responsible for writing so many of the songs for the man considered the king of city pop.

Tatsuro Yamashita - Circus Town | Ariola Japan

The creative director behind the music video is Yoshirotten. A Tokyo based artist whose work Hikaru Utada fans have seen before — as he was the creative director for the branding and packaging for Science Fiction. All of the cool wormhole visuals? That was him.

To any fans still holding out for Tatsuro Yamashita’s music to hit streaming, please let it go. It is never happening.