In 1977, the critic Tōno Kiyokazu (quoted in an authoritative 2020 paper by the scholar Moritz Sommet) described “City Music” as music with an “urban feeling.” The critic also noted, though, that the term “doesn’t hold any particularly deep meaning.” It is “something that looks like you understand it, but you don’t.” In other words, a certain ambiguity might be part of its nature. It is evasive, reflecting back whatever you project at it.
