Matsubara Miki fanart by https://instagram.com/amosthefanart/

Miki Matsubara’s Mayonaka no Door/Stay With Me has become an iconic theme song for City Pop listeners all over the planet, regardless of their Japanese language proficiency. The song needs no translation because you can just enjoy the melodies, arrangements, and vocals without needing to know the lyrics. It’s just a beautiful song. I made the mistake of creating a list of every Plastic Love song I could find and ranking them, which ended up being like 60 versions altogether, and well, it sort of drove me mad. One can only listen to Plastic Love so many times before you lose your cool. To preserve the sanctity of Miki’s music, I’ll only be doing the top 10 versions of her classic song…

[Due to new submissions the rankings change every so often]

#10

#9

#8

#7

#6

#5

#4

#3

#2

#1

Those are my pics for top 10 covers of Stay With Me. I omitted instrumental covers, as I might make a separate list for those. If I missed any really great ones, or you’d like to submit one you think should be on here, email me at info@vanpaugam.com

AUTHOR

Van Paugam is an Internationally-Acclaimed DJ and leading figure specializing in 70s and 80s Japanese Music, dubbed City Pop. He has organized and hosted over 100 events dedicated to the style, and actively promotes Japanese culture while on the board of the Japanese Arts Foundation of Chicago. He has been featured on CNN, NHK, and many other publications for his dedication to City Pop. Van is credited with being the first person to begin popularizing City Pop online through his mixes on YouTube in 2016, and subsequently through live events. Learn More…