4 City Pop Chord Progressions Every Guitarist Should Know
So in this blog, I'd like to present four great city pop chord progressions guitarists will enjoy playing.
Yeah city pop does have the reputation for being a bit complex due to it being heavily based on jazz.
ii–V–I progressions
secondary dominants
borrowed chords
backdoor resolutions
sus chords
smooth voice leading
But rather than trying to memorize 400 fancy chords, it’s much more useful to start recognizing some of these common movements.
Here are four City Pop-style chord progressions that I think are especially useful for guitarists.
And as always, the voicings shown here are just one way to play them.
Progression 1: Fm9 → B♭7
Let’s start with something very simple.
Fm9 → B♭7
And honestly, I’ve heard this kind of vamp enough in City Pop, soul, and AOR-adjacent music that I think it deserves to be here.
If we hear F minor as the tonal center, this is essentially:
i9 → IV7
in F Dorian.
That B♭7 is important because it contains a D natural.
In regular F natural minor, we would expect D♭.
But F Dorian gives us:
F – G – A♭ – B♭ – C – D – E♭
So that D natural gives the progression a slightly brighter, funkier sound than a typical minor-key vamp.
And because we’re not really resolving anywhere, you can just loop it:
Fm9 → B♭7 → Fm9 → B♭7
That makes it useful for:
intros
verses
instrumental sections
grooves
sections where you want some harmonic color without changing chords every two seconds
And this is also a good reminder that:
City Pop harmony doesn’t always need eight chords.
Sometimes two good chords are enough.
Especially if the rhythm guitar part is doing something interesting.
What to listen for
Notice how much of the sound comes from the chord quality itself.
Fm9 already has more color than a plain Fm chord.
And B♭7 gives the vamp that Dorian character.
From there, rhythm, muting, articulation, and little fills can do a lot of the
work.
Progression 2: Fm9 → A♭/B♭ → E♭maj7 → C7(#5)
Now let’s take Fm9 in a completely different direction.
This time we have:
Fm9 → A♭/B♭ → E♭maj7 → C7(#5)
In the key of E♭ major, the first three chords are essentially:
ii → V → I
So:
Fm9 → B♭ dominant-type sound → E♭maj7
The basic movement is extremely familiar.
What makes it sound more colorful is the way we’re voicing the dominant chord.
Instead of playing a regular B♭7, we have:
A♭/B♭
That means an A♭ major chord over a B♭ bass note.
If slash chords look intimidating, this is a good example of why they don’t necessarily need to be.
The chord gives us a kind of B♭7sus / B♭11 sound.
It has the dominant function of B♭, but without the harder sound of a regular B♭7 voicing.
Then we resolve to:
E♭maj7
Home.
Everything is fine.
We can relax.
Except apparently we don’t want to. 😆
Next comes:
C7(#5)
C7 functions as the dominant chord leading back toward Fm.
So when the progression loops:
Fm9 → A♭/B♭ → E♭maj7 → C7(#5) → Fm9
it naturally keeps moving.
The #5 just gives that dominant chord a little more tension before we return to Fm9.
The theory is actually pretty normal
This is one of the things I like about this progression.
On paper:
Fm9 – A♭/B♭ – E♭maj7 – C7(#5)
looks pretty sophisticated.
But underneath it, the basic movement is essentially:
ii → V → I → VI7
The harmonic function isn’t especially crazy.
A lot of the character comes from:
extensions
slash chords
altered dominant sounds
voice leading
chord voicings
Basically:
normal harmony wearing expensive clothes. 😆
Progression 3: Fm9 → B♭7 → Cmaj7 → C7(♭9)
Now let’s come back to the same first two chords from Progression 1.
But this time, they’re doing something completely different.
We have:
Fm9 → B♭7 → Cmaj7
Here, we’re no longer hearing Fm as the tonal center.
Instead, those first two chords are acting as a backdoor approach to C major.
So in C:
Fm9 → B♭7 → Cmaj7
can be thought of as:
ivm → ♭VII7 → I
Normally, if we want to resolve to C major, we might use:
Dm7 → G7 → Cmaj7
The classic:
ii → V → I
But the backdoor progression approaches the tonic from a different direction.
Fm9 → B♭7 → Cmaj7
has a softer, more soulful sound.
And this is a nice example of how the exact same chords can function differently depending on what comes before and after them.
In Progression 1:
Fm9 → B♭7
felt like an F Dorian vamp.
Here:
Fm9 → B♭7
is clearly pointing somewhere.
Context changes everything.
Then we immediately disturb the peace
After finally resolving to:
Cmaj7
we change it to:
C7(♭9)
And suddenly C stops sounding like home.
Now it becomes a dominant chord pointing back toward Fm.
So the full loop is:
Fm9 → B♭7 → Cmaj7 → C7(♭9) → Fm9
The C7(♭9) creates a strong pull back into the Fm9.
And the ♭9 adds a little extra tension.
Because apparently regular C7 wasn’t spicy enough. 😆
Same root, completely different job
This is a really useful thing to hear.
Cmaj7
and
C7(♭9)
both have C as the root.
But harmonically they’re doing completely different things.
Cmaj7 = arrival
C7(♭9) = movement
One sounds settled.
The other immediately wants to go somewhere.
That idea goes far beyond City Pop.
Progression 4: Fmaj7 → G7 → Em7 → A7 → Dm7 → F/G → Cmaj7 → B♭/C → C9
Okay.
Now we bring out the big one. 😆
It looks like a lot.
But if we break it into smaller pieces, it’s really just several familiar harmonic ideas connected together.
Part 1: Fmaj7 → G7 → Em7 → A7
In C major:
Fmaj7 → G7 → Em7 → A7
gives us:
IV → V → iii → VI7
The first three chords have that very familiar Japanese-pop movement:
IV → V → iii
But instead of continuing to Am7, we use:
A7
That changes the direction.
A7 acts as a secondary dominant leading toward:
Dm7
So now the progression keeps moving.
Part 2: Dm7 → F/G → Cmaj7
Next we get:
Dm7 → F/G → Cmaj7
Functionally, this is basically:
ii → V → I
again.
But instead of using a plain G7, we use:
F/G
F major over a G bass note gives us another dominant-sus type sound.
It has that smooth, spacious quality you hear all over soul, fusion, AOR, and City Pop.
Then it resolves naturally to:
Cmaj7
Again:
familiar harmonic function, more colorful voicing.
Part 3: B♭/C → C9
Now we’ve arrived at Cmaj7.
Surely we’re finished.
Absolutely not. 😆
Next comes:
B♭/C
This gives us another sus-type dominant color over C.
Then we move into:
C9
At that point C has clearly become a dominant chord.
And C7-type harmony naturally wants to resolve to:
F
So when the progression loops back to:
Fmaj7
the whole thing connects beautifully.
It looks complicated, but it isn’t random
This long progression is really made from smaller pieces:
IV → V
iii → VI7
ii → V → I
dominant movement back toward IV
That’s an important thing to notice.
City Pop harmony can look complicated because several ideas are being chained together.
But that doesn’t mean the harmony is arbitrary.
There’s usually a reason one chord leads into the next.
The chords are only half of the sound
This is probably the biggest takeaway from the whole article.
You can take a progression like:
Fmaj7 → G7 → Em7 → A7
and play every chord as a giant block chord.
It will technically be correct.
But it may not sound particularly City Pop.
The harmony is only one part of the sound.
The style also comes from:
chord extensions
inversions
slash chords
smooth voice leading
smaller guitar voicings
rhythm
muting
articulation
For example:
C → A7 → Dm → G7
and:
Cmaj9 → A13 → Dm9 → G13
can serve essentially the same harmonic purpose.
But aesthetically?
Very different neighborhoods. 😆
Don’t move every finger if you don’t have to
When you practice these progressions, don’t just memorize a collection of unrelated chord diagrams.
Look at how the individual notes move.
Ask yourself:
Which notes stay the same?
Which notes move by only one fret?
Can I use a different inversion to make the movement smoother?
Do I actually need to play the root?
A lot of good City Pop rhythm guitar uses much smaller voicings than you might expect.
You don’t always need six strings.
Three or four notes can be plenty.
And if the voice leading is smooth, smaller voicings often sound cleaner anyway.
Sophisticated harmony does not mean the guitar part has to be busy.
How to practice these progressions
I wouldn’t try to memorize all four in one sitting.
Pick one.
Steal it. 😆
First, learn the chord shapes.
Then:
Play the progression slowly.
Make sure each chord sounds clean.
Look at how the individual notes move.
Add a simple rhythm.
Try different inversions or extensions.
Transpose the progression to another key.
Try writing a short melody or guitar fill over it.
Once it starts feeling like actual music instead of a chord exercise, move on to the next one.
That’s much more useful than collecting 50 chord progressions you never actually use.
City Pop harmony isn’t as mysterious as it looks
City Pop harmony can look intimidating on paper.
But once you start pulling these progressions apart, you’ll notice the same kinds of ideas appearing again and again.
ii–V–I movement.
Secondary dominants.
Borrowed chords.
Backdoor resolutions.
Dorian harmony.
Slash chords.
Sus chords.
Smooth voice leading.
The goal isn’t to memorize hundreds of complicated chord names.
It’s to start recognizing how familiar harmonic ideas can be combined and colored in different ways.
Because once you do that:
City Pop harmony starts sounding a lot less mysterious.
It’s often the same musical ideas wearing different clothes.
Want help with City Pop guitar?
If you want to understand how these progressions work — and more importantly, how to turn them into actual guitar parts — that’s something we can work on in lessons.
We can work on:
City Pop chord voicings
maj7, 9th, 11th, and 13th chords
voice leading
slash chords
funk and 16th-note rhythm guitar
chord embellishments
improvising over these progressions
applying these ideas to actual songs
I teach private guitar lessons in Takadanobaba and online, in English or Japanese, and lessons are built around the music you actually want to play.
If you’re interested, you can check out the trial lesson page here:
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