I’ve never heard of this term being associated with the Japanese, whether on vinyl or otherwise. It has long been associated with “pin-up girls,” although this discussion indicates that the term is much older than that. I’m not sure I buy everything written there… the OED lists the first example of “cheesecake” to mean a sexy photo of a female as 1934 in an issue of Time magazine: “Tabloid and Heartsmen go after ‘cheesecake’—leg-pictures of sporty females.” But of course, they seem to expect their readers to know what they are referring to, so it must date back at least a little further than that.
There is also the term “beefcake” to refer to similar photos of men.