I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Partly inspired by my previous article on Naomi Chiaki's（ちあきなおみ）"Waltz"（円舞曲）and also thinking it would be nice to begin the work week with something a little different, I've opted to complete my Monday entries with some of the dance-titled kayo kyoku and J-Pop out there since it seems as if the Japanese also enjoyed cutting a rug if vicariously for most people.
Heard this one last night on NHK's"Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）. Of course, my mother was asking about whatever happened to Naomi Chiaki（ちあきなおみ）. Well, she called it a day to her long career in 1992 shortly after the passing of her husband, Eiji Gō（郷鍈治）.
Chiaki's 17th single from March 1974, "Waltz", fits the template for her songs...a mix of melancholy and cheerful with those velvety vocals, just like her most famous hit "Kassai"（喝采）a couple of years previously.
I've placed "Waltz" as a kayo kyoku although Makoto Kawaguchi's（川口真）melody and arrangement has also included some of that enka and country. The legendary Yu Aku（阿久悠）provided the lyrics about a woman who is thinking of other couples dancing a loving waltz while she no longer has a dance partner as she is sitting all by her lonesome in a seaside hotel. "Waltz" reached No. 29 on Oricon and was included as the title track of a May 1974 album.
Nice touch of adding that furigana of "Waltz" overlaying the kanji since the original pronunciation is the more unwieldy enbukyoku. Apparently, the title was inspired by a 1949 Kousaburo Yoshimura（吉村公三郎）film titled "Manatsu no Waltz"（真夏の円舞曲...Midsummer Waltz） which did the same thing with its kanji.
In my collection, I have a number of Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）singles and BEST compilations, but I've been a little neglectful when it comes to her now-long discography of albums, especially the early ones. So I've been missing out on some great non-single entries.
"Tsumetai Milk"(Cold Milk) is one and it's a track from her July 1989 5th studio album, "Flower Bed". Written by Watanabe, composed by Yasuyuki Okamura（岡村靖幸）and arranged by Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）, one would think from the title that this was something that the Japanese Dairy Association had assigned the singer (and indeed, milk does a body good...unless you have lactose intolerance). However, although the glass of cold cow juice is something that the protagonist swigs down in the story provided in the lyrics, the tale is far more about a guy living the usual urban life in New York City but still remembering an old flame back in Japan.
The work by Okamura and Shimizu seems to start off with a tribute to the Doobie Brothers' 1976"Takin' It to the Streets" but as the song progresses, the feeling is that things are a bit more subdued as if the action begins in the early hours of a New York weekday when the guy wakes up and gets ready for another day of work in Manhattan. Things start rolling in the chorus with the feeling of hitting the subway or the streets filled with commuters, but even then, Watanabe herself is holding in her boomer voice relatively speaking in a kinda reverse lullaby way. But of course, you gotta have that bluesy sax solo for a Big Apple tune, and overall, "Tsumetai Milk" comes across as a 70s or 80s AOR track.
"Flower Bed" also has the mysterious "Moonlight Dance"（ムーンライト・ダンス）that you can give a listen to.
Happy Mother's Day to everyone out there! Took my folks out for breakfast at our usual friendly diner. As usual, I won't be needing lunch as a result.
I've decided to get things started off with a bit of aural Orange Mimosa via the good folks at orange pekoe. Their "Sweet Movie" comes from their 2nd studio album"Modern Lights" which was released in July 2003. Fully in thrall to their jazz, vocalist Tomoko Nagashima（ナガシマトモコ）goes into her Andrews Sisters' boogie-woogie route here and provides some sunny Sunday music. Below is the Sunata T Experience Remix of "Sweet Movie" which incorporates more funk and dance beats. As well, you can check out its track mate on the album, "Gokurakucho ~ Bird of Paradise"（極楽鳥）.
I guess if there's a template for the typical Agnes Chan（アグネス・チャン）single, it would contain a moderately bouncy rhythm with a folksy country arrangement while the Hong Kong-born singer sang in her high sing-songy style.
That's certainly the case with her 9th single from March 1975, "Koibito-tachi no Gogo" (Lovers' Afternoon). I can only imagine Agnes with her boyfriend riding on the back of a haycart in the middle of rural Japan simply enjoying each other's company. In Michio Yamagami's（山上路夫）lyrics, the singer trills about wrapping each wonderful memory in the sunshine within her handkerchief and taking them home with her. Mind you, logistically, I think having that Polaroid camera would have been easier.
Koichi Morita（森田公一）came up with the sweet melody while Shunichi Makaino（馬飼野俊一）took care of the arrangement. "Koibito-tachi no Gogo" hit No. 7 on Oricon.
When the original breakdancing craze hit North America back in the 1980s when I was a high school student, I could have thrown a rock into the existential television landscape and I would have been more than likely to hit a breakdancer mid-spin in a video. Breakdancing was pretty much everywhere...except in Japan, that is.
As much as Japan loves to soak up the pop culture from the United States and elsewhere, for some reason, breakdancing didn't seem to be the one thing that the young Japanese wanted to try. Well, it took a while but finally one person gave it a go on the airwaves.
I recall seeing Shingo Kazami（風見しんご）on an episode of "Yoru no Hit Studio"（夜のヒットスタジオ）, and he and his crew brought their brand of breakdancing onto the polished floor of the Fuji-TV studio as the young male aidoru sang his fourth single"Namida no Take a Chance" (Take a Chance While Crying) which was released back in December 1984. Kazami had been called the pioneer of breakdancing in Japan but to me, it was more like he was the only guy of breakdancing in Japan since after that, I didn't see any other examples of the famous street dancing by any other act in the country.
Written by Toyohisa Araki（荒木とよひさ）and composed by singer-songwriter Kuniko Fukushima（福島邦子）, "Namida no Take a Chance" didn't sound anything like a composition that would accompany a breakdance. Kazami himself sounded like he was in the Masahiko Kondo（近藤真彦）vein of aidoru-dom so it was an interesting combination, to say the least.
The song hit No. 10 on Oricon and became the 45th-ranked single for 1985. It was also a track on Kazami's 2nd studio album "Whoopee ~ Gyappi no Hanran"（Whoopee〜ギャーピーの叛乱〜...Gyappi's Revolt）. As for who or what gyappi is, an edition of "Myojo"（明星）stated that it's just a word that the singer came up with. Kazami has gone into all facets of entertainment and when I was there, I saw him often enough as a TV personality with a rather acid tongue.
When talking about Yoshitaka Minami, it's probably good to face the fact of his charm as a singer. His unique vocals with their presence and depth evoke a certain machismo. From 1973 when he debuted with a Takashi Matsumoto-produced（松本隆）song, "Matenrou no Heroine"（摩天楼のヒロイン）, to the present day, his excellent expressivity from his masterful singing of everything ranging from bright sambas to jazzy ballads hasn't changed one iota.
In the case of all of the City Pop artists listed in this book, when it comes to mentioning Minami in that one phrase as a singer-songwriter, I get the impression from many of his songs that it is his abilities as a songwriter that raises his expressivity as a singer. Namely, there is no small number of artists in the City Pop scene who don't have their own hits, although they have provided hits to other singers and aidoru, but Minami is the one first-class singer who can boast his own hits such as "Monroe Walk" and "Slow na Boogie ni Shite Kure"（スローなブギにしてくれ）.
As a songwriter, maybe it was because he performed jazz in his music circle, but Minami has been incredibly good at incorporating not just jazz but bossa nova and other Latin genres into his original compositions. It's through these sophisticated songs that his albums "South of the Border" (above) and "Seventh Avenue South" under the splendid arrangements by Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）and Nick DeCaro respectively not only became Minami's masterpieces but two of the best works that City Pop has had to offer. No matter how much the times change, Minami's world of urban and refined music will never change. Even in these uncertain times, people would love to learn how adults truly live the stylish life through his music.
The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised"(2020).
