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.
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
Yosuke Tagawa -- Yo-yo（ヨーヨー）
I first talked about 70s aidoruYosuke Tagawa（太川陽介）over a couple of years ago when I wrote about his big hit, the dynamic "Lui-Lui" from 1977.
This time, the song is "Yo-Yo",Tagawa's 6th single which was released in April 1978. Written by Masami Sugiyama（杉山政美）and composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, there is something country and disco in this one, and I keep getting reminders of Boney M. As the protagonist describes his perhaps on-again/off-again girlfriend as a yo-yo, I wonder if the fellow might actually be one himself as well. No idea how well it did on the charts.
Apparently, according to J-Wiki, the actual toy yo-yo had their respective booms in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s after first coming over in the early 1930s.
Kyohei Tsutsumi loves his disco. One can easily imagine the young Hiromi Iwasaki singing this. It has her name written all over it. Makes me wonder if it was originally written for her.
Indeed, Tsutsumi did love the dance music back then, didn't he? Along with Iwasaki, I could have even imagined Pink Lady trying this out. Considering the title, I would have loved to have seen the choreography.:)
Hello Canuck,
ReplyDeleteKyohei Tsutsumi loves his disco. One can easily imagine the young Hiromi Iwasaki singing this. It has her name written all over it. Makes me wonder if it was originally written for her.
Hi, Kaz.
DeleteIndeed, Tsutsumi did love the dance music back then, didn't he? Along with Iwasaki, I could have even imagined Pink Lady trying this out. Considering the title, I would have loved to have seen the choreography.:)