Kayo Kyoku Plus: Memories of "Sounds of Japan"

Sunday, October 31, 2021

Memories of "Sounds of Japan"

For "Kayo Kyoku Plus" readers checking in on the blog (and I thank you very much for that) over the last several days, you may have noticed an uptick on the rate of articles that have been going up. Personally, I usually put up a couple of articles a day though for Reminiscings of Youth Thursdays and City Pop Fridays, that has gone up to three and four articles a day respectively. But for the better part of last week, I've been going for about four a day regardless of the day of the week, and that is simply because I wanted to see if I could achieve the following.

With this article, I have. For the first time in "Kayo Kyoku Plus" history, the other contributors and I have managed to put up 100 articles in 1 month on the blog (your round of zesty indifference makes me so happy). The last record that we achieved was 94 last December and then there was 92 for the months of May and September this year so that record is now busted. And the crazy thing is that it wasn't too difficult since I've enjoyed doing the blog so much that taking things into slipstream drive from conventional warp was as easy as asking Lt. Tom Paris to make it so.

Moving on, I was thinking about which song in the backlog I would use to commemorate the 100th article for October 2021 but I couldn't really find anything that hit me too hard. Therefore, I've decided to make this into an Author's Pick and just insert some of those songs that I used to hear on my beloved "Sounds of Japan", that radio show on Toronto's multicultural station CHIN-FM from the 1980s which helped introduce me to new aural worlds in kayo aside from the enka, aidoru and Yellow Magic Orchestra that I'd already flown into.

For your information, all of the songs that are going to be inserted here are ones for which I've already written individual articles. Almost all of them ended up being the first songs for their KKP files and all of them were recorded and released in those three years of 1977, 1978 and 1979. In addition, I'm combining my memories of two episodes from "Sounds of Japan" which had the themes of "Rain" and "Fall" because I can't remember the full lineup for either show, so basically I'm smashing the two together (rainfall...hmm, kismet).👍

Anyways, enjoy the music below, check out any information through the links, brush your teeth, and I'll see you in November!

Iruka -- Ame no Monogatari （雨の物語）