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.
Haven't heard this one in quite an age. I remember getting my copy of "Be There", B'z's hit in the quaint CD single format from the late 1980s and early 1990s, and as the coupling song was "Hoshifuru Yoru ni Sawagou"(Let's Make Noise on a Starry Night).
Y'know...I don't think I'd heard a rock boogie by a Japanese musician but one-half of B'z, Takahiro Matsumoto（松本孝弘）made it so when he composed and arranged "Hoshifuru Yoru ni Sawagou" (cute tribute to "The Final Countdown" by the way). It's catchy and it's no wonder that the song has been a favourite at their concerts. The other half of B'z, Koshi Inaba（稲葉浩志）, provided the lyrics of unshackling those chains and having one heck of a time in the big city. Considering Friday is coming up tomorrow, it's not a bad piece of advice.
A little over a month ago, when I posted Shizue Abe's（あべ静江）"Yurameki"（ゆらめき）, commenter Jim Laker suggested that I try Abe's earlier hit "Mizuiro no Tegami" (Water-Coloured Letters). I hadn't known much about Abe's discography but noticed that the song also had its own J-Wiki file so I gave it a shot.
"Mizuiro no Tegami" was actually Abe's 2nd single from September 1973, released about half a year following her successful debut of "Coffee Shop de" （コーヒーショップで）, and it's a very sweet tune along the theme of "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" as a lass pines for a beau that she hasn't been able to see in some time. Lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composer Takashi Miki（三木たかし）were behind this one as they were for her first single. One would think that cute little birds would amass around the lass' bedroom window in an attempt to assuage her pain.
The song actually hit No. 7 on Oricon and became the 98th-ranked single for 1973. However, as I was reading the information on J-Wiki about "Mizuiro no Tegami", I noticed an interview that she had done in 2015 in which she admitted that she once hated the song and any other song whose lyrics seemed to pander toward men...almost to the point of tears of frustration at one point during recording. But then, at one concert, she noticed one woman in the audience crying her own tears for a different reason and realized that "Mizuiro no Tegami" had touched the audience member and was open and kind enough to express that. Abe had a change of heart after that and noted that the song was no longer just her song and perhaps was never her own song. It was a piece of work or art that got her further recognized in her career. Whether that means that she now actually likes the song isn't made clear but it's apparent that she sees it as her obligation to sing it since it makes others happy.
Welcome to another weekly edition of Reminiscings of Youth where I show off another non-Japanese song that I remember and reminisce fondly about from my far younger years. Today, I'm writing about Olivia Newton-John's big hit "Physical" from September 1981. According to the Wikipedia article for the song, "Physical" was seen as the song that marked the new persona of OJN as a sexy beast, although personally, I think she had already gone in that direction a few years earlier with that final scene from "Grease" and then her role in "Xanadu".
I remember one of my friends coming over to my place with his copy of the album "Physical" with the title track and playing the album over and over again to annoying levels. I mean, "Physical" and the other tracks were fine but repeated listenings weren't and aren't really my thing. Having said that, I also remember the music video, probably one of the first ones in history to get heavy rotation air play, and it may have helped in starting up the whole aerobics craze of the 1980s. Getting overweight people to the gym? Not too sure about that one, though. Strangely enough as we all look at it now, the video and the song stirred up quite a bit of controversy with even the line "Let me hear your body talk" getting the latter banned from some radio stations.
"Physical" hit No. 1 in Canada and the United States and a few more countries including Australia. Billboard has even placed it at No. 6 on its All-Time 100 list.
So, what were the Top 3 hits onOricon in September 1981?
I gather that there was a time in the 1950s and 1960s when the various types of Latin dance music such as the mambo and cha-cha were greatly welcomed in the pop music of Japan and America. Singer Izumi Yukimura（雪村いづみ）back then was also one great purveyor of that brand of music and what a voice she had at the age of 18 in 1955.
A few years ago, I posted one song of hers that got onto the November 1955 Toho musical "Janken Musume"（ジャンケン娘...So Young, So Bright） which starred the San-nin Musume（三人娘）of Yukimura, Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）and Chiemi Eri（江利チエミ）. "Yume no Mambo"（夢のマンボ）was given brassy life by Yukimura and was created by lyricist Seiichi Ida（井田誠一）and composed by Hachiro Matsui（松井八郎）.
One other song that got into the movie was "Sweet and Gentle", also by Ida and Matsui. The above video was given the title "Ton-chan Cha-Cha"（トンちゃんCHACHA）but the J-Wiki article on "Janken Musume" has titled it as "Sweet and Gentle" so I'm going to go with that. In any case, it's pretty nostalgic seeing Yukimura hoofing it up with fellow dancers on stage like that; I used to see those on television when I was a very young kid. It's just too bad that there is only one copy of the song on YouTube as of this writing.
A bit of a small video PS from me but for the longest time, I'd been wondering whether weathercaster Rinon Oshima（大島璃音） of "Weathernews Live" actually looked like someone famous. I wouldn't consider Rinon a doppelganger at all, but I think there is a slight resemblance between her and young Izumi...at least from the nose down.
Earlier this morning, the local news channel CP24 opted to torture the carnivores and omnivores by having a segment of the annual Vaughan Ribfest show up on the station's doorsteps for an advance taste of their barbequed ribs and other examples of meat freshly grilled. It means that a Southern Ontario summer tradition has begun once more with Ribfest season that will most likely go on to Labour Day in September. Perhaps without too much exaggeration, I'm thinking that at least once a week for the next several weeks, there will be a Ribfest somewhere in the province.
Well, as such, for Hump Day today, I figured that it might be nice to start another broadcasting day on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with a song about the joy of meat. I'd thought that it was going to take some doing to find such a novelty song but actually it was pretty easy. I couldn't find a lot of information about these folks but years ago, there was apparently a podcast titled "Takumi to Satsumi no Castella Fever"（琢磨とサツミの｢キャステラフィーバー｣...Takuma and Satsumi's Castella Fever） (didn't realize that podcasts went all that way back into the 2000s), but hey, naïve ol' me.
Anyways from that podcast came a song titled "Nikujiru Monogatari" (The Story of Meat Juices) that was released in January 2007. Written and composed by co-host Takuma Wada（和田琢磨）and joined by co-host Satsumi（サツミ）, this Mood Kayo-style song is a tribute to the culinary and gastronomical wonders of dinner at a yakiniku restaurant in Japan. Indeed, the song set me slavering over the memories of hitting those good ol' Korean BBQ restaurants in Gunma and Tokyo over the years that I was there. By the way, the version below is known as The Akasaka Supper Club version of "Nikujiru Monogatari" with an elegant piano leading the way.
This last photo is from a group outing to a yakiniku restaurant called Shinta out in the suburbs of Toronto. Wasn't cheap but it was good.
Along with JUN SKY WALKER(S)'"START", I heard another song that got my attention on Tuesday night's "Uta Con"（うたコン）. It's from a completely different genre, and in fact, I'm wondering whether this particular song belongs in a hybridized genre or a 21st-century version of an old genre.
The song of note here is "Nocturne", enka singer Yukino Ichikawa's（市川由紀乃）36th and latest single which was released in March 2024 this year. As written by Goro Matsui（松井五郎）and composed by Kohei Miyuki（幸耕平）, it's quite the dramatic number about a dangerous romance, and at points, I was wondering whether this could have been the ideal theme song for a Japanese James Bond movie. But let's not get too crazy about this, I'm telling myself.
It's the arrangement that has gotten my attention nonetheless and with the music video having Ichikawa in her traditional get-up while singing so elegantly and delicately, the enka tropes are in there. On the other hand, there are those shimmering strings and piano that give "Nocturne" that Western orchestral feeling. Of course, there is the title which is definitely non-Japanese. So it does beg the question whether we can call this No. 23-ranking song that mix of enka and pop known as New Adult Music, or considering that enka has evolved and experimented over the past few decades with slightly different arrangements and instruments, could this be an example of Neo-Enka? Or despite the traditionalism, is it just pop?
Over the years, I've put out APBs on some mystery songs and a few of them have actually been resolved to our great relief and satisfaction. Personally, I've also been searching for songs but not quite in the same way. They've actually been part of my collection with all of the relevant information but I just hadn't seen them on the Internet. A couple of them belong to one of my favourite underrated songbirds, Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）.
(15:38)
One song got its due many years ago, I'm happy to say. "Gas Tou"（ガス燈）, which is a track on Kurahashi's March 1986 album"Main Course", finally appeared on YouTube so I was more than happy to get it onto the article for the album. And just today, I found another one that took quite a while to find its way on the Net.
Like "Gas Tou", "By The River" is a jazz tune which made its first presence known on the singer's September 1982 album"Heartbreak Theater" (although for me, I found it on her 1999 BEST album"My Name is Ballad"). However, whereas "Gas Tou" sounded like a 1940s torch song from a film noir, "By The River" is simply a blissful 1950s jazzy number which may been inspired by a lazy weekday afternoon in some mansion on Long Island. Kurahashi herself sounds like she's lying right on that chaise lounge facing the window while her butler is peeling some grapes for her ingestion. It's a fine lying-down song which is also why I dubbed it a Fashion Music song. After all, the chaise lounge is the international piece of furniture representing the genre. In any case, Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）was responsible for the lyrics while Kiyonori Matsuo（松尾清憲）took care of the music. To be honest, I'd assumed that it was jazz-and-City Pop hound Kingo Hamada（浜田金吾）who was the composer here.
Finally coming out of the Golden Week hiatus, "Uta Con"（うたコン）was back on duty on Tuesday night Japan time this morning. Of course, they couldn't let the opportunity to pay tribute to the nation's mothers go since Mother's Day was just the other day, but there was also another new entry to the long "Uta Con" guest lineup.
JUN SKY WALKER(S) is a band that I've heard about since my JET days in the early 1990s. I was asking one of my students in class what her favourite band and she gave this band's name but I couldn't quite hear it so I had to repeatedly ask much to her frustration. I finally found out that it was JSW (and I was frustrated, too). After that, I would hear them occasionally including from students at karaoke.
Well, the band showed up on "Uta Con" for the first time tonight and I discovered that the band has been around since 1980 with their major debut single"Suteki na Yozora"（すてきな夜空...Splendid Night Sky） coming out in November 1988. However, JUN SKY WALKER(S) showed up on the show to perform their 4th single from January 1991, "START". Written by vocalist Kazuya Miyata（宮田和弥）and guitarist/band leader Junta Mori（森純太）with Mori also handling composition and arrangement, it's a jet engine-powered song of encouragement to take that first step into the rest of your (hopefully successful) life.
"START" peaked at No. 4 on Oricon and it was also the title track on JSW's February 1991 album. That album managed to hit No. 1 on the charts and eventually became the 40th-ranked release of the year. As for the current lineup of the band, it's Miyata, Mori and drummer Masayuki Kobayashi（小林雅之）.
It was about a couple of years ago in the spring of 2022 when I posted about singer-songwriter TOMOO's "Ginger" and noted that her presence and music reminded me a bit of fellow chanteuse aiko from a couple of decades back. Well, since then, I'm happy to say that she's gained her own J-Wiki profile and a lot more singles. She now has seven singles from her indies period between 2019 and 2022 and eight major singles up to last month. TOMOO also has three mini-albums and a full album "TWO MOON" from last year.
The piano pop is still there but this time, it's in the form of something more sweeping and inspiring (and less aiko) via her 5th major single"Yoake no Kimi e" (To You, At Dawn). Released in June 2023, it was used as the theme song for the live-action movie version of the original coming-of-age manga "Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia"（君は放課後インソムニア...Insomniacs After School） which came out in the same month. I thought that there was also something rather AOR in there, too, but maybe that was because the sailing scenes in the official music video above reminded me of Christopher Cross'"Sailing". 😀
Ironically, the Spring 2023anime version of "Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia" actually had aiko providing the opening theme song.
Welcome to the middle of May right after Mother's Day. Hope you all had a wonderful tribute to your Moms wherever you are. Sushi was the order of the day for our family.
Another mantra of mine since starting up "Kayo Kyoku Plus" years ago has been "Always check out those B-sides or coupling songs". There is a good chance that you may encounter something wonderful or at the very least intriguing there since that song may have never ended up on an original album or a BEST compilation.
Case in point: the lovely singer-songwriter and actress Miki Imai（今井美樹）. I've been more than happy to fill up the blog with her tunes ever since I began KKP back in 2012 and my thought was that I basically got all of my favourites of hers posted. Well, lo and behold, I did find a song that I'd never heard by Imai and it was indeed a B-side/coupling song for her 2nd single "Yasei no Kaze"（野性の風）, released in July 1987. Compared to her very languid ballad on the A-side, "Mikazuki no Saber"(Crescent Moon Saber) is quite the different animal.
Created by the same people behind "Yasei no Kaze": lyricist Masumi Kawamura（川村真澄）, composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and arranged by Joe Hisaishi（久石譲）, "Mikazuki no Saber" is something more for the dance floor...well, as much as a J-Pop song can be. In fact, I swear that Tsutsumi and Hisaishi had Bananarama's "I Heard A Rumour" on the brain when they came up with this one. I don't think I had ever heard Imai attempt something Eurobeat and her voice was getting close to cracking in those higher registers. Well, I can say that it's definitely in the intriguing department and as far as I know, it may not have gotten any other presence outside of the original single. I'll have to thank Crispy French for this post.
Happy Mother's Day to everyone out there! We're gonna have the big family get-together in a few hours but earlier this morning, I was happy to take both my parents out for breakfast. I'd say that Mom's dish wasn't quite as fancy as the above photo which was from our Harmony of the Seas cruise in 2017 but I can guarantee it was more voluminous. I had the Eggs Benedict.
When it comes to music that's just perfect for Sunday breakfast or brunch, I've often thought of musician Yutaka Yokokura（横倉裕）. His mixture of jazz, AOR, Latin and Japanese instrumentation has had me thinking about a nice glass of orange juice, smoked salmon and a stack of hotcakes.
It's been a while so I'm happy to welcome him back onto KKP with one of the tracks from his 1990 album "Brazasia". Back in 2020, I posted something about the title track itself, and today, I'm writing about another song from there, "Morena", and it's another winner that's very refreshing and comfortable for a Sunday. I've been able to get a number of Yokokura's albums but "Brazasia" is alas still not on my shelf but someday, I'll get my own copy. Meanwhile, please feel free to pass the crème fraiche.
It's been a while since I wrote anything here and the main reason is because I haven't been listening to much J-pop recently. About a year ago, I decided to leave Twitter and Instagram: I do log in once in a while, but I do not actively use them as before. With that, I stopped keeping up with numerous Japanese idol groups, but I did not go back since. And perhaps more ironically, I got heavily invested into K-pop after leaving the social media sites where it is so prevalent.
The timing of this post coincides with KCON Japan, a K-pop festival organized by Korean media giant Mnet which takes place each year in several countries, with the biggest editions being in Japan and LA. This weekend, several Korean idol groups or Japanese idol groups managed by Korean agencies will be performing in Makuhari Messe. One of these groups is my current favorite, a 5-member girl group called Red Velvet.
Red Velvet is managed by agency SM Entertainment, which essentially opened the doors for the promotion of Korean artists in Japan with BoA in the early Aughts, followed suit by boy group TVXQ, and Japan since became the most profitable foreign market for K-pop, with more recent groups such as Twice and NewJeans becoming as prevalent in Japan as in their home country. SM Entertainment is known by fans to excel at all areas: music, visual arts, choreography... everything except the management of their artists. Most notably, TVXQ underwent a brutal lawsuit by three of their members in 2009, which denounced slave contracts and poor working conditions.
Following the success in Japan of their predecessors Girls' Generation, Red Velvet debuted in Korea in 2014 and had their first full Japanese release in 2018 under avex trax, "#Cookie Jar." The name Red Velvet - besides being, of course, a cake - represents the two concepts of the group, "Red" being energetic pop songs and "Velvet" being softer or darker songs, often dabbing in jazz and R&B. The title track for this Japanese album, "#Cookie Jar," falls clearly on the Red side and is very reminiscing of traditional Japanese idol songs.
Despite the heavy use of English in the lyrics, all members have pretty good Japanese pronunciation, which helps on how much I enjoy this song. A special highlight goes to center member Irene, who is not given as many lines in Korean songs except for rap parts, but I feel like she shines particularly in this song. As a piece of trivia, member Wendy dabbles into at least 4 languages, as she has lived several years in Canada and the US: she is fluent in both Korean and English, and she can also speak some Japanese and French.
I would honestly recommend Red Velvet as a gateway to any J-pop fan who ever wants to venture into K-pop, as they have a great and diverse discography, even within the Japanese-only releases.
I did ask the Bing AI art generator to come up with a 1990s aidoru several weeks ago, but the image that I received seems a little too contemporary.
However, I think it fits the song for this article. Almost eight years ago, Marcos V. posted up his own articles on a couple of songs on a 2015 single by an eclectic duo named BPM15Q (pronounced BPM ichi-go Q). Featuring former BiS member Ichigo Rinahamu (苺りなはむ) and DJ nicamoq, the video for "Hakuchuumu" (はくちゅーむ) had the ladies looking like Akihabara maid café-perfect ultra-aidoru and sporting hardened Shibuya gyaru lifestyles.
But BPM15Q didn't stay that way once they got into 2016. At least doubling in number, the larger group was now known as CY8ER, a group that neither Marcos nor I have covered yet, but my impression is that they've continued to follow the original duo's style of otaku, Akihabara and club culture and music into the mix. As CY8ER, seven singles and four albums (including one album dedicated to BPM15Q) were released before their breakup in 2021.
Then in April 2022, BPM15Q rose out of the ashes once more and came out with their first major digital single"Kyo Yo Mu"(Shared Dreams). With the shared experience of the song and music video, it looks like a "Blade Runner" adventure mixing in some pretty crazy proposals for dates from Akihabara and Shibuya and at the same time, bringing in synthpop and R&B.
Welcome to the weekend. And yes, just to make this clear...this is indeed a song concerning kayo kyoku legend Hiroshi Itsuki（五木ひろし）. But in those early struggling years before he made his breakthrough with the silky "Yokohama Tasogare"（よこはま・たそがれ）in 1971, the entertainer had been paying his dues as a 1960s teenager trying to break into the music industry. The man born as Kazuo Matsuyama（松山数夫）in Fukui Prefecture was going through a few stage names before Hiroshi Itsuki stuck with him for several decades.
Back in 2017, I posted his debut single from May 1965, "Shinjuku Eki kara"（新宿駅から）when he first started out as Masaru Matsuyama（松山まさる）. Reviewing the song once more, I felt that the future Itsuki was coming out as a kayo kyoku crooner. He would release five more singles as Matsuyama up to early 1966 but I'm not sure whether he kept that style.
Then from 1967 for three singles, he got a new name Eiichi Ichijo（一条英一）and made his re-debut with "Ore wo Nakaseru Yoru no Ame" (The Evening Rain Makes Me Cry) which was released in March that year. Just on the cusp of turning 19, I guess the powers-that-be behind his career decided to have him start out as a really guttural-sounding Mood Kayo singer as if he'd drunk half a distillery (not to accuse him of underage drinking in Japan...the lad looked really cherubic on the cover of the 45") before he got behind the mike. That plinking guitar really set the tone of love doing someone wrong (and truthfully, it also reminded me of "Perry Mason"). The lyrics were provided by Choei Shiratori（白鳥朝詠）, who'd been with the singer when he was still Masaru Matsuyama, and apparently the music was composed by the singer himself under the name of Matsuyama, so he really knew the licks for a Mood Kayo tune. Unfortunately, his time as Ichijo wasn't a particularly successful one so he had another go with another name name and another song in 1969. I'll probably cover that one, too...eventually.
I'm sure that present-day Itsuki has covered his old songs under his different names and that has been the case with "Ore wo Nakaseru Yoru no Ame" here. It's interesting to hear him cover it again but under the Itsuki voice that we fans have been so familiar with for so long.
An office district at night. Within a gaggle of businessmen and office ladies quickly heading to the station after work, there is the protagonist who unbeknownst to anyone is holding a heavy heart...that's the scene that comes into view. To smoothly come up with such a song indeed shows the amazing talents of Yuming（ユーミン）. The guitar leaves quite an impression in the performance, and along with the interval fills and the solo in the second half of the song, there are wonderful phrasings popping up everywhere. This is the work of a master.
The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised" (2020).
(lovely cover version by Chiro)
Hello, J-Canuck here. Yup, never covered this one on my own and just from what I've observed online, "Night Walker" seems to be one of Yuming's songs that's not gotten enough love, although when so many of her tunes have become eternally memorable hits, perhaps that's not so much of a surprise. Still, I have to agree with Kimura that despite the title sounding like a new DC or Marvel superhero, this is one of her hidden delights that's beautifully arranged in a melancholy way as what I think is a major hurtful twist in a possible intra-office love triangle has just taken place. The city can be a very cold and forbidding area when love abandons one...especially on a rainy night. They become the NIGHT WALKER.
I'm definitely getting some breezy noon time repast in Tokyo vibes as I listen to Keiko Utsumi's（宇都美慶子） "Lunch Time Story". Maybe the Bubble Era was collapsing that year but I don't think any of those well-heeled and well-to-do lunch folks ever got the memo.
A track from Utsumi's January 1991 2nd album"L'Arc-en-Ciel", it was written by the singer and composed by Masayuki Kishi（岸正之）. It's got quite the muscular proud strut into the big sunny city with some disco flute as reinforcement along with the metropolitan percussion and keyboard work of the time. I guess folks following the intent of "Lunch Time Story" are gonna be making their reservations somewhere in tony Omotesando or Roppongi and having one heck of a time communicating their gossip. Two or three hours, I suspect...lots of wine.
I've always treated the legendary duo Pink Lady（ピンクレディー）as the most disco aidoru group of the 1970s with their musical arrangements and choreography. But this particular single "Monday Mona Lisa Club" really got Mie and Kei, and for that matter, their regular go-to songwriters, lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composer Shunichi Tokura（都倉俊一）off their butts and hitting the Studio 54 dance floor. Production and arrangement were handled by Robby Adcock and Charles Merriam as it was being recorded in Los Angeles.
According to the J-Wiki article on "Monday Mona Lisa Club", Aku and Tokura wanted to cook up a really disco tune for the ladies and the ladies reciprocated by stating that this is the type of song they'd always wanted to perform. This was released as Pink Lady's 15th single from September 1979 and it was their final Top 20 hit, peaking at No. 14 and selling about 450,000 records.
"Monday Mona Lisa Club" also made it onto Pink Lady's December 1980 BEST album"Turning Point". According to Aku's lyrics, it's all about being in the post-disco party blues after another debauched weekend but hey, discos can be open on Mondays, too. Sounds like the supposed hangover remedy of "the hair of the dog".
Not sure what it's like in your area when May comes around every year, but for us folks in Toronto, it's the month that we can finally (hopefully) put away the winter tires for good and most likely not see any snow again for several months. We also have our first major holiday weekend of the summer with the Victoria Day weekend and the summer activities such as parasailing can get under way.
And perhaps that's what singer-songwriter Hiroaki Igarashi（五十嵐浩晃）was thinking when he came up with his August 1981 third album"Sailing Dream". From it, I offer you the penultimate track from the album, "Hatsukoi no Machi"(First Love Town) which was written by Tetsuya Chiaki（ちあき哲也）and composed by Igarashi, the same duo behind the latter's big hit "Pegasus no Asa"(ペガサスの朝）from 1980. There's even a hint of that song's arrangement in "Hatsukoi no Machi" although overall this tune has more of a down-to-earth vibe and a seeming invitation by Igarashi to join him on his boat as shown on the album cover. I gather therefore that it can fall under the Resort Pop label.
Happy Friday and welcome to another Urban Contemporary session for KKP today. To begin as we have for the last few Fridays, I have the fourth and final part of the translation of the liner notes for Tohoku Shinkansen's（東北新幹線）legendary "Thru Traffic" from 1982 by music journalist Toshikazu Kanazawa（金澤寿和）. This final part goes into the figurative storm clouds that brewed up which led to not only Tohoku Shinkansen producing just the one album before the partnership faded into dust but also how the duo got its name.
Couldn't resist.
Although the recording itself had gone comparatively smoothly, what came after was a nightmare. There was the growing number of directors and engineers coming in and out, and the work slowed down to a crawl. Even the odd name of Tohoku Shinkansen was given to the duo because “it was just like the actual Tohoku Shinkansen bullet train project which kept getting delayed and never launching”. On top of that, there was very little promotion for the album. As mentioned above, only two of the tracks made their debut at Yagami’s（八神純子）concerts. Perhaps part of the problem was that in the midst of the difficulties of releasing the album, Narumi（鳴海寛）, Yamakawa（山川恵津子）and Yamaha couldn’t see eye-to-eye-to-eye. For one thing, Yamakawa, right from the start of Tohoku Shinkansen, had maintained that she wouldn’t participate in any live performances because she didn’t want to be out in front on the stage. Narumi thought that though his partner felt uncomfortable, she should perform if only to promote the release of the album. Then, Yamaha gradually turned the screws onto the two of them to perform. It was from these disagreements that the album only got out to some of Yagami’s fans and Tohoku Shinkansen quietly disappeared.
It was at this time that the one-and-only Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）had heard “Thru Traffic” and invited Yamakawa and Narumi to join his tour as backup chorus. Tats’ hit album “For You” was just released and the man himself was on fire, but in the end, Yagami’s tour had already been scheduled so they couldn’t do it. As well, there was a lot of friction between Narumi and Yagami’s director which led to Narumi not only leaving the band but separating himself from Yamaha. Ultimately, a one-time Tohoku Shinkansen concert wouldn’t finally come into being until August 2004, 22 years later when the duo teamed up once more.
But Narumi would soon join Takao Kisugi’s（来生たかお）band, and then become the sound producer for the late Cindy and Kyosuke Kusunoki（楠木恭介）. And after that, he participated as a guitarist for Tatsuro Yamashita’s“Performance ’88-‘89” tour and then recorded the live album “JOY” under a similar framework which greatly raised his profile. Especially through his incredibly soulful play on Tats’ “Soubou”（蒼茫）, Tats’ fans were astonished when they heard it. In 1994, he would fully return to the music scene when he formed the band frasco out of which three albums were released.
As for Yamakawa, she quickly distinguished herself as a composer and arranger and became active in a wide variety of genres including kayo kyoku and aidoru music. In 1986, her contribution to Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）, “100% Danjo Kousai”（100%男女交際...100% Men And Women Dating） earned her a Japan Record Award for arrangement. Her name has also popped up in the chorus for Tats’ “COZY” and Mariya Takeuchi’s（竹内まりや） recordings among other projects, so that she would participate in over a thousand songs.
Yamakawa: When I look back on things now, I think Tohoku Shinkansen was possible thanks to Hiroshi. I had a really great time singing chorus with him and we meshed well. Though we co-produced the album, it was he who took the initiative. When I was thinking about what I should do to bring out Hiroshi, I thought about my position and took a step back.＊ However, I still have strong memories of the staff and everyone else enjoying themselves a lot. Regarding all of it, everyone was so generous and we didn’t think about things such as the production costs and made the album that we had wanted to make. As a result, I could hear very warm and nostalgic sounds. If anyone thought about making something similar now, it wouldn’t be possible at all. It’s on that part that I hope you take your time and enjoy it.
Toshikazu Kanazawa
September 2007
*I put that one statement by Yamakawa in bold since I am not completely sure about my translation there. By chance, if there is anyone out there who has their liner notes of "Thru Traffic" and have tried to figure it out, let me know if it's OK or if I need to make corrections.
The end of the 20th century in terms of Japanese popular music seemed to be a time when J-R&B was really pushing out with hip-hop and rap and club music while at the same time, the female aidoru scene was coming out of hibernation. Happy days were here again!
However for those who wanted something a little quieter and melodious, perhaps a band like Kuuki Koudan（空気公団...The Air Corporation） might be in order. First formed in 1997, Aomori Prefecture vocalist and songwriter Yukari Yamazaki（山崎ゆかり）got together with guitarist and bassist Yoshiyuki Togawa（戸川由幸）and keyboardist Izumi Ogawa（小山いずみ）with Atsuko Ishii（石井敦子）also joining in a little later as organist/keyboardist.
Their first release was in the form of an album "Kuuki Koudan"（くうきこうだん）and the fourteenth track is "Bokura no Himitsu" (Our Secrets). Despite the title, there isn't anything insidious in Yamazaki's melody and it fits the Kuuki Koudan treatise as stated in their profile on the "Space Shower Music" website in which their music features simple everyday lyrics, carefully arranged performances, warm and calm female vocals, and a beautiful catchy sound centered on pop rock and straight pop music. It's all very breezy and down-to-earth, just like a nice bike ride through the neighbourhood park.
Kuuki Koudan is still going after 25 years and after some lineup changes, it's just Yamazaki now as the band.
Invariably, there are times when I feel as if I'm about to be crushed under the weight of all of my responsibilities including the need to put in my daily two articles for "Kayo Kyoku Plus". But then, I've taught myself when that unwanted feeling threatens to invade my mind and soul to ask myself "Is it really that bad?". My tasks are then separated and analyzed, and I soon find out that most of them aren't absolutely necessary to be done by a certain time and I can always do them over the next few days. It's all right.
Well, we've got "It's All Right" right here. Recorded by Romi Narita（成田路実）, I mentioned her the first time back in late 2020 when I posted about her "Seaside Park" from 1991. By 1996, when "It's All Right" first made its presence known as a coupling song to her single, "Kitto Kitto Machigai janai"（きっと きっと間違いじゃない...I'm Sure It's Not a Mistake）, the former host of Fuji-TV's late-night program "All-Night Fuji" had decided to change her name from the original kanji to just Romi in romaji.
The song was written by Romi and Rie Matsumoto（松本理恵）with music by Nobuhide Saki（佐木伸誘）, and I got hints of perhaps 1990s City Pop or sophisticated pop or even some Shibuya-kei, but in the end, I opted to split the difference and just go with some pleasant summery groovy pop. In any case, it's a nice tune happily reminiscent of that certain segment of J-Pop of the final decade of the 20th century.
As a J-moppet in the mid-1960s, there were two images on television that terrified me back under sofa cushions and behind my parents. One was the first face of Balok from the original "Star Trek" episode, "The Corbomite Maneuver".
Of course, I hadn't been aware of the episode at the time but terrifying Balok was used as the final still photo for the ending credits during the second season of "Star Trek". Not sure why my parents, who were never sci-fi fans, just happened to have the show on at the time when those credits popped up. I can only gather that they were getting back at me for filling up my diapers a little too often.
The other image that probably was responsible for me filling up my diapers was good ol' Rover from "The Prisoner". How does a white bouncy balloon become something this scary? I don't know but the producers pulled it off. It especially frightened me when Rover caught an errant Villager and the camera just had to show the victim screaming through the balloon.
"The Prisoner" starring Patrick McGoohan (whose face frankly scared me too) was one of those one-of-a-kind programs that has become legend despite only having a one-season run between September 1967 and February 1968. There was no way at the time that I could have understood the overarching philosophical and political themes at play. It was always Rover and that pre-commercial shot of Number 6's head racing toward the camera before prison bars stopped it. In fact, it wasn't until some fifteen years later when reruns of "The Prisoner" began playing on the local "The All-Night Show" that I could begin to understand what was really going on between Number 6 and all those Number 2s. And at the same time, I could also finally hear the theme song.
I only learned about this in the last few days but the composer for "The Prisoner" theme song was Ron Grainer who is already on KKP's Reminiscings of Youth series because of his work on the theme for "Doctor Who" which he accomplished with Delia Derbyshire. The other big surprise was that the original version of "The Prisoner" theme was a far more sedate deal known as "The Age of Elegance", and yep, it definitely sounded elegant, but show producer McGoohan was having none of that and he kept pushing Grainer to speed it up (I guess "Faster...more intense" wasn't just George Lucas' mantra). It finally did speed up to become this boss and very 1960s brassy tour de force tune that was unlike anything for James Bond or Napoleon Solo. The British always did brass right back in the day. I guess in a way, the theme was reflective of Number 6 himself: elegant, fast, brash and cunning.
By the way, I've been hearing rumours that Christopher Nolan may be interested in doing a cinematic version of "The Prisoner". If there's any director who can pick up on the challenge, it would be Nolan although I wasn't quite as enthused about "Tenet". Anyways, who was picking up on the Japan Record Awards hardware in 1967?
Grand Prize: Jackey Yoshikawa and His Blue Comets -- Blue Chateau（ブルー・シャトウ）
It's usually been the case when I read the more ravenous of City Pop fans' comments of how they wished they could have been in Tokyo back in the late 1970s or 1980s, I often counter that the fans themselves are lucky because they have access to all of this wonderful City Pop material in one go without having to wait for months or years on end for the variety of such songs. However, I have to admit that whenever I hear music such as this, it does make me wax nostalgic for the time of half a century ago in cities such as Tokyo and Osaka as to what urban life was like back then (although I know that during the early 1970s, Japan underwent some hardship due to the Nixon oil shocks).
Yup, there's nothing like bossa nova to act as world music's version of a creamy salve for whatever ails me, and there's plenty of that in Yoko Aso's（麻生よう子）"Weekend no Koen Douri" (Park Avenue on the Weekend). A song about falling in breezy love, I'm pretty sure that the title refers to Koen Douri in Shibuya, Tokyo rather than Park Avenue in New York City, although I think the song is perfect for both settings. By the way, the photo at the top is indeed that of Koen Douri back in 2009. I don't know what the avenue was like in the early 1970s but maybe from the song, perhaps it was already quite the stylish place to be and to be seen.
"Weekend no Koen Douri" was written by Haruo Hayashi（林春生）with music by Hiromasa Suzuki（鈴木宏昌）, and it was a track on Aso's 2nd album"Gozen Reiji no Kane/Touhikou"（午前零時の鐘 / 逃避行） from December 1974. The cheerful blend of bossa nova and sunshine pop reminds me a bit of what the band NOVO was doing at around the same time.
I've walked up and down Koen Douri a number of times when the department stores Parco and Marui were there. For trivia's sake, I discovered that the street got its name from the fact that the Shibuya Parco had opened there in 1972. Parco is the Italian word for "park". The store closed down temporarily for a few years beginning in 2016 due to the need for renovations, but it was back open as of November 2019.
In the last 24 hours, I've received an email from my anime buddy who's once again out and about in Japan. He's currently staying with his friend in the wilds of Ome（青梅）, Tokyo, a city out on the western mountainous outskirts of the megalopolis. Now, years ago, there was another friend who's long been back here in Toronto but a few decades ago, he'd been living in Ome in a company dormitory that was right across from the factory where he was working.
To be honest, I never made it out to Ome, but my impression back then had been that the city (which actually has a population of over 100,000 people) was some remote village considering that my friend told me that even in train-filled Japan, transportation between Ome and central Tokyo was relatively sparse. Basically, I'd thought that Ome Station was one of those tiny unmanned shacks nestled by the tracks and that my friend's company and dormitory were the only happening things in the entire district. However, as my anime buddy and I have found out, it's really not that desolate at all, and the above 9-year-old video by TabiEats makes that clear. In fact, I think that it could have become quite the magnet for nostalgia fans.
Because of my buddy's email and the memories of my old friend's former residence, I decided to see if there were a go-touchi song based on Ome...as far-fetched as that could be. As it turns out, there is a song with the same kanji as those for the city of note here but it's not a go-touchi song and I don't think it really has anything to do with any city. If I'm not mistaken, the title is "Ao Ume" meaning "Unripe Plums" by the rock band CreepHyp.
CreepHyp, led by vocalist and guitarist Sekaikan Ozaki（尾崎世界観）, is a band that I posted about back in the pre-pandemic days of 2019 when I noted their rat-a-tat surf rock march, "Obake de Ii kara Hayaku Kite"（おばけでいいからはやくきて）. Last year in May, they released the just-as-rat-a-tat "Ao Ume" as a single about a couple of figurative plums ripening up because of love. Written and composed by Ozaki, the music video certainly doesn't look like it had been filmed in Ome but it does show a person going to Avengers levels of heroics for their one-and-only including one stunt that must have been inspired by the 1987 movie "The Untouchables". Usually for such a video, I had expected that the lass would be an ungrateful tsundere despite her significant other's deeds but I was glad to see that she was quite flattered for the protection.
A couple of days ago, we caught the most recent episode of NHK's "Hayauta"（はやウタ）, the early morning kayo kyoku show. I have to marvel at how the national broadcaster ever had the bright idea of showing a music program on Mondays at eye-blearingly early 4:15 am. I can only gather that there are folks out there who are either waking up or going to bed in the wee hours but they still need some sort of entertainment. Whatever the case, the idea is working since the show has been going on for some time now.
In any case, this song must have jolted a few folks since it is so super dynamic. Singer Leon Niihama（新浜レオン） may have begun his career as an enka singer (I wrote about his first digital single back in 2020) but with his latest 6th single from March, he's gone for something very upbeat and pop. This is "Subete Ageyou"(Let's Give It Our All), a song of giving into one's very ardent desires, preferably not while alone. On "Hayauta", Niihama mentioned that the inspiration for the song was the late great Hideki Saijo's（西城秀樹）more emotion-laden tunes from the 1970s and indeed, Niihama does it give it his all here.
Veteran entertainer George Tokoro（所ジョージ）was behind words and music while smaller Tunnel Noritake Kinashi（木梨憲武）was in charge of production, and now that I know that Nori was the producer, I can even hear some of his vocal licks within "Subete Ageyou". Maybe Niihama is heading for a more tongue-in-cheek pop direction for his music, perhaps with a bit of a wink from Ikuzo Yoshi（吉幾三）, another enka veteran who's also been rather comical.
Well, whaddaya know? There he is along with Nori in dreads and George in yellow.
It's hard to believe that it's been over five years since "Avengers: Endgame" hit the big screens and elicited the big cheers, tears and laughs to wrap up the Thanos saga in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Of course, it was Alan Silvestri's amazing theme for The Avengers which escorted us home in the end credits but Kitty Kallen's"It's Been a Long, Long Time" got its re-debut of sorts when it was played for Steve Rogers' own homecoming. Even after half a decade, I still listen to both songs to get a nice emotional lift.
Commenter Robert B. honed me in on Yoshiko Shinkura（新倉美子）and her contributions to show business the other day. Actress and jazz singer Shinkura only had a brief dalliance in the geinokai between 1953 and 1956 but for those who did see and hear her, she probably did leave a lifelong mark especially with her singing voice. The scene above might be from one of her four movies that she released in 1953 titled "Seishun Jazz Musume"（青春ジャズ娘...Young Jazz Girl） since according to J-Wiki, it was not only Shinkura but also comedian Frankie Sakai（フランキー堺）and actor Tadao Takashima（高島忠夫）in it, and I recognized the faces for the both of them (even as young as they looked) as two members of the jazz group Teruo Yoda and Six Lemons（与田輝雄とシックスレモンズ）. The guys played some snazzy stuff before Shinkura took the stage to perform "You Belong to Me".
Shinkura got married in 1957 at the approximate age of 23 or 24, thus saying goodbye to her celebrity career. It's stated that she only released one single, her cover of "Vaya con Dios" in 1954, but in 1989, an album recorded by her, "All of Me", was released. At 25:02 is "You Belong to Me" once more and with her dulcet tones at that time along with her demure appearance in "Seishun Jazz Musume", my imagination began bubbling and figuring that if 70s aidorusuperstar Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）had gone back in time and made her debut a couple of decades earlier, she could have been Shinkura.
At 33:23 is Shinkura's cover of "It's Been a Long, Long Time", so if you folks were wondering why I began with "Avengers: Endgame", well, your patience has now been rewarded. Her version is a bit more late-night in tone. As for what has happened to her, Shinkura has been known as Yoshiko Ikeda（池田美子）and in 1973, she opened her own art gallery in Tokyo's Aoyama district, "Galerie Shinkura". I'm not sure whether she ever did continue singing professionally outside of that 1989 album.
"Uta Con"（うたコン）is off for another week so when I turned on Jme this morning, there was a special called "Ghibli no Uta"（ジブリのうた...Ghibli Songs） on NHK. Basically, the title said it all: it was all about the magical theme songs from the many Studio Ghibli movies over the decades. Plus, the backdrop for the performances was logically the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo.
Not being all that huge a Ghibli fan, I've never visited the museum myself and I have heard that getting tickets is almost as difficult as pushing Totoro into a Jenny Craig programme although a few of my friends were able to get them and visit the place. But I think whoever came up with the idea for it was pretty smart in limiting the numbers since I think the magic can be retained by not having Disneyland-level numbers of rambunctious kids and adults clambering all over the exhibits. By the way, the video above comes from the YouTube channel Always, Ros.
For the fans, "Ghibli no Uta" on NHK must have had them swooning as at least some of the original singers were back to sing their contributions to the Hayao Miyazaki（宮崎駿）ethos. To be honest, I was midway through my oatmeal and therefore not watching the screen when I heard the familiar adorable tones of the opening theme march from the 1988 "Tonari no Totoro"（となりのトトロ）,"Sanpo" (Stroll), by Azumi Inoue（井上あずみ）. I mean, how could this not have every kid under the age of seven automatically marching throughout the living room while the opening credits are playing or when Inoue performs this on stage?
Written by children's book writer Rieko Nakagawa（中川李枝子）and composed/arranged by Joe Hisaishi（久石譲）, it's no surprise that "Sanpo" has been included in elementary school textbooks from time to time, and the argument has gone on about whether the song is an anison or a douyou（童謡...children's song）. Why not both? Everyone knows about the ending theme but "Sanpo" is still going to be the song that gets kids and their parents up and at 'em.
Personally though, I think my highlight from the show was "Jinsei no Merry-Go-Round"（人生のメリーゴーランド）as performed by an interpretive dancer. Dang, those lightning-quick hand moves really woke me up.
With the warmer days finally coming after a long and damp winter, it's time to think about lying on the beach chairs while sipping those cocktails.
Perhaps I may have just the tonic for that thought. I last posted something on singer Yukiko Tanaka（田中友紀子） back in late 2021 regarding her boisterous "Futari no Cinema wo Tsukuritai"（ふたりのシネマを作りたい）from 1994. Well, this time around, I have something much mellower in her July 1993 "Anata no Shiranai Umi de" (In Your Unknown Seas), a track from her album "Kimi-tachi no Kureta Natsu"（君たちのくれた夏...The Summer You Gave Me）.
Written by Yoshihiko Ando（安藤義彦）and composed by Kazuhito Murata（村田和人）, this is a rather soulfully languid tune with Tanaka singing an equivalent of a balm against metropolitan stress. Simply think "calm blue ocean" while listening to "Anata no Shiranai Umi de" and drink down your favourite libation. We can all use some relaxing down time.
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