Dance-y Songs for Me (for International Dance Day)

 

I've already done my two articles for today but I just had to do one more because it is an Author's Pick that I'd been letting stew in my brain for a little while. Approximately a decade ago, I posted a similar article titled "Happy Songs for Me (for International Happiness Day)" on occasion of the annual March 20th tribute to all things happy. I realized that there were a number of songs already posted on the blog that simply made me happy each and every time I listened to them and so all those endorphins were flowing around like cars in the Indianapolis 500.

At the same time, I also recognized that there were other songs that not only provided an emotional high to me but also got me moving in my chair...not particularly easy considering a man of my mass and for that matter, a man of my often stoic temperament. But indeed, those tunes actually got me to dance...after a fashion. As such, I opted to put up my own list of tunes that have gotten me to shimmy. When I did a bit of research for this article, I found that there is such a day as International Dance Day but that's all the way ahead on April 29th. I'm not quite willing to wait that long.

So, without further ado, here is my list of up-and-at-'em tunes. As with the "Happy Songs" article, I've left out the years from Labels since that part of the article would have exceeded the limit of twenty and anyways, the years can be included easily enough beside the singer and the title.

(1981) Minako Yoshida -- TOWN

I believe I've given my opinions on each of the songs but allow me to add some more for each song. Knowing that there was basically no way that "TOWN" would be played at the Tokyo Olympics (especially since the song was actually more about New York City), but if it had been devoted to Japan's capital city, the music video would have had the buildings and the populace get into one massive dance party. It can almost...not quite, but almost...get me to play air guitar near the end.

(1982) Motoharu Sano -- Sugar Time

Dancing?! I don't need to dance to the well-titled "Sugar Time" to have a great time. All I need to do is jump all over the place. Whenever I listen to this fun fest, I always envisage Bobby Van's amazing sequence from the movie "Small Town Girl" released in 1953. Play "Sugar Time" and the Van dance while muting the latter. You'll lose a kilogram!

(1994) Kome Kome Club -- Abracadabra（ア・ブラ・カダ・ブラ）

I do my best air drums when I hear Carl Smoky Ishii and company blast this one out the headphone speakers. And then if I'm really in a mood, I even try to emulate the K2C dancers on stage (I make sure no one's home).

(1997) Miki Nakatani -- Kinokhronika（キノフロニカ）

I usually just repeatedly shift my weight to this technopop tune but my overactive mind envisions this being a battle and a dance simultaneously on the level and magnificence of the fights in the very first "Matrix" movie which was a mere two years after the source album "cure" had been released. It could be the background music for a fighting manga brought to life. And when the composer is the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）...well, quality guaranteed.

(2000) Mondo Grosso feat. Bird -- Life

When you link back to the original article, you'll notice that I only supplied one paragraph to this song, something that I haven't done in years. However, it really is the song that can give the oomph compared to anything that I could put down in prose. Some great samba beats by Mondo Grosso and some lovely vocals by Bird to get me doing my own line dance. I'm sure any concert performances of "Life" would have the audience frenetically dancing to theirs.

(2005) Tomita Lab feat. SOULHEAD -- Like a Queen

Once you get past the technopop intro, it's all wonderfully soulful brass and bass and disco strings and the Sawayama sisters. Yep, this is another one to get the blood pumping and the shoulders shimmying all over the place. Of course, I encourage you to be more ambitious in the movements.

(2018) Kirinji -- Jikan ga nai（時間がない）/ Hi Zero Wa Game (非ゼロ和ゲーム) 

Honestly speaking, I had to include both of these songs which come from Kirinji's heavy rotation 2018 album "Ai wo aru dake, Subete"（愛をあるだけ、すべて）. I mean, I probably would have included a few more tracks but I didn't want to go overboard. Of course, "Jikan ga nai" is the finest example of SALARYWAVE that I've seen especially with that section chief tripping the light fantastic on the disco floor in the music video. And then with "Hi Zero Wa Game", I never thought that I could dance to a Doobie Brothers-like arrangement but here we are. The concert performance videos are splendid but I wonder what a conceptual music video would have looked like.

I've enjoyed these and even burned some calories to them. How about you? Any danceable kayo kyoku out there?