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.
Welcome to the regular weekly Reminiscings of Youth segment on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" where I provide one of the songs that gladly adorned my childhood and adolescence in the 1970s and 1980s. And now...back to the countdown. Wait! That's not my line...that's Casey Kasem's line when he was hosting "America's Top 10". Whenever I could catch it on TV, I did so to see what was hot and cool on the charts and one group that was doing that a lot on the show was Hall & Oates. In fact, they're up above as well at No. 7 on the charts in this November 1983 episode.
In fact, I remember their October 1983 single "Say It Isn't So" taking up near permanent residency on those charts for months on end, and it didn't take long for the song to make it to local radio stations. And it soon became one of my favourite songs by them during their dance-pop days in the 1980s. I especially liked the extended version (great sax solo by Charles DeChant) that played through the official music video below (and yeah, that beat makes it a great walking song). For both versions, Hall really liked to take advantage of those vocal effects especially the one where he seems to yell from one speaker to another.
In Canada, "Say It Isn't So" reached No. 18 while in the United States, it hit No. 2 on Billboard. Meanwhile, what was also hitting the record stores in October 1983?
Another one of those songs that I couldn't classify at first, "Margarita Girl" by Yoshimi Iwasaki（岩崎良美）is still a pretty refreshing cocktail of a tune. I gather that along with 1976, 1982 was a darn fine year for music since it's currently the year in Labels with the second-largest number of articles.
"Margarita Girl" was Iwasaki's 10th single from July 1982. One of three musical creations that year that had been made for the 80s aidoru by the husband-and-wife team of lyricist Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composer Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）, it starts off sounding a bit City Pop but then it transitions into a more old-fashioned pop standard direction with strings (maybe even a bit Fashion Music?). Moreover, some Latin feeling also infuses itself by the chorus. I guess it wasn't just the girl that was getting margarita-ized. You can ask arranger Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）.
The single managed to peak at No. 41 on Oricon, and it became a track on Iwasaki's 5th album from June 1982, "Cécile"; that album got as high as No. 22. One of those other Yasui/Kato collaborations for Yoshimi was "Aishite Mon Amour"（愛してモナムール）.
The city of Urayasu（浦安）, Chiba Prefecture is right next door to my residence city of Ichikawa（市川） in the same prefecture. Both cities gave me some strong impressions. Both of them are bedroom towns for Tokyo but whereas Ichikawa spread out so widely that there was no way I could explore all of it even within a few days, Urayasu struck me as having a dual personality.
For me, there was Old Urayasu around the Tokyo Metro Tozai Line's Urayasu Station (refer to the above video) which I was far more well-acquainted with. It was the usual conglomeration of fast-food restaurants, izakaya, pachinko parlors, one major department store, supermarkets and apartment buildings. I used to teach at a juku some fifteen minutes walk away from the station so I often made use of the local Starbucks, KFC, the family restaurant and the MUJI store there.
But then there was Shin-Urayasu or New Urayasu as you can see below. And it was like comparing night to day. The new development looked like a southern California resort community by the sea. There were palm trees, wide boulevards, a lot of spiffy new condos and attractive shopping malls. Of course, all that was probably started when Tokyo Disneyland began operations there in 1983. I could get to the area by a bus that actually began its route in front of my subway station, Minami-Gyotoku（南行徳）, just one stop east from Urayasu on the Tozai (why it didn't start from Urayasu itself is beyond me). It was a half-hour ride one way to Shin-Urayasu Station. Mind you, unless I had friends come over from abroad to head to the Mouse House, I never really frequented the Shin-Urayasu area. It appeared and most likely still is too expensive for my blood.
I knew that Urayasu had its humble beginnings as a small fishing town but I never really saw that side; Urayasu has always been that bedroom town/condo community for me. But I got that historical reality put into my brain while listening to Yoshitaka Minami's（南佳孝）single from 1978"Shiokaze Douri no Uwasa"(Rumours of a Sea Breeze Avenue) because it was the theme song for an NTV drama of that year called "Kaigara no Machi" (貝がらの街...Seashell Town) which took place and was actually filmed in Urayasu when it was a whole lot smaller and sleepier. It's a pity that I can't find any footage from the drama.
Unlike Minami's familiar City Pop stuff or his 50s/60s twangy material, "Shiokaze Douri no Uwasa" is quite the softer song. For one thing, he had nothing to do with the actual creation of the song which was handled by lyricist Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）and composer/arranger Yuji Ohno（大野雄二）. The result is something that sounds quite early 70s Carpenter-esque but then again, any languid tune with an oboe in there will always remind me of Karen and Richard Carpenter. Again, there is no sign of the drama on YouTube but from the song itself, I can imagine that "Kaigara no Machi" was a pretty down-home TV series with plenty of that smalltown Urayasu atmosphere.
Commenter Robert B. informed me of a kayo singer that he enjoyed by the name of Masami Urabe（浦部雅美）. He asked if I had heard of her before but I couldn't say I did. However, that family name reminded me of our family's old insurance agent since she had the same last name.
In any case, there's no J-Wiki file on Urabe but we've been able to glean some information about her. For instance, according to Discogs, she was born on Christmas Eve 1959 and hails from Abashiri, Hokkaido. At the very least, she did release seven singles and two albums between 1977 and 1982.
Her debut single from September 1976, "Sukoshi Tōde wo Shitemimasen ka"(How About Taking a Short Trip?) is a friendly country kayo kyoku which seems to follow the rhythmic pattern of John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Road", one of the most well-known non-Japanese pop songs of all time in Japan. Written by Tsuzuru Nakasato（森田公一）and composed/arranged by Koichi Morita（森田公一）, Urabe sings about inviting the boyfriend for a nice little journey somewhere to get some fresh air and perhaps some fresher love. The Hokkaido lass has a pleasantly deeper voice which reminds me a tad of the vocals of Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）.
After half a century as an enka performer, Takashi Hosokawa（細川たかし）doesn't really have anything left to prove. He's looked very dapper in his suits but for the past several years, he's been appearing in more formal and traditional garb perhaps to illustrate his status as an elder stateman of the genre.
However, it also seems as if he's been willing to not only show the epic-ness of his music but also to poke a little bit of fun at his image with the help of AI and/or CG. He did this for the music video of his July 2024 85th single"Otokobune"（男船）and now he's gone even further for his most recent single, "Kamui Misaki" (Cape Kamui), which was released in January 2026.
There is an actual Cape Kamui in West Hokkaido but the music video would have you know that the song isn't really about a geographical feature on Japan's northernmost island; it's about Hosokawa as a determined ninja (who somehow got access to Captain America's Super-Soldier Serum) while being assisted by his crack team of cats. Yes, it's a rather Dadaist presentation. But as written by Ayako Fujibayashi（藤林綾子）and composed by Akihito Masuda（増田空人）, it does sound like a manly man enka with that piercing heroic trumpet and an arrangement that would make the Grand Old Man of Enka himself, Saburo Kitajima（北島三郎）, swoon.
It's another Hump Day here on Kayo Kyoku Plus, but I have to admit that it's looking really nice outside although the temperatures are still below seasonal. Anyways, let's a little whimsical with another Author's Picks, and this week, I just wanted to give my tribute and congratulations to the astronauts aboard Artemis II (along with Nutella) who are now en route back to Earth after doing that whip around the Moon.
Back in September, I'd already done my first batch of Moon Songs commemorating the autumn lunar festival, so this will be Moon Songs 2, but I don't have quite enough moon-themed songs that I know off the top of my head (although some of them may have already been posted on the blog...my memory isn't that good anymore). As such, I've cordially invited some other tunes with titles of a planetary nature within the Sol System.
This article can probably come down under the banner of "Don't judge a book by its cover". Years ago on KKP, I posted an article on somewhat obscure singer-songwriter Kaoru Nakahara（中原薫）and her refined love song "Sabishigariya Futari Bocchi"（淋しがりやふたりぼっち）from 1995. As I mentioned there, I bought the CD single based on what I heard nightly on the late-night docu-vignette "Rooms" on Fuji-TV. It is basically the only song that I know of her and so my impression has been that Nakahara was a singer of ballads.
Well, twelve-and-a-half years later, I've gotten my education. Nakahara also released one (and perhaps her only) album in June 1996 titled "Dolce". It not only has "Sabishigariya Futari Bocchi" but it has this very upbeat track called "Mou Ichido Ai Shitakute" (I Want to Fall in Love Again). Written by Nakahara and composed by Yasushi Suzuki（鈴木康志）, it feels like a night out on the city set to a dance club rhythm. I even got some Cathy Dennis vibes.
In the midst of writing up this article, I also got a bonus in terms of information and music. For one thing, according to one Ameba blog, Nakahara had once been known as aidoru Hiroe Sato（佐藤弘枝）about a decade previously. It's possible that Sato only released one single titled "Sepia Iro no Natsu"（セピア色の夏...Sepia Summer） in May 1985. Written by Hitoshi Shinohara（篠原仁志）, composed by Eiji Takino（たきのえいじ）under his pseudonym Hifumi Roku*（緑一二三）, and arranged by Makoto Kawaguchi（川口真）, the vocals by Sato/Nakahara are certainly very familiar and similar, and the song stands out for the use of a soprano sax and a galloping beat that sounds like something the late Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）would use.
Apparently, soon after the release of "Sepia Iro no Natsu", Sato pulled a disappearing act and wouldn't return for several years until she made her re-debut as Cola Hazuki（葉月コーラ） (she was singing for Coca-Cola ads at the time) in 1991. And then two years later, she changed her name to Kaoru Nakahara.
*That family name has a number of readings, so my choice is a guess. If anyone can confirm or correct me on the reading, please let me know.
