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.
Now that Japan is in Golden Week mode, I remember when I was living in the nation, students and TV programs often spoke of Cebu in hushed tones as if it were a hallowed destination. And it was...for recreational purposes. It's a group of islands in the Philippines and apparently it was and is still rather popular. Taking a look at the above video from Island Hopper TV, I can see why.
I'm guessing that Cebu has been in the minds of vacationers for decades because I've encountered this track, "Cebu Islands", which belongs to composer/arranger Yasunori Soryo's（惣領泰則）first album"Wings of Love" from 1977. According to Discogs, the angelic chorus in the song are the Jim Rock Singers which seem to be Soryo's own group. "Cebu Islands" sure makes the actual place sound like an enticing Valhalla with the folksy AOR and Sunshine Pop arrangement.
It's nice to have Soryo back up on the byline again. I think the last time he was up there was back in 2021 when he collaborated with the chorus group EVE for "I'm In New York".
I believe I mentioned that I finally caught Zack Snyder's very long take on "Justice League" recently, and I was a lot more satisfied with that than with the version that I had caught some years previously at the theatre. Most notably, I was really happy with the scene involving Wonder Woman as played by Gal Gadot taking on those psychos in London early in the movie. Once I heard that warrior theme by Rupert Gregson-Williams, I knew I was going to witness some massive ass-kicking by Diana of Themyscira.
One day, the Snyderverse take showed up on the local sci-fi channel and that same scene popped up when I turned on the channel. My mother who has never understood or liked any form of superhero media surprised me when she verbally identified Wonder Woman. But then again, she had seen Diana many moons ago.
That's right. There was a time in the mid-1970s when my brother and I saw the weekly TV series "Wonder Woman" with Lynda Carter. So, we got to see the indestructible bracelets, the Lasso of Truth and the spinning around each episode.
Yes, I still remember when a pre-"An Officer and a Gentleman"Debra Winger guested as Diana's little sister, aka Wonder Girl. In fact, I think I prefer the first season when the show had been set during World War II instead of the more contemporary setting for the last couple of seasons.
At the time, I was also confused when I was watching the opening credits which paid homage to the original comic book from decades ago, and yet, the theme song was decidedly cheesy disco boogie. I mean, nowadays it all comes to me as very nostalgic but at the time, I thought it was pretty progressive to hear a superhero theme song that sounded like something one would dance to in the clubs.
I never knew who was behind the theme song for "Wonder Woman" the 1975 series. As it turns out, it was John Bahler of the Ron Hicklin Singers on the main vocals, Marti McCall, Carolyn Willisof the R&B group Honey Cone, and Julia Waters of the R&B group The Waters according to Wikipedia. Charles Fox and Normal Gimbel made up the songwriting team.
November 7th 1975 was the date when "Wonder Woman" premiered. Well, what was hitting the Oricon charts a few days earlier on the 3rd? We have Nos. 3 and 6.
But as the informercial announcer says...Wait! There's more!
"Wonder Woman" did make its way to Japan sometime down the line and though the Bahler theme song was played for that first season, the subsequent seasons had actress/singer Kaoru Yumi（由美かおる）provide a Japanese theme tune in the form of "Ai no Boukensha"(Adventurer of Love) which was specifically for the series; Machiko Ryu's（竜真知子）lyrics give a blatant shoutout to Wonder Woman. Meanwhile, the melody by Ken Sato（佐藤健）and arrangement by Akira Inoue（井上鑑）also follow a disco line but more on the AOR side of things.
This is Yumi's first time on the blog. From what I remember of her, she had a recurring role in the legendary jidaigeki series "Mito Komon"（水戸黄門）as quite a warrior herself. She was also famous in that show for her bathing scenes which you can see being parodied in the commercial below.
Haven't posted anything by the 80s female trio Sugar（シュガー）recently but I did come across this April 1982 follow-up to their razor-tongued debut single"Wedding Bell" from the previous year.
As was the case with "Wedding Bell", a lovingly-delivered curse of death to a former beau getting married, "Aventure wa Looks Shidai" (The Adventure Depends on the Looks) was also written and composed by Yoshiaki Furuta（古田喜昭）as this light and frothy Brazilian-tinged song. Furuta's lyrics also have some sting in them although the potency isn't as great as in "Wedding Bell". There are just some irritating internal barbs from a lady who's seeing the man in her sightlines going out with another woman. Considering how breezy it is, one wonders whether this could have been an ideal tune for some commercial or insert song in a rom-com of those days.
Although the next couple of days following Showa Day are technically regular days, the Golden Week holidays have begun and apparently folks could have as many as twelve straight days off depending on how nice the bosses are. I knew that GW was on when I saw NHK show the annual Bullet Train capacity percentages and shots of highways showing a packed route going away from Tokyo and a relatively empty one going to Tokyo. From what I've seen so far, it looks like a lot of the Japanese may be keeping things within the nation instead of flying overseas due to the yen looking rather middling and the rise in a lot of things such as airplane fuel.
So I gather that it's time for an Author's Picks on vacations, and I'm surprised that I hadn't already done this in the past but I can rectify this right now.
This article's song title illustrates our feelings about those hot vacations...far away. We're well into spring but it sure doesn't feel like it today. We even saw a few snowflakes a few days ago flying about like gnats.
Anyways, allow me to bring back actress and singer Hiroko Kasahara（笠原弘子）. She's been in show business just about her entire life with her acting career beginning when she was around five years old in 1975 and then getting into the seiyuu industry in 1983 before finally going into recording in 1986. She's got quite the long discography despite it being the aspect of her overall career starting the latest.
From her June 1992 7th album "Tooi Natsu no Kyujitsu" (Distant Summer Holidays), I introduce the title track itself. Written and composed by Minori Hotate（保立稔）, it's a breezy and brassy contemporary version of 60s girl pop punctuated hard by a sax solo bent on jazzy excursions. It would make any current Torontonian swoon for the hot sunny days along the beach.
Well, that was quite the happy ending sequence for Episode 4 of "Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!"（ガンバレ!中村くん!!...Go for It, Nakamura!）as you can see above. Nakamura saves the love of his life, Hirose, from some photography-crazed punks and he's celebrating his win at home. Meanwhile, the ending theme cavalcade of oldies continues apace and cheerfully for fans. Episode 5 had quite the explosion of delight with an old City Pop fave, Yasuha's（泰葉）"Fly-Day Chinatown"(フライディ・チャイナタウン).
As was the case with Kenji Ozawa（小沢健二）& Scha Dara Parr's"Kon'ya wa Boogie Back"（今夜はブギー・バック）which was the ender for Episode 3, Barbee Boys'"Makeru mon ka"(Like Hell I'm Giving In), which was Nakamura's celebratory tune at the end of Episode 4, is also a song that I hadn't covered on the blog or heard at all. I was never all that much of a Barbee Boys fan although we do have a couple of their songs on KKP and up to now, my impression has been that the band loved to create songs showing conflict of all sorts whether it be internal or external.
"Makeru mon ka" was released as Barbee Boys' 5th single in April 1986 and as soon as I heard it, I knew it was a signature Barbee Boys song with those sparkly guitars, soprano saxophone and Kyoko's（杏子）vocals. Written and composed by band guitarist Tomotaka Imamichi（いまみちともたか）, it's about a guy's battle with himself about how to handle the potential consequences of his very assertive girlfriend wanting to drop by his place late at night. Methinks that the angel and devil on his two shoulders are having an Avengers level of fighting.
That's quite the music video for "Makeru mon ka" as well. There's nothing like ancient Soviet-era propaganda showing the populace actually having fun to attract viewers. Anyways, the song peaked at No. .47 on Oricon, and it was a track on Barbee Boys' 2nd album "Freebee" from November 1985. It hit No. 18.
As I noted in my previous article, due to Wednesday the 29th being Showa Day in Japan (and thus the official start to Golden Week), NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）devoted a good chunk of its broadcast tonight to some of the Showa Erakayo kyoku which I was plenty grateful about. After all, this is what we're all here for when it comes to this blog.
I recollect that I may have done something in the past to commemorate Showa Day via an Author's Picks but I decided to still go ahead with another try at a list. Initially, I'd thought about bringing over some of a list of most popular Showa Erakaraoke songs but when I realized that most of those songs originated in the years 1985 to 1987, I jettisoned that idea for being a little too centralized, time-wise. Then, after some more thought, I blurted out "Oh, what the heck!". I'll just let my memories pick out one song that immediately comes to mind when I think of a certain decade or period within Showa (1926-1989) and let the chips fall where they may.
The list below only consists of five songs...yes, very inadequate (I've left out City Pop and Group Sounds, for instance) but take this as an opportunity for folks to chime in with their representative kayo choices. Anyways, anything that would seem adequate would probably force me to make a new blog. Plus, Labels would throw a major tantrum at me. Still, allow me to mention the Blue Comets'"Blue Chateau"（ブルー・シャトウ）from 1967 and Miki Matsubara's（松原みき）"Mayonaka no Door"（真夜中のドアー）from 1979.
