Rie Nakahara -- Hero wa Anata（ヒーローはあなた）

 

Yup in about five weeks, The Avengers, The X-Men and The Fantastic Four along with other individual superheroes will meet for the first time and perhaps even the last time in "Avengers: Doomsday". Nope, I don't have an advance ticket but I'll catch it for sure somehow. 

So, of course, I've gotta come up with something with that feeling in mind and yet it's Urban Contemporary Friday on KKP. Fortunately, I did find something. "Hero wa Anata" (You're My Hero) is a Rie Nakahara（中原理恵）track (the final one) from her February 1978 debut album,  "Touch Me". The album also contains "Asa made Issho ni"（朝まで一緒に）and "Togire Togirete"（とぎれ とぎれて）.

"Hero wa Anata" has an intriguing galumphing rhythm (the best way I can describe it) that might steer it toward reggae but not quite. I would have to ask the trio of amazing songwriters for their opinion about what they were making here: lyricist Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）, composer Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）and arranger Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）. I bet you that it was The Professor who was on the piano in the latter half of "Hero wa Anata". But with those three involved, I was pretty assured that I would get a quality product and this is a really interesting slice of disco City Pop fusion.

Miyuki Hara -- Koishikute（恋しくて）

 

Well, so far, I have just the one Miyuki Hara（原みゆき）article and that was for her 1989 "Yude Tamago to Boku"（ゆでたまごと僕）from her album "Rin"（凛...Dignified）, and I gave it the thumbnail of a Sunset Grill breakfast plate. So, I thought, why not do the same here and place an omurice from Japan at the top?

I must admit that I had a little bit of a tough time categorizing this lovely tune which begins Hara's 1988 album "la noon". Hara was responsible for both words and music, and "Koishikute" (Missing You) has this shiny technopop sheen throughout but ultimately I also heard that familiar City Pop groove pulsating underneath that synthesized tissue, so I ended up categorizing it as both City Pop and technopop. Apparently, I hadn't been all that enthused about Hara's vocals on "Yude Tamago to Boku" but they seem fine on this particular song, and hearing them, I felt that there was something in there to remind me of Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）and Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）."Koishikute" involves the young lass missing lots of things and it made me feel like I was missing those certain musical elements of the 1980s.

The 77th NHK Kohaku Utagassen Lineup for December 31st 2026（第77回NHK紅白歌合戦）

 

For all those who have been kind enough to read "Kayo Kyoku Plus" regularly, you know that the year is coming to an end when the announcement for the lineup for the annual Kohaku Utagassen is made on NHK. I saw the lineup introduced last night on Yahoo Japan but was too tired to make the article then so I am doing so now in this special bulletin interrupting the usual Urban Contemporary Friday on KKP. The Kohaku will begin at 7:20 pm JST on the national network on December 31st 2026 at NHK Hall in Shibuya, Tokyo.

[Red Team]

ILLIT (3rd appearance)

Ado (2nd)

Anri (4th)

=LOVE (1st)

Sayuri Ishikawa (49th)

AKB48 (14th)

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu (4th)

CUTIE STREET (1st)

Fuyumi Sakamoto (38th)

Mizue Takada (8th)

Chanmina (2nd)

Yoshimi Tendo (31st)

Nogizaka 46 (12th)

HANA (2nd)

FRUITS ZIPPER (2nd)

MISIA (11th)

Kaori Mizumori (24th)

Ryoko Moriyama (11th)

YOASOBI (4th)

Misato Watanabe (2nd)

[White Team]

Ayumu Imazu (1st)

Ae! Group (1st)

EBiDAN (1st)

&TEAM (2nd)

King & Prince (7th)

Sakanaction (3rd)

Junretsu (9th)

Masayuki Suzuki (7th)

SixTONES (5th)

TM Network (2nd)

T. M. Revolution (6th)

Leon Niihama (3rd)

Vaundy (4th)

BE:FIRST（5th）

Masaharu Fukuyama (19th)

Macaroni Enpitsu (1st)

Mrs. GREEN APPLE (4th)

M!LK（2nd）

Monaky (1st)

Yuzu (15th)

L'Arc〜en〜Ciel (6th)

[Special Guests]

Koshi Inaba

Your congenial hosts will be actor Masato Sakai（堺雅人）, former Arashi member/actor Kazuya Ninomiya（二宮和也）, actress Mana Ashida（芦田愛菜）and NHK announcer Naoko Suzuki（鈴木奈穂子）. The theme for the Kohaku this  year will be "Let’s move forward together in song."

Some thoughts from me:

1) Looks like the former Johnny's Entertainment acts are coming back in from the cold such as King & Prince and SixTONES.

2) The Red Team looks like it has no enka singers whatsoever up to November 13th. I consider Junretsu（純烈）and Leon Niihama（新浜レオン）to be more into Neo-kayo kyoku than enka nowadays.

3) Anri（杏里）is coming back for the first time in about 30 years. I'm betting that she's going to do a mini-medley consisting of "Olivia wo Kikinagara"（オリビアを聴きながら）and "Cat's Eye".

4) There will be new acts such as EBiDAN and CUTIE STREET marking their presence on the show while this time representing the seniors are folks such as the aforementioned Anri, Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）and Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）. The one surprise omission for me isn't just male enka singers but Hiroshi Miyama（三山ひろし）in particular. For several consecutive years, he'd been doing the annual kendama World Record thing in his Kohaku performances, but I guess the producers and/or Miyama himself decided it was time to put that finally to rest. However, I'm wondering if enka singer Kaori Mizumori（水森かおり）will be doing another song to the clacking of falling dominoes yet again.

As has been the case every year, the lineup will see further additions so male enka singers may be represented. This article will be updated to the last minute on December 31st when news comes in through J-Wiki about any changes. You can also take a look at the J-Wiki article on No. 77.

Cop Show Themes

 

Ah, yes. That's indeed actor/singer Yuji Oda（織田裕二）...maybe several years before he got that starring role on everlasting cop show "Odoru Dai Sosasen"（踊る大捜査線）. He's looking a whole lot more weathered on the latest movie in the franchise.

My Author's Picks have consisted of favourite tunes but I've also amassed a summary of commonly-themed songs and this time, it's the themes for the Japanese cop show across the decades. Of course, the ones that I have tonight aren't the only ones from the blog but these are the ones that I could remember off the top of my head. The big surprise for me is how the various themes can spread across a whole plethora of genres. It isn't just a military march. So, without further ado, let's recap.

(1965) Jun Fujimaki -- Guardman no Uta （ガードマンの歌）

(1972) Takayuki Inoue Band -- Theme from "Taiyo ni Hoero"（太陽にほえろ）

(1975) Shunsuke Kikuchi -- Theme from G-MEN★75

(1980) Yujiro Ishihara -- Yoake no Machi （夜明けの街）

(1986) Hiroshi Tachi -- Abunai Deka (She's So Good)（あぶない刑事）

(1997) Akihiko Matsumoto -- Rhythm & Police

Shoko Sawada/Iruka -- Seishun no Hikari to Kage（青春の光と影）

 

My previous article was a Reminiscings of Youth posting and yep, musically, those were some good times back in the 1970s and 1980s. However, along with the good came the bad and blue periods, and it was a matter of being able to avoid them or toughing them out to various degrees.

That's the impression I got from Shoko Sawada's（沢田聖子）wistful and folksy "Seishun no Hikari to Kage" (Light and Shadow of Youth) which was the title track from her April 1981 sophomore album. Also, the first song on the album, it was written and composed by folk and City Pop chanteuse Iruka（イルカ）while she was a university student and I guess that she and Sawada were good buddies (they were about the same age) as Iruka was kind enough to provide "Seishun no Hikari to Kage" as a gift to Sawada. 

The only thing at the time was that the song didn't have an official title. Iruka then opted to name it "Seishun no Hikari to Kage" after a song that she had a fondness for at the time, "Both Sides, Now" by Joni Mitchell whose Japanese title was "Seishun no Hikari to Kage". The song and the album also marked a drastic departure for Sawada in that up to 1981 during her first two years in show business, she'd been seen as a particularly talented aidoru. I will have to check those early years out.

Iruka would cover her own creation as a track on her September 1983 album "Loop Child". The wistfulness remains but the arrangement sounds as if the protagonist from the original version has grown up by a few years and become more seasoned in life.

Quarterflash -- Harden My Heart

 

Once again, it's time this week for another Reminiscings of Youth where I talk about some of the Western pop songs that I got to know in my callow childhood and teenage years. When I first truly got into music at the turn of the decade into the 1980s, I discovered all the wonders of synthesizers, the cool of groove and the boppiness of aidoru music in Japan.

And years before I knew about Kaori Kuno（久野かおり）and Mariko Takahashi（高橋真梨子）, I'd realized that women could sing main vocals and play the saxophone. That is thanks to Rindy Ross from the Portland Oregon band Quarterflash. I don't know too much of Quarterflash's discography but I did get to know their September 1981 debut single "Harden My Heart" as one of my touchstones for 80s pop music. The memory of this smoky pop-rock tune with Ross' sultry vocals and tenor sax exhortations has managed to remind me of my favourite decade in a musical sense for decades now. 

I think I first saw the music video on either "America's Top 10" or one of the local music video shows in Toronto. The video was the usual adventurous dreamscape and I was amused as Rindy was running around in what might have been a prototype for the Backrooms. Just taking in all that visual atmosphere gave me that dark urban impression of West Coast pop from those years. "Harden My Heart" peaked at No. 10 in Canada while it did even better Stateside when it hit No. 3.

So, what else was being released in Japan in September 1981? We have three songs here.

Tsukasa Ito -- Shojo Ningyo（少女人形）

Naoko Kawai -- Moonlight Kiss (ムーンライト・キッス）

Toshihiko Tahara -- Kanashimi 2 (TOO) Young （悲しみ２「ＴＯＯ」ヤング）

Ayaka -- Yasashisa ni Tsutsumareta nara （やさしさに包まれたなら）

 

Ahhh..."Yasashisa ni Tsutsumaretara nara" (If It Could be Wrapped in Kindness), a classic Yumi Arai（荒井由実）New Music song from the 1970s. It also served as the ending theme for the classic Studio Ghibli anime film, "Kiki's Delivery Service", from 1989. If Yuming（ユーミン）songs could be analogized into animals, it would be a farm puppy or kitten, something to be relentlessly hugged.

It's not surprising then that the song has probably been covered over and over again throughout the decades. And I remember singer-songwriter Ayaka（絢香）performing it on an "Uta Con"（うたコン）episode a few months ago. As such, I thought her vocals were quite close to the young Yuming when singing this one in particular. 

Tracking her version down, I found it on her September 2013 album of covers "Yuuon Club - 1st Grade"（遊音倶楽部 〜1st grade〜...The Playful Sound Club）. In fact, it starts the album with an arrangement that is quite close to that of the original: an amiable country jazz tune to accompany a drive through the farmland. Maybe it's even got a bit more pep thanks to what sounds like some whisk drumming in there.