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.
It's been one of those days where I was out for most of it (explanation next time) and so I'm doing my second of two postings as usual close to the midnight hour. Therefore, I'm not exactly filled with energy right now. I'll have to settle with putting up some rankings and since it's close enough to April 22nd, why not go with April 22nd 1968?
In the old days of NHK's various incarnations of its weekly kayo kyoku show such as "Kayo Concert", hosts, staff and guests would occasionally come up with a theme night. The theme could be based on a samurai drama with the singers all dressed up in historical garb or it could be a bunch of guys out on the town in Shinjuku or Akasaka with one of the female veteran chanteuses as the proprietress of the popular drinking hole. The sets would be quite elaborately set up.
Since the COVID days though, I think those big theme nights have largely shrunk in design and frequency, perhaps due to health and/or budgetary concerns. Still, tonight's "Uta Con"（うたコン）brought out the theme of the annual welcome party for the newbies of a company with everybody getting involved including legendary kayo singer Hiroshi Itsuki（五木ひろし）as the generous and wise (if perhaps a tad longwinded) president.
Not surprisingly, Itsuki, who is now celebrating his 55th year in show business, had the final song of the night, and as has been the gimmick for the last few weeks, the staff placed a small trivia question regarding Itsuki as he was performing. As Itsuki fans know, the singer had gone through a number of stage names early in his career in the late 1960s before the name Hiroshi Itsuki was the final one he needed for sustained success. The question was "Which stage name did he have for only one day?", and the answer was "Jun Nakagawa（中川淳）" which explains why I haven't seen any songs under that name in his J-Wiki discography.
Still, let's go to one of his songs under the past stage name of Eiichi Ichijo（一条英一）. I have posted one song when Itsuki was Ichijo, and that was his first single under that name, "Ore wo Nakaseru Yoru no Ame"（俺を泣かせる夜の雨）from 1967. That was more of a Mood Kayo number but his third and final single under Ichijo was "Hatoba no Mari" (Marie on the Waterfront) which was released in April 1968 and it's quite a different animal.
Written by Kaoru Mizuki（水木かおる）and composed by Hideyuki Fujiwara（藤原秀行）, if I could use the 1980s-and-beyond genre New Adult Music, I probably would. It's quite the mix of enka with a jangly Group Sounds arrangement including a really boozy saxophone. My other observation is how consistently high-toned Ichijo is here along with a plaintiveness that reminds me of a young Shinichi Mori（森進一）who was breaking out at around the same time.
Apparently, "Hatoba no Mari" didn't sell but the man hung on for a few more name changes and singles, before he finally hit pay dirt with "Yokohama Tasogare"（よこはま・たそがれ）.
Unlike "Uta Con"（うたコン）and "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）, it's not as easy to catch "Hayauta"（はやウタ）on Jme since it seems to be thrown in anywhere on the schedule. Specifically in our case, it's scheduled at times when we are neither awake or otherwise available to watch it.
But we finally did catch an episode last night after the usual "Asaichi"（あさイチ）, and it was quite a good one. Almost all of the guests were performing stuff that seemed to be arranged in the old kayo kyoku style including this one here.
We don't really hear much about Mood Kayo these days in contemporary Japanese popular music, and the duets are most likely even rarer than appearances of the typical Mood Kayo groups. However, there was one such couple on "Hayauta" last night and it was a combination that I wouldn't have imagined. Singer-songwriter Okayu（おかゆ）, who's been this beautiful nagashi（流し）, or traveling balladeer through the drinking establishment-lined avenues of Tokyo, paired up with the funny man of the comedic duo Knights（ナイツ）, Nobuyuki Hanawa（塙宣之）, to perform the song "Ai no Michikusa". Now, michikusa is defined as "loitering on the way somewhere" according to Jisho.org, but I think "Loitering of Love" loses a lot of its romantic appeal (and may actually hint at something illegal), and the feeling within Okayu and Yasunari Izuma's（出馬康成）lyrics is of a hand-in-hand congenial walk through the shitamachi area of the nation's capital, so why not go with "Love Stroll"?
This is the first time that Izuma's name has been mentioned within the pages of KKP but it should be remembered here because he also happens to be a movie director. In fact, he has directed the movie of the same title as the song of note which stars Okayu and Hanawa as a couple with the former playing the proprietress of a typically tiny nomiya（飲み屋）. According to J-Wiki, the movie "Ai no Michikusa" will be shown later this autumn. In any case, Okayu's melody strikes that Mood Kayo feeling of yesteryear with the frenetically plucked Spanish guitar leading the way.
Happy Monday! Although the temperatures are back below freezing again, the skies are brilliant out there, so can't complain too much. It does go to show that there is a sage piece of advice for Torontonians and that is to never put away your winter tires or clothing until May. I have personally seen snow falling in May but that was decades ago.
There has been a lot going on out there in the world and that includes a fairly powerful earthquake that rocked Hokkaido and the Tohoku area earlier today. I woke up and turned on Jme to see that there had been ongoing NHK coverage of the quake and the ensuing tsunami warning and watches for several hours. Hopefully, everyone there is hanging in there OK.
Perhaps we can start with something a little calming and cosmopolitan, and this would be singer-songwriter Tomoko Soryo's（惣領智子）3rd single from 1977, "Kirameita Hibi"(Sparkling Days). I can feel the City Pop in there but Soryo's creation is quite subtle so that I can also place it as a calm blue ocean of a New Music lullaby. Perhaps the soulful "Kirameita Hibi" can be an example of how folks born in the 21st century feel that strange sense of nostalgia for 1970s or 1980s City Pop. The single was also included in the singer's "City Lights by the Moonlight" album from the same year.
Looks like the good times are still rolling with "Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!"（ガンバレ!中村くん!!...Go for It, Nakamura!）with not just the main show but also with the ending credit sequences which include the songs of yesteryear (specifically, those of the Showa and Heisei eras). We've already gotten Kozo Murashita's（村下孝蔵）"Hatsukoi"(初恋）and Da Bubblegum Brothers' "Won't Be Long" for Episodes 1 and 2 respectively.
The ending of Episode 3 has gone into the hip-hop field this time apparently, so the target song here is "Kon'ya wa Boogie Back" (Tonight is Boogie Back) which was the March 1994 7th single for hip-hop group Scha Dara Parr with Kenji Ozawa（小沢健二）, formerly of Flipper's Guitar. It was pretty interesting hearing Ozawa going rap but then again, I've learned that he's tried all sorts of genres including jazz and of course, Shibuya-kei when he was with Flipper's Guitar.
Incidentally, there are two versions of "Boogie Back": the "smooth rap" and the "nice vocal" takes of which the former has Scha Dara Parr taking the lead while the latter has Ozawa behind the mike most of the time.
The thing is that the first time I ever listened to "Kon'ya wa Boogie Back", it was not through the original artists. It was actually listening to some musical guests covering the song on the late-night Saturday music variety show "Love Love Aishiteiru" (Love Love 愛している....Love Love I Love You） hosted by the Kinki Kids. At the time, I hadn't heard a whole lot of Japanese rap although we were just on the cusp of a big J-R&B boom from the late 1990s, so I wanted to hear the original with Ozawa and Scha Dara Parr.
"Boogie Back" was written and composed by Ozawa and the three members of Scha Dara Parr: Bose, Ani and Shinco. It peaked at No. 15 on Oricon (selling over half a million copies), and it looks like it has had plenty of covers done over the last thirty years. The song also samples En Vogue's "Give It Up, Turn It Loose" from 1992.
Apparently, the end of Episode 4 features a song by The Barbee Boys that I hadn't experienced before. That'll get its due then.
Hope you're having a good Sunday after getting filled up with your bacon, eggs and pancakes. I'm still digesting mine so forgive the post-breakfast drowsiness.
Singer-songwriter Miwako Saito（斉藤美和子）first came to my knowledge through Scott's "Holly Jolly X'masu" podcast when she performed a cover of Kaoru Sudo's（須藤薫）"Anata dake I Love You"（あなただけ I LOVE YOU） on the 1997 compilation album"Winter Gift Pops". My curiosity peaked by the song and her vocals, I dug a little deeper and found out that Saito had her own bands from the 1980s including Tango Europe（タンゴ・ヨーロッパ）which kinda struck me as a prototype of Princess Princess.
Saito also had her solo career and this is where a contact from a fellow named Koki Matsumura reminded me of that. He introduced me to "Koibito wa Itsudemo"(Lover Always Do) which was the singer's debut single from 1986. With Saito and Chuuji Akagi（赤城忠治）providing the lyrics and the latter also composing the tune, it's a fun and quirky pop song with a bit of New Wave in there. And in a way, the song might have heralded the coming wave of sunny Girl Pop which would come within a half-decade through singers such as Mariko Nagai（永井真理子）. It's definitely its own song in terms of an intro that takes its sweet time and the overall length which goes over six minutes.
Saito would release three more singles up to 1988 along with a combination of albums and mini-albums from 1988 to 1999.
I've encountered a number of tropes within Japanese pop music over the years of doing "Kayo Kyoku Plus". Another one has to do with aikagi or duplicate key/passkey. I've noticed that there are quite a few songs with the title "Aikagi". One was by Hatsumi Shibata（しばたはつみ）which happened to be her debut single in 1974 and there's another one by Mayumi Itsuwa（五輪真弓）that I have yet to cover.
The whole rigamarole regarding passkeys has to do with the illicit affair which is a common lyrical plot in the various romantic ballads, enka and Mood Kayo numbers. Fans have loved to listen vicariously and dangerously as men and women throw caution to the wind and have those romances in their special hotels or homes...of course, accessible by that guilty duplicate key. 🔑
It was just last weekend on NHK's "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）when I heard enka singer Misaki Iwasa（岩佐美咲）perform her latest single titled naturally enough "Aikagi". Released in February this year, her 12th single is a bittersweet ballad about the aftermath of an affair in which the heroine has kept the titular key although there is no longer anyone to meet in the secret love nest. Written by AKB 48 mastermind Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composed by Saburo Takada（高田三郎）, I guess it's safe to say that this could be considered a Neo-enka or New Adult Music with some Latin and sophisticated pop mixed in with the traditional stuff. Strangely enough, Akimoto weaves a very similar story to the one concocted by Fumiko Okada（岡田冨美子）for Shibata's "Aikagi", so I guess that anything titled "Aikagi" isn't going to be necessarily very happy.
I've also come to realize that this is only the second Iwasa article that I've written with her name on the byline after my first posting of her 4th single"Hatsuzake"（初酒）back in 2015. The scary thing is that my articles on "Hatsuzake" and Shibata's "Aikagi" were posted within a day of each other in February of that year. Cue spooky music. Anyways, Iwasa's "Aikagi" broke through the Oricon Top 10 to peak at No. 7.
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