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.
Hope everyone is having a good Sunday out there. Indeed, we're in the final Sunday of August and so for us in Toronto, we're in that annual zone of pop culture appreciation as Fan Expo wraps up and the hype surrounding the Toronto International Film Festival heats up over the next couple of weeks.
Commenter Brian Mitchell was asking about a singer that I hadn't heard before. Yumi Shizukusa（滴草由実）is a Kagoshima Prefecture-born singer and songwriter who also happens to be an artist and radio personality. From what I've read so far, she retired from singing about half a decade ago but had been active between 2002 and 2021. There's one song from her 2015 album"Blue" titled "All My Life" that attracted my friend's ears.
According to her J-Wiki profile, Shizukusa delved into soul, rock and pop and with "All My Life", it feels like some especially sultry R&B...perhaps with some 90s dance beats and tribal percussion. I get the vibe that I have heard it somewhere before but I can't really remember when and where, and the J-Wiki article on "Blue" doesn't specify any tie-up between "All My Life" and any anime or commercial. But from the music video, I can see that it was filmed in Odaiba by Tokyo Bay.
Intending to write about this song, I couldn't help but post this photo of Tom Cruise by Gage Skidmore. Indeed, Cruise has played plenty of mavericks from IMF operative Ethan Hunt to US Navy ace pilot Pete Mitchell and he's going to play another very different sort of maverick in "Digger".
First off, I have to say that I had never encountered the expression hamidashi（はみ出し）before. According to Jisho.org, it means "sticking out" or "protruding" and with the longer expression hamidashi mono（はみ出し者）, it means "maverick" or "nonconformist" which fits the images of "a person who sticks out". Initially from what I could glean of the expression in hiragana and kanji, I'd thought that it meant "teeth sticking out", so just imagine all of the definitions given in this paragraph, implied or otherwise, and the ever-smiling Tom Cruise would be the sample picture in the Japanese dictionary.
And so, we come to the late Hiroyuki Okita's（沖田浩之）third single from August 1981, "Hamidashi Champion"(Maverick Champion). Just out of a sense of whimsy and curiosity, I wanted to check out what singles were being released at the end of August (which is when I'm writing this one) back in 1981, and sure enough, this was the only one. Written by Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）and composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, having the rock guitar flailing away was the appropriate thing for a song about a lone wolf winner. One would think that "Hamidashi Champion" was used for some sort of high school drama or a commercial about motorbikes, but it was actually utilized for a Morinaga confection ad.
Interestingly enough, "Hamidashi Champion" hit the shelves only some weeks after the release of the romance movie "Endless Love", the debut film for Cruise.
If you haven't heard we've lost a few famous people this week. The one that Caught my attention was the passing of Peter Cullen, who if you were not aware is famously known as the voice of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh (yes really), and the leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime.
I remember being 12 years old the first time I went to the theater to see Michael Bay's 2007 Transformers. Seeing Optimus Prime transform on the big screen will always be a core memory for me. He was quite literally the coolest thing I had ever seen, he was essentially a Gundam with the personality of Superman.
And hearing him speak?
It was like hearing the voice of God.
Even as an adult, listening to Prime hype up humanity as a cause worth fighting for still sends chills down my spine.
As I got older, however, the Michael BayTransformers movies became less appealing to me as I started noticing more and more of their flaws. Thankfully, a friend of mine did me one of the biggest favors of my life and introduced me to the original 1986 The Transformers: The Movie.
Two things immediately jump out at you when watching this film. First, the animation is a huge step up from the original cartoon.
Second?
The music.
I'm giving this soundtrack five Michelin stars, because Stan Bush absolutely cooked.
Other artists helped, obviously. Shoutout to Lion for delivering one of the best renditions of the original "Transformers Theme," as well as "Weird Al" Yankovic for his wonderfully bizarre New Wave parody "Dare to Be Stupid."
But the real standout tracks are the ones performed by Stan Bush.
Rent must have been DUE, because this man went out of his way to craft two of the most aggressively '80s songs ever recorded.
The first is "Dare," which plays when we're introduced to the movie's main character, Hot Rod (You'd think that would be Optimus Prime, but, spoilers...It's not.)
And then there's the song that kicks in when Optimus Prime finally confronts Megatron for the last time:
"The Touch."
In my mind, "The Touch"is the theme song of Optimus Prime.
The song is pure, raw testosterone in synthesized form. Blazing guitars, triumphant keyboards, and Stan Bush singing like the entire fate of humanity depends on whether or not you believe in yourself. It's the ultimate pick-me-up.
Transformers has given me some fond memories growing up, and I'm grateful to have grown up in a world where a talking pick up truck taught me about the sanctity of human life. That was only possible thanks to the man behind the voice.
Knowing that I have mentioned curry-based kayo in the past, I have waxed philosophically on the type of curry I like. First off, I was weaned on the Japanese style of rice curry through the good folks at S&B but going into my university years, I did discover the varieties from other nations such as India and Thailand. I also discovered the limits of my gastrointestinal tract (but they were all tasty, I assure you).
Back in 2015, the Okinawan-based rock and hip-hop band Orange Range gave their tribute to one particular dish "Sushi Tabetai"（SUSHI食べたい）with help from a fellow named Soy Sauce（ソイソース）who's a guitarist from the band NAOTO. Over a decade later, the collaboration came up with a sequel in July of this year titled "Curry Tabetai" (Wanna Eat Curry). With a bit more rap and a tongue pressed further into the (curry-laced) cheek in addition to an even more deranged video, the boys focused their voices and stomachs on the wonders of the Japanese style of curry.
Well, whaddaya know? There was a method to the madness!
It was around a couple of weeks ago that I posted up "Those Sad and Lonely Tunes", an Author's Picks highlighting songs with titles that featured sadness or loneliness including Hibari Misora's（美空ひばり）classic "Kanashii Sake"（悲しい酒）.
Well, I may have stumbled across a cousin to "Kanashii Sake", and I believe it was sung on an episode of "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）recently. "Akachochin no Onna" (Woman of the Red Lantern) was enka singer Mieko Makimura's（牧村三枝子）7th single from March 1976.
Written by Hikaru or Ko Yabuki（矢吹光）and composed by Kiyoshi or Yo Maki（真木陽）, it actually starts out feeling a little scary or chilly because of that organ. If it hadn't been for the warmth of the bluesy guitar accompanying the organ, I might have given up on the song altogether but I'm glad that I didn't. But indeed, it is a sad song about a woman who's eking out her living at what is probably a forlorn drinking establishment (a lot of watering holes in Japan are symbolized by a red lantern). Yabuki's lyrics only consist of three 3-line verses but they give an adequate description of a lonely proprietress who hasn't spoken with loved ones in the longest time (out of shame?) and may have ended up at the bar due to romance trouble.
The song is given further pathos (and this could be important information for those karaoke singers out there) from Makimura's measured and seemingly defeated/exhausted delivery of the words.
My family has often wondered whatever happened to Makimura since she hasn't shown up on any kayo kyoku shows in many years. According to her J-Wiki article, she actually appeared on an interview show in 2023 and revealed that she had been battling cancer that arose around a decade prior. There's no mention on whether she was able to defeat it but she ended up moving from Tokyo to Shizuoka Prefecture where her relatives reside nearby.
As a PS for the songwriters' names, it doesn't happen often but occasionally, I come across names that I can't definitively identify and this time, it has occurred with both the lyricist and composer. If anyone can confirm or deny my attempts above, please let me know.
Tokyo Cheapo on YouTube has presented the wonders of Odaiba (Rainbow Town) on Tokyo Bay. I've been to the area many times while I was living in Japan and it's chock-filled with stores, restaurants and places to see. But what makes things rather sobering is what is written on every signboard talking about Odaiba in Odaiba: if there's a huge Shindo 7 earthquake, the ground will tend to liquefy because the area is built on reclaimed land and garbage. Enjoy your visit!
It does make me wonder what that area by Tokyo Bay looked like back at the turn of the decade going from the 1970s to the 1980s. Was it basically like Toronto by Lake Ontario at around the same time when there was nothing but industrial factories and millions of dead fish floating on the water? Well, many years later, the waterfront of my hometown became the tourist spot of Harbourfront and obviously Odaiba popped up for Tokyo also as this very attractive place to live and visit.
At that turn of the decade, singer-songwriter Yuko Shibuya（渋谷祐子）released her 1980 album"Made in Japan", an LP that I've referred to a few times already including for one track "5AM wa Violet Pink de"（5AMはバイオレット・ピンクで）. I also have this track from "Made in Japan" titled "Sail Away" which is this welcoming City Pop song with flying disco strings as Shibuya invites listeners to take off on a pleasant tropical cruise with her. As the strings do a whirlwind effect at the end, there's even a trombone solo to bring some of that old-fashioned romance into the proceedings. Shibuya provided the melody while Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）was the lyricist.
When I was listening and reading up on this song, my mind made its own associations and my brain materialized that summer pastime in Japan, going to the rooftop beer garden among the skyscrapers. I'm basically a teetotaler but I had been to a few of these with friends and there is something appealing about having a mug and fried chicken under the stars. By the way, the above was provided by Samurai Junjiro Channel.
I guess all this beer garden on the brain is due to me coming across this latest album by the City Soulband Penthouse's latest album"Neon Garden" which was released on July 29th this year. One of the tracks here is the rapid-fire "Koi Suru Kamisama" (God of Love) that was written by vocalists Shintaro Namioka（浪岡真太郎）and Maho Ohshima（大島真帆）and composed by Namioka. It's quite the sangria of genres: technopop, jazz, soul, City Pop and all that as a young lass is going a little crazy about falling for a guy and asking for divine help to get her out of a sticky situation. Unfortunately, the titular deity probably has to deal with tons of other people in similar circumstances.
Just to let folks know, the above is an official music video for "Koi Suru Kamisama" and not a creditless anime opening or closing sequence, although seeing how polished and adorable it is, I wouldn't be surprised if fans are wondering if there shouldn't be an anime created because of it. Apparently, the story played out here has a more self-assured couple than in the lyrics.
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