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.
Happy weekend! Well, Miki Hyodo（兵藤未来）is a singer-songwriter that I discovered because of this blog and so far, she's gotten my attention because of her unique approach to New Music or City Pop and the like. For example, I covered both sides of her 1977 debut single: "Tonde Kita Yume"（飛んできた夢）and "Maverick"（マーヴェリック）which has her bringing out her Margaritaville game to listeners' ears.
I found another song written, composed and performed by Hyodo called "Soto wa Makkura"(It's Pitch Dark Out) which belongs to her 1977 debut album"One Paradise" (incidentally, the above songs are also included in the album). This time, instead of the tropical, Hyodo brings out a hot, sultry and bluesy proclamation as if she were performing in a honky-tonk dive bar during a torrid August night in Florida. It's dark outside so why not come inside into the light so that they can go into somewhere more enticingly dark...preferably her room, perhaps?😇 Yep, this is some ice-cube-being-dragged-down-the-neck make out invitation music. Love the guitars and electric organ in play here.
I have never really hidden the fact that for a guy who isn't really into art, I've been a fan of Seizo Watase（わたせせいぞう） (as you can see above) and Hiroshi Nagai（永井博）, basically two artists who have been depicting the idealized City Pop lifestyle onto canvas. Up to now, I've been investing in my annual Watase calendars but I really ought to give Nagai a chance as well next time.
Good golly! I swear that the above video is a real-life depiction of the Watase/Nagai lifestyle! And to boot, the video is for a single titled "On The West Coastline" by the collaboration between music producers and performers Dirty Androids & punipunidenki（ぷにぷに電機）which came out in August 2021 (an April 2020 compilation album titled "SPD GAR 003" contained the song, mind you). I can only imagine how people were feeling watching this video during COVID times. Having said that, interspersing those scenes of the good time and beautiful people are excerpts of women looking quite isolated and lonely with only a common Walkman to keep them company. But in the end, the balance between the two looks quite solid so perhaps the message is that life is a coin consisting of those two sides and one's constantly flipping it.
It's a combination of strings (including an emotional cello in the intro), groovy rhythms, haunting synths and punipunidenki's whispery vocals for some of that Neo-City Pop vibe. Maybe the video is showing something darker, but the actual song seems to keep up the happy happy joy joy in modern-day Japan. I only posted something about Dirty Androids at the beginning of this month, and I also noted another collaboration between the two a few years ago.
Around this time three years ago, I mentioned the short-lived group DEBBIE'S ALLY, led by Itsuko "Debbie" Kodama（児玉伊津子）, and her buddies which included a number of high-powered studio musicians. That first song I did was the title track from their sole September 1980 album, the disco breezy "Yoake no Dreaming"（夜明けのドリーミング）.
One other track that I've found is "In The Starlight" which seems to take things midway between the city and the seaside resort. Written by Kodama herself and composed by singer-guitarist Akio Yabe（矢部昭夫）, Debbie is slightly less whispery in the vocals and the arrangement is a bit more AOR relaxed as if the summer drive to Hakone is on. Some of the guitar work sounds somewhat Tatsuro-esque. Order those cocktails! 🍹
Kinda ironic that I just put up my "New York" tunes a week ago, and now I'm posting Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）"Circus Town" onto the blog since this song was not only the lead track and title track for his 1976 debut album but also a representative of the New York side of the album (Side B is the LA side of things). After all these years of posting his music onto KKP and it is today that I'm finally adding "Circus Town", maybe one of his songs that got him beloved among the non-Japanese community of City Pop enthusiasts, onto KKP.
There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that I'd assumed that I did put it up in the past but haven't bothered to check since I often get depressed scrolling down his vast file and seeing all of the videos that have been struck down...possibly on the singer-songwriter's command himself. The other reason is another assumption that "Circus Town" is just one of those iconic Tats tunes that other better music bloggers and journalists have given their sage two cents and that I needn't bother to do so.
Well, as it turns out, there's not a whole lot of insight put out for "Circus Town" that I could find (although I'm sure that commenters can point me in the right direction afterwards). Even J-Wiki didn't contribute much to the song itself although its article for the album in general is fairly voluminous.
But what can I say about the song itself? It's wonderful! Breezy and seemingly celebratory about the Big Apple, it was written by Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）and composed/arranged by Yamashita, one of the star songwriting pairings in Japanese pop music (and my most recent article involving Tats was their duo cover of Niteflyte's "If You Want It" from almost a year previously). According to the brief paragraph on the song, "Circus Town" was based on the 16-beat pop that had been commonly played in New York circles. Blue Lou Marini was responsible for the scintillating sax solo and it was a nice touch to add that adorable piccolo rendition of circus music. And as much as Junko Yagami（八神純子）liked to call New York City"Purpletown", I think Yamashita calling what was once known as the World's Most Dangerous City "Circus Town" was very apt. I'm sure that for anybody coming into the metropolis from anywhere else must have been witness to quite the crazy circus-like atmosphere of Manhattan (check out those disco strings flying themselves into a tempests at one point in the song).
I have more hope that the above video of "Circus Town" will be staying up for a good long while since it actually does belong to Yamashita's own YouTube channel. Has the man followed the mantra of "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em"? Has he mellowed out when it comes to his works? In my case, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Just gonna enjoy my repeated listenings to it.
A few years ago, I posted the late Yutaka Ishio's（石尾豊）B-side to his 1986 single "Non-Stop Freeway", "Onna ni Juku shite Kaettekina"（オンナに熟して帰ってきな）, with its snazzy brand of City Pop night life.
Well, compared to the heavy smoke-filled atmosphere of clinking glasses of Old Parr and nightclub hostesses from "Onna ni Juku shite Kaettekina", Ishio's"Non-Stop Freeway" is a much more refreshing ride in the convertible. Nope, I don't think the A-side is really City Pop...more a mix of pop and rock; however, that underlying synth rhythm does remind me of some of the music that I was hearing on Canadian radio back in those mid-1980s. Lyricist Konosuke Fuji（藤公之介）and composer Kingo Hamada（浜田金吾）, who took care of the B-side, were also responsible for the A-side which is really quite the breezy drive away from Roppongi and Shinjuku.
At the end of February, I posted up an article regarding a not-so-well-known singer called Malja（麻留時夜）with the very involved kanji for her name. She released her one and only album in 1986 titled "Malja" with its own genre mix of tunes which of course included at least a few City Pop takes.
Well, the track I wrote about, "Nice Guy ni Ai wo Komete"（NICE GUYに愛をこめて）, was a pleasant City Pop ballad of the mid-1980s. Now, another track here is a more upbeat song of the genre, "Hadashi de Last Steps"(Last Steps Barefoot). Written and composed by the same guys behind "Nice Guy", lyricist Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）and composer Yuuichiro Oda（小田裕一郎）, just from what I've heard thus far, it's about a woman dancing with abandon all over the floor to the point that she needs to doff off her heels to continue the fun. Yup, seeing some of those stilettos, I couldn't blame her one bit.
Well, just like that segment on "Entertainment Tonight", let's go with some birthday announcements for two singers who are still around and one composer who did leave this mortal coil several years ago.
