Joleen Benoit -- Tokyo Girl/Tokyo Woman

Hello, J-Canuck here. We have another article by occasional contributor Fireminer. Following the video, he'll take over the narrative.

I sometimes peruse YouTube for retro Japanese commercials, which was how I came across this Xerox advert. The song being featured is “Tokyo Girl” by the American single Joleen Benoit. It is the first track on her 1988 Japan-exclusive album “Joleen”.

This is a crowd-pleaser. On top of a catchy AOR tune guided by the clapping, you put a gratuitous amount of saxophone for that 50s flair. It goes well with the sunny lyrics, which depict a boy pinning for a manic pixie-type of girl with so much allure. Furthermore, “Tokyo Girl” and the rest of the album were performed by experienced artists who were pretty well-known in the easy listening world like Andrea Robinson (backing vocal), Joey Carbone (keyboardist) and Michael Thompson (guitarist). It is not a surprise that the song jumped to first place on the Oricon Western music chart in September 1988. Having the young actress Yuki Matsushita (松下 由樹) danced to your song in the Xerox commercial helped too.

As for the singer, Joleen Benoit was from the city of Farmington, Minnesota. She became Miss Minnesota in 1973 and toured with the United Service Organizations (USO) for a period of time. Her first single, 1986 “Forgotten Man”, was even about servicemen returning home. Joleen was also one of the people responsible for creating the Minnesotan supergroup “Women Who Cook”. The band was put together for the PBS Nighttimes Variety Show which Joleen was the host of. They even performed in the Soviet Union on a peace tour! You can read about the band here.

Joleen eventually released a follow-up single called “Tokyo Woman” (1990). I can not find anything about that single as well as the subsequent releases, but her last single was in 1999. Joleen then worked as a CBS Host for several years. I found her Facebook and YouTube page, but the former has been set to private while the latter has been inactive for years.

Anri -- Memorial Story

 

Remembering back to 2017, I posted an article on Anri's（杏里）November 1982 album "Heaven Beach". I recollect that I didn't do a total job on it but it was still fairly thorough so for all the intervening years, I didn't revisit it.

Well, there are still a few tracks that had yet to be covered and one was "Memorial Story". Written and composed by the singer, it's a very amiable and palm tree-friendly song that kinda brings in the California AOR sound, and it sounds perfect for "Heaven Beach". Without needing to rely on songwriters such as Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）, it's evident that Anri had that feeling for the genre as well.

Ryuichi Sakamoto -- Daiei（ダイエー）

 

I know that Daiei is one of the major supermarket chains in Japan. There was one branch of it near my apartment...a mere ten-minute walk away. The actual supermarket was in the basement but it was huge, fairly comparable to some of the No Frills supermarkets we have here in Toronto, and my Daiei also had a couple of floors above the supermarket for clothes and the usual department store stuff.

Let it be known that it would be grand folly to describe the amazing things that the late legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）did musically in one mere paragraph. He was a pioneer in technopop, helped give a new exciting sound to Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）in the early 1980s, provided some of the catchiest and quirkiest melodies to other singers such as Miki Nakatani（中谷美紀）, arranged one of the cutest kid-friendly songs for an aidoru trio, created some fine and comfortable New Age music, and was even responsible for a blippity-bloppity theme for NHK News back in the day.

And yep, he even gave his all for commercials including one for my beloved Daiei where I often got my bento. And I mean, he gave his all.

(Mock conversation between The Professor and Daiei)

Daiei, nervously: So, can you...uh...provide a nice jingle for our supermarket?

Sakamoto, haughtily: I, Ryuichi Sakamoto, do NOT compose tiny insignificant baubles of eighth notes for anything! I compose full breathing songs, sir!

Daiei: Well...uh...how catchy and long can you make this song for our humble company?

Sakamoto: YES!

And thus, "Daiei" was born in 1983. And here I thought his "GT" was cool and upbeat. "Daiei" may be his most foot-stomping and toe-tapping work yet. It's got his 80s synth beats, celebratory Christmas bells, bounce-off-the-wall saxophone, cool background chorus and bang-and-crash percussion. Good golly...how big was that sale for fruits and vegetables? You will never simply walk over to your local grocery ever again.

Anyways, "Daiei" is available on his November 2002 compilation album "Works I - CM".

Hikaru Utada -- PAPPAPARADISE

        

Although I never saw either of them during their original airtime, I had heard of James Corden's "Carpool Karaoke" and the game show "Cash Cab". 

In either case, it's quite the elevation in being driven home. Sing your favourite songs or win some good hard money although I believe the former situation only invites celebrities. 

That's the image I got on watching the music video for Hikaru Utada's（宇多田ヒカル）latest single, "PAPPAPARADISE". They have got to be the most cheerful taxi driver on Earth and I'm not sure which area is being represented here: Tokyo or her native New York City. I only see Hikaru taking care of Japanese fares and yet the singer-songwriter is wearing street clothes behind the wheel which is verboten in Japan's taxis. But that's not the point. The amazing thing is that Hikaru is greatly enjoying life and entertaining the customers through their song which was released on May 6th. It's an upbeat tune with a bit of 1950s music, doo-wop and even some Steely Dan horns in there. 

And it was after viewing the music video that I found out that "PAPPARADISE" is being used as the latest ending theme for the long-running anime "Chibi Maruko-chan"（ちびまる子ちゃん）. So, Utada joins folks such as B.B. Queens, Keisuke Kuwata（桑田佳祐）and Kahimi Karie（カヒミカリィ） on that august list.

Yasuha -- Morning Date（モーニング・デート）

 

Talk about a song that has had nine lives like a cat. Yasuha's（泰葉）1981 "Fly-Day Chinatown" (フライディ・チャイナタウン) has once again popped up like a rubber duckie in the pop culture bathtub after getting its exposure at the end of Episode 5 of the currently running anime  "Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!"（ガンバレ!中村くん!!...Go for It, Nakamura!）. And hey, a good song is a good song no matter how often it arises out of the ether.

As such, I wanted to see what the B-side for "Fly-Day Chinatown" was. It is "Morning Date" which was also the creation of lyricist Toyohisa Araki（荒木とよひさ）, composer Yasuha and arranger Akira Inoue（井上鑑）after their primo work on the A-side.

"Morning Date" is the opposite of "Fly-Day Chinatown". For one thing, as the title shows prominently, it is an upbeat morning tune compared to the nocturnal swings of "Fly-Day Chinatown". Moreover, instead of some rumbling City Pop through a famous part of Yokohama, this is basically some happy West Coast AOR in an apartment featuring a couple of newlyweds as a wife wakes up all fresh and freshly showered just so that she can greet her husband in the breakfast nook. I don't think I've ever experienced a married couple that blissful at breakfast; must be really early in the relationship. Still, I can hear some City Pop chord progressions blipping through along with a rock n' roll coda.

Hi-Fi Set -- Crystal Night（クリスタル･ナイト）

 

I've got to admit...I wasn't quite sure what to make of this B-side to Hi-Fi Set's（ハイ・ファイ・セット）8th single from April 1977, "Kaze no Machi"（風の街）. The A-side is the straightforward City Pop driving song that's got the breeze going through the hair and love filtering through the heart.

"Crystal Night", not to be confused with Junko Ohashi's（大橋純子）classic "Crystal City" which came out the same year, is a B-side that had me popping question marks around my head initially. Right from the intro, my ears were hit by a mixture of disco strings and country-loving steel pedal guitar before things settled down into this 1970s peppy City Pop song. And then, the roots rock guitar came crashing in like Superman through a wall. Still, "Crystal Night" overall feels like another hot evening on the town much like its companion "Kaze no Machi". Two of the members of Hi-Fi Set, Shigeru Okawa（大川茂）and Toshihiko Yamamoto（山本俊彦）were responsible for words and music respectively with Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）taking care of the arrangement. The song was also a track on the group's 3rd album from February 1977, "Love Collection"（ラブ・コレクション）which not only hit No. 1 on Oricon but it was also the No. 1 album of the year.

Iruka -- NYC wa Toosugite（NYCは遠すぎて）

 

I'm probably going to have to come up with an Author's Picks regarding New York-based kayo kyoku sometime soon. I've been encountering them during the past fourteen plus years that "Kayo Kyoku Plus" has been in business and perhaps it's enough that the bunch of these Manhattan music tributes in Japanese can make up a subgenre of sorts within City Pop.

Anyways, I have another one here by singer-songwriter Iruka（イルカ）who was in her 1980s City Pop phase at the time. I don't have my own copy of her April 1985 12th album "Heart Land" but I have covered at least one song on the list, "Ame no Distance"（雨のディスタンス）, which also qualifies as a City Pop tune. This one here is "NYC wa Toosugite" (New York City is Too Far Away) which was actually written by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composed/arranged by Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）, so Iruka was just behind the microphone. 

This is quite the romantic strolling tune to be enjoyed at sunset, and of course, Iruka's velvety vocals help with the overall listening pleasure. I can imagine that Japanese tourists must have been swooning for the Big Apple at the time, especially when that saxophone comes into play halfway through. Well, it helps that the Bubble Era started around the time that "Heart Land" was released.