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.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If my first encounter of 1980s aidoru Minako Honda（本田美奈子）hadn't been that horribly off-tune rendition of one of her hits on one of the 80s music shows, I would have been far more entranced by the late singer.
For example, listening to her third single from August 1985, "Aoi Shuumatsu"(Blue Weekend), I just thought that Honda had a wonderfully clear and upbeat delivery surrounded by Kyohei Tsutsumi's（筒美京平） melody and arranged in a happy-go-lucky synth-heavy style by Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）. On the other hand, Masao Urino's（売野雅勇）lyrics relate a tale of a couple who didn't have the happiest trip to the beach that day. But hey, it's a Japanese pop song so happy music paired with sad words isn't any surprise. For me, this is pure aidoru Honda without the dance club or rock trappings that I would often hear from her music during that decade. The song reached No. 23 on Oricon.
Well, this is something that will make Torontonians groan once more...and just in time for the weekly Hump Day, too. I think I mentioned yesterday or the day before that folks here are about ready to flee winter and embrace spring. I'm also willing to give up on the snow but knowing my Toronto, I figure that we're still due for at least one more blizzard. And one is indeed coming tomorrow with the snow fortified with some ice pellets, to boot.
I thought it would be apropos then that I put up this article surrounding enka singer Ayako Fuji's（藤あや子） 11th single from February 1998, "Yuki Shin Shin". As for the translation of the title, it could be "Silent Snow" or "Frigid Snow" depending on the definitions I found on Jisho.org. The lyrics by Miyuki Ishimoto（石本美由起）tend to support the latter meaning as Fuji sings about the snow relentlessly falling down and blowing all about so the poor person out there is getting pelted with needles of frozen water. Cryo-self-flagellation, so to speak.
Of course, with winter in Japanese music often being depicted as the nadir of romance, Ishimoto's lyrics are also talking about the protagonist going through absolute hell as he/she is on the verge of losing that special someone. Satoshi Hinokibara（桧原さとし）was responsible for the dramatic melody. "Yuki Shin Shin" managed to hit No. 36 on Oricon, and Fuji sang it twice on the Kohaku Utagassen in 1998 and 2006.
The file for aidoru Mikako Hashimoto（橋本美加子）is still a small one but I remember when Marcos V. launched it back in 2018 with her Eurobeat"Touch My Heart"from 1987. A few more songs were added including "Mellow Season"（メロウ・シーズン）which was her debut single from March 1985.
A new addition is here in the form of Hashimoto's 2nd single"Aoi Tokimeki" (A Blue Thrill) which was released in June 1985, and like "Mellow Season", it follows the conventional 1980s aidoru line. Written by SHOW and composed by Seishiro Kusunose（楠瀬誠志郎）, I'm still a sucker for those twinkling synths and the smooth strings. "Aoi Tokimeki" did rather modestly by scoring a No. 47 ranking at its peak and it was used for a Ban antiperspirant commercial.
Today is Family Day and much of Canada is celebrating this regional holiday (under different names depending on the province), although since it's not a federal holiday, we should still be getting our mail. We did have our family get-together last night with some fine platters of sushi.
No matter the level of holiday though, it still means that it's time for a special Reminiscings of Youth article, and under the theme of Family Day, I thought it would be appropriate to bring in one of my fondly-remembered TV theme songs. "The Brady Bunch" was one of the many sitcoms that peppered my childhood through its first run and then reruns. If I recall, it was on Friday nights on ABC for the first half of the 1970s and from what I saw on the Wikipedia page for it, it was never a ratings winner despite its longevity but then Friday nights were usually seen as the death slot of TV shows.
"The Brady Bunch" was the quintessential family half-hour sitcom back in the day. There was nothing controversial about it...just each of the kids having their easily solvable problems and then getting help from the parents, Mike and Carol, and perhaps even their maid Alice. There were some plot lines that I remember from the series which lasted from 1969 to 1974 such as the gang heading to Hawaii and the Grand Canyon, the truth about Jesse James, the kids cutting their own hit songs, and the one depicted above where little Bobby gets his first kiss from a schoolmate portrayed by Melissa Sue Anderson who would become even more famous as one of the Ingalls' daughters on "Little House on the Prairie". In addition, the kids literally grew up right in front of our eyes and even Mike and Carol eventually got groovier with the times in their fashion and hairstyles.
Of course, there is the famous opening credits sequence with the nine squares showing off the parents, kids and Alice with the sweetly sung theme song which delivered how this blended family got together in the first place. However, my memories of "The Brady Bunch" began from the second season when the actors portraying the children sang the theme for the rest of the series. For some reason, reruns of the first season wouldn't start playing on TV here in Toronto until several years later, and it was pretty amazing seeing how young and 60s everyone looked back then. The first season's rendition of the theme was recorded by a sunshine pop band known as the Peppermint Trolley Company with series producer Sherwood Schwarz and prolific composer Frank DeVol (probably one of the great inspirers for Shibuya-kei to be born) creating the song. No matter who sang the theme, it still remains very hummable; I was doing some of that myself while typing this.
After "The Brady Bunch" got cancelled in the spring of 1974, the show was a regular rerun on many a channel, and it seems as if there were folks who wanted to bring it back in some shape or other. I remember "The Brady Bunch Variety Hour" and the animated series starring the kids. And a decade later, there was even "The Brady Brides" and eventually a film franchise taking a parodic approach. There was even "The Bradys", a dramedy sequel that lasted all of a month in 1990; I hadn't even heard of that one since I was in Japan that year.
"The Brady Bunch" did get aired in Japan on Fuji-TV between 1970 and 1971 under the title "Yukai na Brady-ke"（ゆかいなブレディー家）which translates into "The Happy Bradys", and yes, they certainly were. I couldn't find any footage of the Fuji-TV version; the only thing I could find was this Japanese-subbed commercial that aired during the Super Bowl of 2015. Yup, it was epic. And good heavens...there was that episode about Marcia getting her nose broken by a football!
So, with the show premiering on September 26th 1969, what was at the top of the Oricon list at around that time? Here are the Top 3 from September 29th.
A few years ago, I posted an article regarding chaotic techno band Denki Groove's（電気グルーヴ）cover of Yellow Magic Orchestra's"Cosmic Surfin'". This was a coupling song to the band's debut single"Mud Ebis" from October 1991.
Well, I finally got to see the music video for "Mud Ebis" and even from the beginning, Takkyu Ishino（石野卓球）and his gang relished their roles as the wild and crazy guys of Japanese music. I gotta admit though that the three members looked so young and clean-shaven back then, although that was the least weird part of the video.
As for the title of the song, "Ebis" refers to the Japanese god of money, Ebisu. However, the "Mud" part I'm not sure, unless it actually means "mad" or "insane". According to the J-Wiki article for "Mud Ebis", Ishino wanted to provide his own comical indictment on the pampered children of the nouveau riche but the lyrics weren't meant to be taken that seriously.
I think I'm talking for a lot of Torontonians here, but I'm ready to call for an early spring as soon as possible, especially after getting one of the wintriest of winters in about a decade. However, I've been a Torontonian long enough to know that we probably have at least one more blizzard on the way before things finally start warming up.
Well, anyways, let us segue to "Blizzard". If that title sounds familiar to you, then you must be a Yuming（ユーミン）fan since the original version by her was part and parcel of her winning 1984 album "No Side". I already wrote about that song back in KKP's inaugural year of 2012, so here is a cover version by the good folks at Tokimeki Records with vocalist Hikari（ひかり）behind the mike.
This cover version was released in January 2022 and though it most likely won't replace the original in fans' minds, it's still a nice Neo-City Pop version of the Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）classic. Sorry for the pun, but it's quite the chill version, and there seem to be so many synthesizers helping out there that I will also place the technopop label onto it as well.
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