Laura Branigan -- Solitaire

 

It's been over a year since I posted my last Laura Branigan song as a ROY article and I have to include this one as one of my notable songs by her when I was a high school student. Hard to believe that it's been over twenty years since she left this mortal coil.

That last article I wrote about her was for "The Lucky One". There are the big hits by Branigan (I mention them in that article) and then there were the minor hits such as "The Lucky One". This is another minor hit that sits alongside that one and it's known as "Solitaire" which was her March 1983 single. I heard this one on fairly regular rotation on the radio and also the music video popped up here and there on the TV. It's another epic catchy tune, and I read that Branigan had missed a world record there by a couple of seconds for holding the longest note in a pop song by a female performer. My 80s nostalgia fully blossoms whenever I hear this one not only for the synths involved but also for the wailing electric guitar solo. In Canada, "Solitaire" managed to peak at No. 8 while down south in America, it hit No. 7.

Once again on Reminiscings of Youth, I realized that a beloved 80s song that I heard a lot was actually a cover by someone else. And indeed, "Solitaire" was originally sung by French singer Martine Clemenceau in 1981. 

With Branigan's "Solitaire" being released on March 23rd 1983, what was on the Oricon charts a couple of days earlier? Well, I have Nos. 10, 12 and 14 just for variety's sake.

10. EPO -- U, Fu, Fu, Fu, (う、ふ、ふ、ふ）

12. Yoshie Kashiwabara -- Haru Nanoni (春なのに）

14. Iyo Matsumoto -- Chinese Kiss（チャイニーズ･キッス）

Tommy february6 -- I Only Want to Be with You

 

When I was looking things up to set up my post of a ROY article devoted to the pop song "I Only Want to Be with You", I wasn't aware that I would be going down quite the long rabbit hole in terms of who sang the original and the number of famous singers who have covered it over the decades. I went from Dusty Springfield to Annie Lennox!

Commenter Brian Mitchell noted that one of his favourite versions of the song had been done by someone that in retrospect would be an ideal candidate to cover it. I am talking about singer-songwriter Tomoko Kawase（川瀬智子）in her Tommy february6 persona. Yup, in July 2004, when the vocalist for the rock band the brilliant green had been exploring her own internal aspect for 80s synthpop, she released her 7th single under that guise, "Lovely ~ Yume Miru Lovely Boy" （L・O・V・E・L・Y 〜夢見るLOVELY BOY〜...Dreaming Lovely Boy） with a coupling song that was a cover of "I Only Want to Be with You".

In the original ROY article for this one, of course I heard quite a few different arrangements. This one by Tommy february6 stands out for its cutesy bleep-bloop tones compared to the 80s dance-pop of Samantha Fox's take. Perhaps Kawase was inspired to cover "I Only Want to Be with You" after having done a similar cover of that old disco classic "I'm in the mood for dancing" originally by The Nolans the previous year. Incidentally, "I Only Want to Be with You" was released in Japan in 1963 under the title "Futari dake no Date"（二人だけのデート...A Date Just for Two）. Hmph...I thought dates were just for two.

Hiromi Go -- Itsumo Kokoro ni Taiyou wo（いつも心に太陽を）

 

Now that entertainer Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）has been retired from NHK's Kohaku Utagassen, I've been wondering what he's been up to these days. There hasn't been anything noted in his J-Wiki file for 2026 but I figure that the fellow might just be enjoying a true retirement considering he's now 71...albeit a pretty young-ish 71.

I've never seen Go as anything remotely approaching moody or emo in anything he's popped up in whether it be in front of the cameras or behind the mike, but I gotta say that he is especially chipper and up with people singing his 31st single from June 1979, "Itsumo Kokoro ni Taiyou wo" (The Sun's Always in Your Heart). Written by Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composed by Mickie Yoshino（ミッキー吉野）, the keyboardist for the band Godiego（ゴダイゴ）, the song sounds like a latter-day Sunshine Pop tune with that cruising rhythm and sharp horns...worthy of performances in church after a rousing happy sermon. I had assumed that it was used for some sort of TV drama that Go was starring in, but I couldn't find any evidence to show that. Anyways, "Itsumo Kokoro ni Taiyou wo" reached No. 12 on Oricon and it served as the first and title track for Go's 12th studio album "LOOKIN' FOR TOMORROW" which was released in the same year in August to an ultimately No. 20 ranking.

Sayuri Ishikawa -- Tablet Boogie（タブレットブギ）

 

Ordering stuff via a tablet has been around for many years in Japan. In fact, when I was still living there, I remember being with buddies at a fairly refined izakaya in Shibuya and we were ordering drinks and food via something that Geordi LaForge would have held on the Enterprise-D. Selecting songs on a tablet at karaoke had already been part and parcel of the modern singing experience.

The photo at the very top was one of my shots when I was having lunch at a kaiten sushi restaurant in Akihabara. It was a fully automated facility so it did feel rather strange being alone having lunch at high noon.

Even here in Toronto, I've gotten very comfortable going through the self-checkout at the supermarket. And yet, when I head back to Japan on a visit, I may be a little nervous paying for stuff at the local konbini because I don't possess a smartphone so no apps to display to pay for any bento and the like.

Maybe that's what enka legend Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）is singing about in her latest single which came out....well, today, on CD although the digital version has been out for a few weeks now. Her "Tablet Boogie" seems to be a direct 21st-century descendant of Shizuko Kasagi's（笠置シヅ子）"Kaimono Boogie" （買物ブギー）in terms of lyrical content and boogie style, although the lyricist is KREVA of Kick the Can Crew and the composer is Seiji Kameda（亀田誠治）from Tokyo Jihen（東京事変）; incidentally, Kameda's wife happens to be singer Satoko Shimonari（下成佐登子）.

Ishikawa has been a very game singer in terms of trying out genres outside of enka, whether it be smoky torch song jazz and even something with dance club beats which I can't quite remember. Of course, there is her start as an early 1970s aidoru. But this time, she's going for the boogie-woogie of the 1950s (with a touch of rockabilly) as she seems to be singing about reassuring folks that the current digital revolution in everyday life is going to be OK and everyone will get used to it swimmingly. Let us hope so.

Spitz -- Hibari no Kokoro（ヒバリのこころ）

Koshy Koshy from Wikimedia Commons

My last posting on the veteran pop-rock band Spitz（スピッツ）was just a few months ago when I wrote on their 48th and most recent single "Mishiranu Ito"（見知らぬ糸）from 2026. I mentioned that even after all those years, Masamune Kusano（草野正宗）and company still retained that ol' Spitz sound which gained them fame and popularity thirty years ago.

Well, this time around, I'd like to go all the way back to their very first single just to see how it sounded. I'm all for investigating anything under the Early Installment Weirdness tag, and Spitz is no different. In March 1991, the band released "Hibari no Kokoro" (The Heart of a Lark). Before I found out what the word "hibari" meant in this case, I'd wondered half-jokingly whether Kusano had a thing for the Grand Old Dame of Kayo Kyoku, Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）, but such was not the case.

Nope...from what I could glean, Spitz's first is all about transitions: going from winter to spring, going from melancholy isolation to hope and renewal. And apparently, the lark represents a reawakening spirit soaring high into the sky, fresh and vibrant, ready for new adventures. Kusano's vocals are the reassuring anchor for Spitz fans while the melody by him is a bit more into the jangly rock than I usually hear by the band. Some of the music video includes footage taken from a bus of the Ibaraki Prefecture countryside. MV director Tetsuro Takeuchi（竹内鉄郎）evidently failed to get his credits for graduation because he had been busy on this production, but I've got a feeling that he still did OK regardless. Interestingly enough, "Hibari no Kokoro" would be used seven years later as the commercial song for NHK's coverage of the Nagano Olympics in 1998.

Keiko Mizukoshi -- Meguriai Surechigai（めぐり逢いすれ違い）

 

Singer-songwriter Keiko Mizukoshi's（水越けいこ）may not be the most well-remembered chanteuse of the kayo kyoku age, but I think folks of a certain age will hear her 1979 hit "Hoho ni Kiss Shite"（ほほにキスをして）and get all nostalgically warm and fuzzy on the inside. I guess that would be especially true since the song has a bit of that 50s feeling in there, too.

Well, going to her even earlier days in her debut year of 1978, Mizukoshi released an album and a couple of singles with her second single being "Meguriai Surechigai" (Encounters and Near-Misses) from November of that year. Written and composed by Kaoru Ito（伊藤薫）who would come up with the singer's breakthrough in "Hoho ni Kiss Shite" many months later, "Meguriai Surechigai" sounds more conventionally kayo and a refined one at that; maybe it could have been a theme song for a television drama. There is that plunky piano in there and Mizukoshi's vocals zip smoothly over the staff until they suddenly go up into the stratosphere at the end of each chorus.

Compared to her more modestly-ranking debut single which topped off at No. 72, "Meguriai Surechigai" managed to switch the digits and get up to No. 27. In fact, it did even better than "Hoho ni Kiss Shite" which peaked at No. 33, so go figure on that. The former song is also included on Mizukoshi's debut album "Lady" from December 1978 which ranked in at No. 17.

Towa Tei -- Nothing Else 2

Well, maybe it's a little early in the week to feature something avant-garde but I couldn't quite help it here. It does bring here some of the old with some of the new.

I'm writing about Towa Tei's latest single from August this year, "Nothing Else 2", which is this cute little technopop piece by the Japanese DJ and musician with help from Bose from the rap group Scha Dara Parr（スチャダラパー）and Oto Fukuhara (福原音). Perhaps Tei's lyrics and their delivery may be enough to get listeners into a trance-like state but the blippity-bloppity music can still poke one into full wakefulness. And then there is the music video which looks like a crazed AI collage of 1960s Japanese rom-com movie scenes instructed to have full fun by themselves. Generally speaking, I think the setting is some sort of onsen somewhere. "Nothing Else 2" is also a track on Tei's latest album "Zambient" from September.