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.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Checkers -- One Night Gigolo
The Checkers started their career with a 50s doo-wop sound and a bit of New Wave fashion thrown in. But over time, as with other bands, Fumiya Fujii（藤井郁弥) and the gang shook things up a bit. Their March 1988 16th single, "One Night Gigolo" was an example of this. Written by Fujii himself and composed by fellow bandmate Toru Takeuchi（武内享）, it has one of my favourite intros to a J-Pop song with a dramatic sax-and-piano sequence. There is a bit of a Latin jazz feel to the whole proceedings, and the lyrics talk about the title gigolo having a night of it at the nearest dive while trying to get it on with a slit-skirted girl. I couldn't get the actual music video uploaded here unfortunately but it does pay tribute to INXS' "Need You Tonight". And I have to say that this concert video of The Checkers on their "SCREW" tour has Fujii looking noticeably Michael Hutchence-like.
The song went as high as No. 3 on the Oricon weeklies and was included on the band's 6th album, "SCREW" which peaked at No. 4.
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Feel free to provide any comments (pro or con). Just be civil about it.