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 20, 2012
Naoko Kawai/Mariya Takeuchi -- Kenka wo Yamete (けんかをやめて）
"Kenka wo Yamete"(Stop Fighting) by 80s aidoruNaoko Kawai（河合奈保子） is just imbued with Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）bobbysoxer ballad arrangements. It can go toe-to-toe with Olivia Newton-John's "Hopelessly Devoted to You" and could probably get inserted into a "Gidget" movie. It's a swayworthy song. While listening to it, you can imagine some guy named Billy Joe running up to his girl's house.... feeling awf'ly sorry about the fight and trying to make up. Meanwhile, Daddy is getting his Winchester for battle...
Released in September 1982, Kawai's 10th single went as high as No. 5 and was the 64th-ranked song of the year. It sold a very respectable 200,000 copies and even won a Gold Prize at the Japan Record Awards that year.
Mariya Takeuchi also did a slightly grander self-cover of the song for her album, "Request" in 1987. It was nice to see that she still had a bit of Connie Francis in her.
her best performance of this song, in my opinion, was during her last thanksgiving party concert, where she played the piano while singing this song.. http://youtu.be/vmaAQZL_vTc
her best performance of this song, in my opinion, was during her last thanksgiving party concert, where she played the piano while singing this song..
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/vmaAQZL_vTc