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, May 17, 2013
Arashi -- A-RA-SHI
I'm not a fan of the currently top Johnny's Entertainment group in terms of their music, but my family and I are enjoying watching the boys on Friday nights on TV Japan through their two variety programs: "Vs. Arashi" (game show) and "Arashi ni Shiyagare" (interview show). And we've even caught some of their serial dramas. Just for the record, Arashi（嵐...Storm） is led by the usually unassuming Satoshi Ono（大野智） with the other members being Sho Sakurai（桜井翔）, Masaki Aiba（相葉雅紀）, Kazunari Ninomiya（二宮和也） and Jun Matsumoto（松本潤）.
Still, having said that, I do like a couple of their songs including their debut, "A-RA-SHI" from November 1999, just because of that bouncy refrain, "You are my SOUL! SOUL!" Composed by veteran Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）and written by Tsunetoshi Kikuchi（菊池常利）, under the stage name of J&T, the CD single hit the No. 1 spot on Oricon and quickly became the 23rd-ranked song of 1999, selling close to a million copies and still their best-selling song. The song was also part of their debut album, "Arashi No. 1: Arashi wa Arashi wo Yobu"（嵐は嵐を呼ぶ...Arashi Calls The Storm), which was released in January 2001 and also hit the top spot on the album charts. According to Wiki, though, the really big commercial success would take the better part of a decade.
At my last English school before returning home, I had a regular Wednesday-night student who was a huge Arashi fan, and most notably, an Aiba-kun fan. In fact, the first several minutes of every lesson was basically the weekly Aiba-kun report.....and she gave it in English. As long as she was using her 2nd language, I was game with it.
In general I dislike all Johnny's groups, but I must admit that I enjoy Arashi quite a bit (I can tolerate some of SMAP's hits as well). Most of their songs are bad, but they still release better songs than most of the Johnny's groups nowadays.
And I can't deny they are very charismatic. I've watched one or two episodes of "Vs. Arashi" and I found it very fun. I remember that they had a good time with Aya Sugimoto and Momoiro Clover Z in one of the episodes I watched.
"A-RA-SHI" is one of the songs I like from them. It's a happy song and is always a lot of fun when they perform it in concerts. I have two or three Arashi concerts, and although I dislike most of the songs, I enjoy watching them sometimes.
I plan on writing about my favorite Arashi song soon, but it's hard to find an YouTube video for it. Johnny's takes down almost all of their idols videos.
And although Aiba-kun rocks, Sho-kun is still the best.
Yes, I have to admit that it was surprisingly difficult to track down a video for "A-RA-SHI", even 14 years after the fact. I guess I can add the adjective "relentless" to the description of the enigmatic Johnny.
Yeah, generally speaking, I'm not a huge fan of the Johnny's groups, so I'm quite picky as to what I like and put up from those guys. I can see myself putting up a couple of songs by TOKIO and Kinki Kids each, though....and perhaps one or two more by SMAP.
In general I dislike all Johnny's groups, but I must admit that I enjoy Arashi quite a bit (I can tolerate some of SMAP's hits as well). Most of their songs are bad, but they still release better songs than most of the Johnny's groups nowadays.
ReplyDeleteAnd I can't deny they are very charismatic. I've watched one or two episodes of "Vs. Arashi" and I found it very fun. I remember that they had a good time with Aya Sugimoto and Momoiro Clover Z in one of the episodes I watched.
"A-RA-SHI" is one of the songs I like from them. It's a happy song and is always a lot of fun when they perform it in concerts. I have two or three Arashi concerts, and although I dislike most of the songs, I enjoy watching them sometimes.
I plan on writing about my favorite Arashi song soon, but it's hard to find an YouTube video for it. Johnny's takes down almost all of their idols videos.
And although Aiba-kun rocks, Sho-kun is still the best.
Hey, Marcos.
DeleteYes, I have to admit that it was surprisingly difficult to track down a video for "A-RA-SHI", even 14 years after the fact. I guess I can add the adjective "relentless" to the description of the enigmatic Johnny.
Yeah, generally speaking, I'm not a huge fan of the Johnny's groups, so I'm quite picky as to what I like and put up from those guys. I can see myself putting up a couple of songs by TOKIO and Kinki Kids each, though....and perhaps one or two more by SMAP.