Masamichi Sugi -- Key Station

Alright, everyone, close your books. It's time for a quiz. I want you to watch the above video and then write down all the references to Japanese artists that you've caught. Bonus points if you can identify some specific songs and albums/album covers. Hint: a good deal of them have something to do with City Pop. You have 10 minutes. Go!

In all seriousness, this song and video really did quiz me over the years as I was learning more and more about 80's Japanese music and City Pop. At first the only ones I was familiar with were Yuming, Tatsuro Yamashita and Shogo Hamada, but there's more. Some of these are kinda subtle, like Eiichi Ohtaki's "A Long Vacation" album cover on the billboard, others a little more obvious. There are also references to Motoharu Sano's "No Damage" album cover which Sugi humorously imitates and Ginji Ito's song "Baby Blue". I had tons of fun identifying all of these things until I finally solved the puzzle, probably more than I should, heh.

But anyways, I've already profiled a number of artists that show up here and now it's time for Masamichi Sugi (杉真理) himself. While he never reached the heights of super-stardom, he did contribute significantly to the City Pop scene in the early- to mid-80's and has a huge catalog of songs that he has made for himself, all the bands and units that he's been involved in (BOX, Piccadilly Circus etc.) and other singers. Trying to summarize his J-Wiki article would be painful, so I'll just highlight some relevant bits and pieces. He originally debuted in 1977 as part of the band Mari & Redstripes before launching his solo career in 1980 with the single "Hold On" and the album "Song Writer". He publicly brands his style as Pop'n Roll which he considers a nice balance between Pop and Rock'n Roll, though I think he mostly sways more towards the Pop side of things. His fellow singer Kaoru Sudo also shared the same genre label, which would often show up in big font on her albums' obi strips. Like many other songwriters of the period, Sugi enjoyed collaborative work and over time managed to build a whole family of artists who would often help each other out, also known as Pops All Stars. I'll get back to that one during the Christmas season.

"Key Station" was Sugi's 12th single released on August 25, 1985 and also shows up on his album "Symphony #10". His collaborative spirit really shows up in this catchy and warm tune as he expresses his gratitude to all the artists he had the pleasure of working with (i.e. a concert with Yuming, Niagara Triangle project with Ohtaki and Sano, and so on). In other parts of the video he gets into some unlucky situations, all of them humorous, of course. Coming from the modern generation that grew up on TV and internet, I found the whole radio theme distantly nostalgic. J-Canuck has written extensively on discovering all those wonderful songs via old radio programs. I kinda wish I also lived during that time, but I guess for now internet will suffice as a source of Japanese oldies.