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, December 27, 2019
Miho Morikawa -- Kyoshitsu(教室)
Miho Morikawa(森川美穂)isn't a singer that I have covered a lot but my impression had always been based on her "Blue Water", the theme for the NHK anime "Fushigi Umi no Nadia"(ふしぎの海のナディア), and I think for that article, I compared her to power pop specialists such as Kahoru Kohiruimaki(小比類巻かほる)and Mariko Nagai(永井真理子).
Little did I know that half a decade earlier, Morikawa had debuted as a typically high-voiced aidoru of the mid-1980s. But that was indeed the case with her first single "Kyoshitsu" (The Classroom) released in July 1985. Certainly from that music video above, I would never have recognized this lass as Morikawa of 1990 who looked more like a happy-go-lucky rock singer with long wavy tresses according to one album that I have of hers.
"Kyoshitsu", which was written by Kazuya Senke(千家和也)and composed by Minoru Komorita(小森田実), is one of those bittersweet tunes of parting-is-sweet-sorrow themes, as a high school girl, who for some mysterious reason can no longer attend the same school as the target of her affections, makes one final trip to his desk to plant a kiss there before leaving forever. Ah, seishun! It's a short-but-sweet number that probably didn't make Morikawa an overnight sensation but it didn't too badly on Oricon, placing in at No. 38.
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