In the past several months, I've become a fan of watching YouTube videos of "The Graham Norton Show" especially since he allows his guests to get nicely sloshed in the Green Room and on stage so that they can be a lot more relaxed and voluble. I've especially loved that one segment in which some of the "Avengers" cast came on and discussed weird phobias.
But then in the search for more gems on the show, I encountered this one video which had Jennifer Connelly, who played Spiderman's suit AI, Karen (Instant Kill, anyone?) in "Spiderman: Homecoming" just for that continued Marvel connection, as a guest (and with other Marvel-connected thespians Chris Pratt and Elizabeth Banks). There, I found out that Connelly had actually released a single in Japan when she was a teen in the 1980s. In fact, according to the JASRAC database, she released three singles!
But then, listening to the music and Connelly's delivery of Hideyo Hashimoto's（橋本日出世）words, there was something rather familiar about the entire song. Her halting and measured singing along with the soft string-led and slightly wondrous arrangement started knocking on my memory. After looking up JASRAC on who actually composed "Ai no Monologue", it was none other than singer-songwriter Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）!
Ohnuki may be getting a lot of love for her City Pop classic "4 AM" from the late 1970s but from around the mid-1980s, I think that she was becoming known by her fans for music similar to the one that she provided for Connelly's song: something reminiscent of a magical manor deep in the English countryside. Plus, Ohnuki herself was also singing in that same slow and measured manner. Although host Norton proclaimed that "Ai no Monologue" was a No. 1 hit in Japan, I couldn't find any proof of this.
I had a talk with "Kayo Kyoku Plus" veteran JTM earlier tonight and one of the topics we covered was non-Japanese celebrities who hit it big in Japan in the music world, and I remembered the Norton interview. Plus, also realizing that Marcos had posted about Alyssa Milano's history in J-Pop a few nights ago, I just had to put up this one for Connelly.
Hello J-Canuck,
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing about these current crop of articles coming up about Western celebrities recording music was a subject me and a friend of mine were discussing a month or two ago.
Specifically the meaning of the term “big in Japan” back in the late 20th century. Those who are older remember hearing about foreign stars being famous in Japan due to movies (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Cruz) and/or commercial tie-ins (Tommy Lee Jones and Charles Bronson etc) to music.
The discussion leaned more toward music than movies. So we talked about Randy Rhodes era Quiet Riot, Ned Doheny (hitherto unknown West Coast AOR talent re-discovered by the Yacht Rockers) and, funny enough, the British band named “Big In Japan.”
I still remember the article this blog did on Mussolini’s grand-daughter having a Japanese released album last summer. Then I remembered a line I would hear over and over again through out the 1980s in movies, television, magazines, etc. It was most often used as a backhanded compliment when someone tried to promote a person or a band as important by saying, “Well, they’re big in Japan.”
I’ll concede they may have had a point, in some cases. However, don’t get me started on the stuff that charted here during the same time period and are now considered classics. In hindsight, some of our domestic product from the same era seems on par with the offerings made Alessandra Mussolini, Alyssa Milano and Jennifer Connelly.
Hi, Chasing Showa! Good to hear from you again.
DeleteYup, I remember the "Big in Japan" thing being someone pejorative in intent but for a pop culture guy like me especially as it applies to Japan, it's been rather interesting reading and hearing. I also remember reading or hearing an adage that old bands don't die; they just end up in Japan. :)
I've mentioned about folks like Bronson showing up for those Mandom ads. The very first Japanese commercial that I caught in the nation with a foreign celebrity was either Elizabeth Montgomery from "Bewitched" or Juliet Mills from "Nanny and the Professor", both ABC sitcoms. The latter was doing a commercial for Calpis, I believe.
AOR has been such a beloved genre in Japan for some reason while it's kinda popped up as a mysterious pop culture nugget in America through that parody series about Yacht Rock. I never knew about Doheny until I saw his name in the AOR section of a CD store. I hadn't even known that perennial game show panelist Jaye P. Morgan was even a singer until I saw her name on an AOR CD.
I've talked with friends on both sides of the 80s music debate. There is one fellow that absolutely refuses to broach the genre with me since he thinks anything that isn't indie from the 90s onwards is horrifying, and there are buddies who absolutely adore the pop music from my high school and university days. As for me, I'm always going to be an 80s fan on both sides of the Pacific, and yep, that even includes the stuff that the critics love to despise including "We Built This City" by Starship. I mean, I never paid much attention to the lyrics so the song was fine with me. :)
Thanks J-Canuck,
Delete“AOR has been such a beloved genre in Japan for some reason while it's kinda popped up as a mysterious pop culture nugget in America through that parody series about Yacht Rock. “
In America, AOR as you called it had a number of different names depending on the region you lived in. Back in the day, I heard it called everything from soft rock, light rock to mellow rock. Believe it or not that music was looked down upon by the then cultural and music cognoscenti as soulless, ersatz, slick, corporate music created by Brill Building wannabe song-writers and faceless studio musicians. Real rock was pretty much what the then adult baby-boomers considered rock; music influenced by post British Invasion music and its international derivatives.
However, their kids were listening to light-mellow music at a young age and absolutely loved it. They say that the music that you listened to when you were either late-pre or early-post puberty is the music you will love for the rest of your life. I really think that applies to those of us as kids in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Besides that music was all over the radio at the time so there was no escape for us; nor did we want to.
I guess the Japanese felt the same way too.
Then, somewhere in 1984, the landscape changed entirely and the clash between those musical styles became a moot point. Classic rock lived on as something to be remembered and admired. Unfortunately, light-mellow was relegated to just another fading sub-genre that limped along in a new form as “adult contemporary.” It was music you heard while perusing supermarkets, retail stores and shopping malls (RIP).
But while shopping, the nostalgia did kick in for those who were there and for those who were not - but wished they were.
I will say hats off to the Yacht Rock guys for bringing that music to a new generation. A parody it may be but it got people talking and even more so, respecting the music and those made it.
“I hadn't even known that perennial game show panelist Jaye P. Morgan was even a singer until I saw her name on an AOR CD.”
Oh, I knew about Jaye P. Morgan (that NAME!)singing career. I remember her being a regular panelists on The Gong Show. She was famous during the Hit Parade era in the 1950s. I did see her singing on a few variety shows, which were also dying out by the 1970s.
“Oh, BTW, I forgot to mention that there is even a trope on TV Tropes that addresses the phenomenon of Hollywood celebs hitting it big elsewhere called "Germans Love David Hasselhoff". You may enjoy taking a look at it.”
Whoah! The music section alone of this article is quite the rabbit-hole. I’m glad today was one of my days off. There is no way I would have time to read that article if had to go to work.
Hello again, Chasing Showa.
DeleteI wonder if Smooth Jazz would be another name for AOR. I saw plenty of CDs at Tower Records selling with that name. In any case, I absolutely agree with the fact that whatever music we embrace at that sweet spot age of puberty will be the music of our lives, no matter what other genres we pick up after that time.
Oh, BTW, I forgot to mention that there is even a trope on TV Tropes that addresses the phenomenon of Hollywood celebs hitting it big elsewhere called "Germans Love David Hasselhoff". You may enjoy taking a look at it.
ReplyDeletehttps://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff
Good that you've decided to go down that hole. It's certainly a good read...plus, there are all of those other tropes, too.
DeleteHello , Sir J-Canuck.. how do you discover Asano Yuko from yourself? just asking. Thank you. we both also discover her when we guys try to search different Japanese songs and sudden this recommended pop in my YouTube video. i'm also fan of Japanese songs but not always I listen that Japanese music all day long and i'm also deeply fan of Cliff Richard mostly the British pop singer born in 1940, British Raj (now India). likely to listen English songs than my own native language song. from Malaysia.
ReplyDeleteHello, Izhan. I first knew Yuko Asano as a popular actress in dramas and commercials and it would be many years before I found out that she had started as an idol singer in the 1970s.
DeleteI've been a fan of Japanese pop music for almost 40 years and although I don't listen to my albums every day, I do listen to some of the YouTube channels specializing in J-Pop while I'm working or doing other things. Other than J-Pop, I'm also a fan of 80s pop music as well since those were my most influential years.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Delete