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.
(If any of you at NHK disagree with me putting up the picture, please let me
know and it'll be promptly taken down.)
Recently, I've gotten into watching another NHK program via TV Japan once "Uta Kon"（うたコン）finishes up on Tuesday night. Titled "Sekai wa Hoshiimono ni Afureteru"（世界はほしいモノにあるふれてる...This World is Filled With Wants）, it's a show about Japanese buyers for various shops searching all over the world for unique wares, and it stars singer JUJU and actor/singer Haruma Miura（三浦春馬）. In all honesty, though, my timing hasn't been too good since due to COVID-19, "Sekai wa Hoshiimono ni Afureteru" has had to curtail its main function of showing the buyers traveling the Earth, so we've been watching reruns for the past few weeks. But those reruns themselves have been entertaining in showing some of those products and the lifestyles that they've helped in shaping in those nations such as Italy and Denmark.
The theme song for the show is performed by JUJU and it's called "Remember (The Good Times)". Now, I've been hearing about JUJU for years and have seen her appear on the aforementioned "Uta Kon" a few times here and there, but wasn't aware that she had initially aimed to become a jazz singer. I had assumed that it was always about the R&B through soul and hip-hop with her, though she also sings in those genres.
So I was pleasantly surprised on hearing the full version of "Remember". The theme only gets a very brief appearance on the show, and it's so quiet that I couldn't even identify it as a Big Band swing number. It's just a shade under three minutes but during its short time, it manages to pack in a lot of good ol' jazzy schmaltz. "Remember" is the first track on JUJU's 3rd jazz cover album"Delicious ~ JUJU's Jazz 3rd Dish" released in December 2018, and for whatever bizarre reason, I've also treated the final month of the year with all of that Xmas cheer to be a fine time for jazz. Kiyoshi Matsuo（松尾潔）wrote the lyrics for the song (as well as produce the entire album) with Daisuke Kawaguchi（川口大輔）providing the melody and handling the arrangements. "Delicious" hit No. 11 on Oricon.
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