J-Canuck's Favourite Composers

Yesterday, I wrote up an article "Oricon Top 5 Most Commercially Successful Lyricists (as of December 2015)" which was the sequel to "Oricon Top 5 Most Commercially Successful Composers (as of January 2018)". For that former article, I received a comment from Michael which triggered a discussion about commercial success and artistic respect. He pointed out that the most commercially successful lyricists are not always the best lyricists which is something that I do agree with. The Oricon listings are almost but not always about the ka-ching at the cash register; however, there is a reason that some of these lyricists have been getting the sales and it's because their words, in addition to the music, have mattered. And I think that is probably the case with composers as well.

Well, it did get me thinking. And on looking at the list for the Oricon Top 5 Composers in Japanese music history, I realized that only one of them, Kyohei Tsutsumi, is on my own favourite list. So, to start off today on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I've decided to give a brief list of who my favourite melody makers are. Naturally, if you have a list, your choices will vary but I just wanted to give my thoughts on why I enjoyed these folks' works.

1. Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）

That one link between the Oricon Top 5 and my list is indeed Tsutsumi. If one wants to go through the entirety of late 20th-century kayo kyoku into the era of J-Pop, his history as a songwriter is one street that you can traverse. Although I don't think that he's ever gone into enka or hard rock, the No. 1 composer of it all has cut a wide swathe composing music which has traversed into aidoru, some of that fine natsumero such as "Blue Light Yokohama" by Ayumi Ishida（いしだあゆみ）above, and even some quirky pop such as MANNA's "Tokyo Tsushin"（ＴＯＫＩＯ通信）. It's to the point where people will point to and listen to a classic kayo and remark, "HE composed this one too?!".


2. Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）

Why do I like this fellow so much? Well, along with Tatsuro Yamashita, Hayashi is another go-to guy for all things City Pop/J-AOR. He can come up with sigh-worthy love ballads such as Masaki Ueda's（上田正樹）"Osaka Bay Blues" and uptempo and chirpy tunes such as Miki Matsubara's（松原みき）classic "Mayonaka no Door"（真夜中のドアー）. He is also a singer himself with one of my my highlights of him being "Rainy Saturday & Coffee Break"（レイニー・サタディ&コーヒー・ブレイク）but a lot of his fame comes from his works for other singers and arguably his most famous client has been Omega Tribe with the above sample "Summer Suspicion". The title might sound like something from a cheesy Harlequin Romance novel, but the music with those silky strings and keyboards by Hayashi is so delectably 80s AOR.


3. Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）

There is something perhaps Pavlovian between me and composers. As soon as I see a composer's name that I like, I automatically go to that song and play it with a fairly high degree of confidence that I will be quite happy with my listening experience. That has been the case with Etsuko Yamakawa. A composer whose pedigree that I finally recognized due to the work on the blog for the past several years, Yamakawa is also someone who goes across the genres but has her characteristic constant being one of a relaxing hook whether it be kakkoii such as "Up and Down" (which she did as one-half of Tohoku Shinkansen for that one-off venture with the late Hiroshi Narumi) or kawaii such as aidoru Eri Nitta's（新田恵利）"Hoshi wo Sagashite"（星を探して）. She can also bring that to the sophisticated pop of Michiru Kojima's（児島未散）"Key of Dreams" and the bossa nova of Junko Yagami's（八神純子）"Be My Best Friend".


4. Yuming（ユーミン）

Yumi Arai/Yumi Matsutoya（荒井由実・松任谷由実）has been around making music for almost half a century, and although I've been more devoted to the works from the first half of her career, there's been more than enough even in those first 25 years to keep me very happy. For a songwriter who once vowed never to write a tune for an aidoru, she's provided some classics to those teenyboppers, often under her pseudonym of Karuho Kureta（呉田軽穂）which would include "Machibuse"（まちぶせ）for Hitomi Ishikawa (the first Yuming song that I ever listened to before I even heard of Yuming) and Seiko Matsuda's（松田聖子）signature hit "Akai Sweet Pea" (赤いスイートピー）. 

Obviously having such a long history in music, I've been able to hear different types of music from her whether it be the 1970s City Pop in what has been called her best album as Yumi Arai (or even within her entire career), "The 14th Moon", the happy-go-lucky "Surf Tengoku, Ski Tengoku" （サーフ天国、スキー天国）when folks in Japan were just beginning to find their leisure selves, and the non-wedding reception-friendly "Refrain ga Sakenderu" （リフレインが叫んでる）. I read an article in "Eye-Ai" one time that Yuming had a very big ear to the ground to find out what women were thinking and doing in their lives to inspire her for her lyrics. I think she was also keeping that other ear open for melody trends which kept things interesting so I've heard her through New Music, City Pop, and synth-heavy pop in the late 80s and early 90s. Wasn't too fond of her rapping bit in "Cowgirl Dreamin'" in 1997, though.


5. Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）

I was debating whether to go with The Professor or Yellow Magic Orchestra but I ultimately went with Sakamoto since he's also provided some great songs to other singers. For people who first knew him as the Oscar co-winner for his contributions to "The Last Emperor" and his performance in "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence", and then wanted to know more about him, all I can say is that you are in for one heck of a ride.

Sakamoto is another composer that will provoke an immediate response whenever I see him listed in a song's credits. Of course, I love his YMO stuff including "Behind The Mask" but he's also provided some of that synthpop sheen to other singers' material such as for Mari Iijima（飯島真理）, Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）, and Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）and made it fun and approachable and even cultured at times. He even put some great YMO into a kid's song!


6. Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）

If I were to describe Taeko Ohnuki in an oyster shell, it would be that she was that singer-songwriter who had some splendid music to share with everyone right from the get-go, but received that grit of sand and ended up making up a pearl of another type of amazing music that took her in a new direction. Starting off with that brand of New Music in the 1970s through "Grey Skies", she took that right turn into synthpop and European-sounding ballads in the early 1980s in albums such as "Aventure", all because of what was perceived to be a failure to communicate in the pivotal release of the 1978 "Mignonne". The crazy thing is that "Mignonne" has now been heralded as a classic in the eyes of many City Pop fans. Lord, give me one more chance, indeed!


7. Tomita Lab（冨田ラボ）

Keiichi Tomita（冨田恵一）, aka Tomita Lab, has been one of the reasons that I've enjoyed a lot of the adult contemporary fare from Japan in the early 21st century. He's often brought in this wonderfully jazzy-pop sound that has elements of Steely Dan and other genres such as bossa nova into his music for others to sing such as R&B singer YOSHIKA and Hanaregumi（ハナレグミ）. Speaking of Hanaregumi, his collaboration with Tomita Lab for "Nemuri no Mori" (眠りの森) on the latter's "Shipbuilding" album is what got me interested in the composer in the first place and in really fashionable cafés in the second. In addition, a couple of years ago, I discovered that his time in music started much earlier in the late 1980s as part of the band KEDGE, and his creations back then were much different. They were more akin to the appealingly quirky synthpop of PSY-S. As with the other composers, if his name shows up for a song, I try it out as soon as I can.