American bands/performers helping out Japanese singers is nothing new and hasn't been for decades. Most recently, if I'm not mistaken, I heard that the newest Arashi（嵐）song was produced by Bruno "Uptown Funk" Mars. Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）classic "Miss M" had half of the album collaborated on by David Foster and members of soon-to-be famous band TOTO.
Still, I did pause a bit on learning that Mayo Shouno（庄野真代）, a singer/songwriter that I had associated with exotic kayo through arguably her most famous song, "Tonde Istanbul"（飛んでイスタンブール）and then City Pop, was backed up on one album by New Wave band Oingo Boingo led by Danny Elfman who would later become famous for his soundtracks for movies such as Tim Burton's "Batman" and "Beetlejuice". The project that I'm referring to is her March 1982 album "Ai, Ai, Ai" (Encounter, Love, Sorrow).
As such, Shouno would add another genre to her repertoire, New Wave, which led to recruiting Elfman and company as the band. Even the album cover has the singer looking pretty New Wave herself. The title track is the track that launches the album. "Ai, Ai, Ai" sounds like something that I often used to hear on the radio and TV back in the wild-and-woolly early days of music video where folks thrashed around like punk rockers but wore tight suits and skinny ties. Interestingly enough, Shouno, who wrote the lyrics, sounds quite sedate on the title track whereas the melody by Masami Koizumi（小泉まさみ）with its mix of rockin' guitar, New Wave synths and some ska bass comes across as something that I could envision Ann Lewis or Sandii & The Sunsetz tackling. At the same time, considering the material and the lady singing it, Shouno even sounds like Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）at points since that singer, who wouldn't be debuting for a few more years, also plied her voice on rock and ska.
Never a dull moment exploring kayo kyoku.😉
I absolutely love this album. I actually listened to it all the way through a little earlier this evening. I might have mentioned before that I found out about it in a roundabout way, thanks to Shouno having a couple songs on an oddball promotional album I bought. I heard the first half of the album on YouTube, wanted to hear the rest, and ended up buying what turned out to be a near mint copy for something like $4US (the only flaw being a crease on one page of the tour booklet). I like the second side of the album without Oingo Boingo as well, but the first side is great. I've talked it up to several friends who are big New Wave fans. Not counting some of my Christmas albums, this is the Japanese album I've listened to the most. I did see a blog that claimed Danny Elfman had no part in the album and wasn't even in Japan when the band went to meet and record with Shouno. I can only assume the blogger had never actually seen the album, or the pictures of Danny Elfman on the sleeve.
ReplyDeleteHi, Scott.
DeleteShouno has been quite the revelation to me as well. As I've mentioned, I knew her initially for those exotic kayo tunes but later found out that she had earlier been writing some City Pop stuff, and then it was this collaboration with Oingo Boingo. So I gather that Shouno has this closer link with Batman and Beetlejuice.:)