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.
I gather that when reasonably priced mail passage is restored between Japan and Canada, Sonia Rosa's（ソニア・ローザ） 1979 "Samba Amour" may be one of the first albums that I'll get. So far, I've covered a couple of other tracks previously, "Te Quero Tanto (I Love You, So)" and "Tokyo in the Blue"（東京イン・ザ・ブルー）and both of them have been silky and smooth and eminently listenable.
Now, there is "Charlie, My Darling" with Rosa's kittenish vocals and a 70s City Pop/J-AOR arrangement. There are also some odd spacey bleeps in the background but otherwise, especially with a trombone solo, "Charlie, My Darling" takes me back to Mancini and Bacharach. It's perfect caipirinha-sipping music, and I think that it would have been fine on a "Lupin III" soundtrack of those times. That's not surprising considering it was Yuji Ohno（大野雄二）, the man behind the famous and iconic theme song for the anime, that composed this one for Rosa and Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）provided the lyrics.
Earlier in the year, I introduced singer-songwriter Toshitaro Hiejima（稗島寿太郎）, aka TOSHITARO, through his cool and nocturnal "Tight Night" from 1986. As I mentioned in that article, it's been difficult gaining any information about the fellow, but I was able to dig up from Takechas Records that he made his debut through a band in 1979 called Toshitaro & Riverside（とし太郎＆リバーサイド）which broke up sometime before or in 1984.
The following year, TOSHITARO released his June 1987 album"Romantic Noise", and I have to say that the cover of him looking like a Reservoir Dog or veteran comedian Teruyoshi Uchimura（内村光良）in one of his skits is quite kakkoii as well. Anyways, one of the tracks is "Lazy Tune" which is anything but. Written by Keiko Aso（麻生圭子）and composed/arranged by the singer, it's got bits and pieces of Motown, piano jazz and late-80s City Pop.
I'm not sure whether it's a real marimba or a synthesizer in there, but the sound adds whimsy although I would have preferred some real horns over the synth-horns in one of the instrumental passages. Still, "Lazy Tune" is a fun song with some nice vocals by TOSHITARO and the backup singers.
A modest milestone here but this article is the 7,501st of its kind that's been written on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" since it got started back in January 2012. Therefore, we shall now observe an emoji of celebration. 🎊
Now that we got that out of the way, let's get into some of that Omega Tribe funk and City Pop. I never thought that I would see the day that something so funky would describe a brief period of summer-like weather smack-dab within autumn. However, that's what 1986 Omega Tribe（1986オメガトライブ）with Carlos Toshiki did with their "Indian Summer", a track on their February 1987 album"Crystal Night".
Rather like a most appreciated glass of sparkling mineral water, it's always refreshing with an Omega Tribe song because of that just-as-sparkling keyboard work and Toshiki's floaty vocals. "Indian Summer" straddles that line between afternoon AOR and nighttime City Pop. There's that keyboard and the vocals for the former and then the electric guitar solo for the latter. However you think of it, those were good times during the Bubble Era.
Wow! Interesting to see Carlos and Joey bantering in English and hoofing it up there. Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）was responsible for the lyrics while Omega Tribe keyboardist Toshitsugu Nishihara（西原俊次）took care of the smooth music with Hiroshi Shinkawa（新川博）handled the arrangement. "Crystal Night" hit No. 1 on the charts and finished 1987 as the No. 20 album of the year. The hit, "Super Chance", is also on the album.
We're already on April 30th as of this writing, and the tax filing deadline is here in Canada. Also on the COVID front locally...well, nope...not great numbers with over 3800 new cases today but the vaccinations are still plowing ahead and the government is beginning to consider possible re-openings, rightly or wrongly. Just to remind folks, I did get my first shot of Astra-Zeneca almost a couple of weeks ago and aside from some achiness in the first couple of days, I've been OK.
I've been saving this one up for publishing today since it's titled "Go-gatsu ni Naru made" (By May) and we are indeed hitting May 1st in less than 24 hours. Singer-songwriter Yasuha（泰葉）is behind this one but this time around, it's not a City Pop tune like her most famous creation, "Fly-Day Chinatown"(フライディ・チャイナタウン) from 1981. In fact, this is a very bouncy pop number composed by her, written by Toyohisa Araki（荒木とよひさ）and arranged by Akira Inoue（井上鑑）for her March 1983 4th album, "Reserved".
Possibly, Matthew Wilder's "Break My Stride" may have gotten into the ears and brains of many a Japanese pop composer, and the underlying rhythm by Yasuha has that resemblance to Wilder's magnum opus. However, "Break My Stride" wasn't released until August 1983 so there goes that theory although I think Pazz's "Minority" may be one of those songs. In any case, that happy keyboard bouncing also reminds me of the theme from "Thomas The Tank Engine".
I was going to call it a night with my previous article but then I was coursing through the Discord City Pop servers and read a comment that Hirotaka Izumi（和泉宏隆）, a keyboardist of the fusion band The Square (or T-Square as it is called now) passed away on April 26th at the age of 62 from heart failure. When I checked on his J-Wiki page, the same news was there and it was confirmed through his own website, "Misty Fountain" with the announcement made on April 28th.
Izumi also contributed to The Square through his composition of songs and my very first exposure to the band was the oh-so-cheerful and mellow "Takarajima"（宝島）, a song that he created back in 1986 which became known to a new generation of listeners thanks to its use in the anime "Hibike! Euphonium"（響け!ユーフォニアム）in 2016. In tribute to him, I'm bringing out one of his other compositions and the final track of The Square's 12th album, "Truth", which was released in April 1987.
"Twilight in Upper West" is a beautiful and introspective piece led by saxophonist Takeshi Ito（伊東たけし）which seems to describe a wonderful and peaceful end of a day after the accomplishment of something difficult but worthwhile. Izumi also has his own marvelous solo midway through the song, and the overall effect is rather elegiac.
There was an orchestra version of "Twilight in Upper West" created between The Square and the Munich Symphony Orchestra in 1994 that was used as a theme song for the Fuji-TV drama "Bakumatsu Koukousei"（幕末高校生...High School Students at the End of the Edo Era） that aired in the same year. I have to say that it's a grand and heroic interpretation of the original ballad, and I can even imagine the high school band in "Hibike! Euphonium" tackling this one.
It's a pity that Izumi has left so suddenly but fans like myself can be rest assured that he has left a lot of songs through The Square and other projects that people like me can further explore and enjoy for years to come. My condolences to his family. Apparently, there will be a Memorial Premiere video airing on his YouTube channel on May 2nd from 9:30 am (presumably Japan Standard Time) according to his website. If any fans have any confirmation and/or further information, please let us know.
I don't get to see actor/bon vivant Takashi Fujii（藤井隆）all that much anymore and when I have seen him recently, he's been tackling more serious roles. However, I still remember him in his early days when he was doing his manic dancing, yelling out "Hot! Hot!" and acting as one of the most flamboyant weirdos out there in Japanese entertainment, and that's saying a lot, if one knows who often populates the comedic region in the geinokai.
Once he got his feet firmly in place as a bona fide celebrity, Fujii created his persona of Matthew Minami who had his own show on TV Asahi in the early 2000s. He even got to exercise his music muscles into the early 2010s with his most famous tune being his debut single"Nandakanda" (ナンダカンダ) in 2000.
This particular single, though, isn't part of Fujii's discography. It's actually part of tofubeats' discography as the singer and DJ released "Disco no Kamisama" (Disco God) in April 2014. Seeing Fujii in the title, I could pick up on that slightly nasal voice immediately and it's good to see that he still has the flexible moves in him. I was fully expecting to see him in the music video dancing and prancing all over the disco floor but instead the video shows the atypical scenes out of the ordinary lives of four young women. That is, until he and tofubeats suddenly show up in a living room to perform their way to the end. Not particularly a standout song by tofubeats but it's good to see Fujii again.
Perhaps it was a thing back in the mid-to-late 1990s for some Japanese dramas to take on a theme song performed by a Western singer or band instead of a Japanese act. In 1994, Mariah Carey became the latest American singer to join the J-Xmas Music Hall of Fame (yes, I'm being sarcastic here) with her "All I Want For Christmas Is You" becoming a huge hit in Japan as it was used as the theme song for the Fuji-TV drama "29-sai no Christmas"（29歳のクリスマス...My 29th Christmas）. Then in 1996, British sophisti-pop band Swingout Sister provided the TBS drama "Mahiru no Tsuki"（真昼の月...Midday Moon） with the introspective "Now You're Not Here".
In between those two shows, though, there was another Fuji-TV drama in 1995 called "Koibito yo"（恋人よ...The Lovers） starring Honami Suzuki（鈴木保奈美）of "Tokyo Love Story" fame and Goro Kishitani（岸谷五朗）whose wife happens to be the lead singer of pop/rock band Princess Princess（プリンセスプリンセス）, Kaori Kishitani, nee Kaori Okui（奥居香）. I only remember the first episode in which the two leads end up falling into a pond so for at least one scene, the two are wearing warm white bathrobes looking like they were supposed to be acting in a Stanley Kubrick movie. Then, there was the final scene in the final episode which was extremely bittersweet. Did quite well in the ratings, I hear.
Apparently, according to the synopsis on J-Wiki, Honami and Goro's characters were supposed to be getting married to other partners at the same wedding hall but they both found out that their significant others had been doing some cheating in the past. Still, the couples got hitched but in a plot twist that would happen on a J-Drama, they ended up living next to each other. Then the cracks in the relationships start appearing.
However, in a nice example of synergy, the theme song and the show helped each other out. For one thing, "To Love You More" was sung by Celine Dion. As you have probably gleaned from the above paragraphs, I didn't really bother with the drama for the most part, but I did end up getting the CD single by Dion for about 500 yen. It was only released as a single in Japan in October 1995, and it remained at the top spot on Oricon for a number of weeks, selling 1.5 million copies. By the end of 1996, it was the 20th-ranking single of the year. Of course, in the following year, Dion had an even bigger hit thanks to "Titanic".
I could use the term baroque to describe the pop here but I also think that there is also something very courtly and countryside about "To Love You More", thanks to the grand and dramatic contributions of the band KRYZLER & KOMPANY with Taro Hakase（葉加瀬太郎）on violin. And what can you say about Dion herself? The song was created by another Canadian legend, David Foster, with Edgar Bronfman Jr. under his pen name of Junior Miles. From what I've read on the Wikipedia article for "To Love You More", the song didn't do too shabbily overseas either.
This week on Reminiscings of Youth, I once again reveal another song that I hadn't been unable to identify for literally decades, but finally could discover what it was just within the last few years. It was certainly the case with Higurashi's（日暮し）"Aki no Tobira"（秋の扉）, but unlike that one, this tune is neither Japanese nor breezy New Music.
However, like "Aki no Tobira", the tune stayed with me all those years into the 21st century. Back in my university days ending by the end of the 1980s, I enjoyed taping excerpts from radio and one of those examples was the Saturday-night radio shows that featured dance remixes. We had two stations in Toronto that provided us homebound introverts with our own dance parties, CKFM and CFNY. I often switched between the two stations between 9 and whenever past the midnight hour to hear all that vinyl scratching and stuttering.
One Saturday night, I came across this really catchy techno tune with all of the beats and eerie synthesizers that you could throw a DJ at, with this boomer of a voice yelling out (and probably needing massive amounts of honey and lemon afterwards):
NEW YORK! NEW YORK!NEW YORK!
CITY OF ENCHANTMENT! CITY OF EXCITEMENT!
BE A PART OF IT! FEEL THE HEART OF IT!
The host of the radio show never said who it was by nor what the title was; or maybe I wasn't listening at the time. All I knew was that this techno band really wanted us to visit The Big Apple and hit a dance club or two. Ironically, I never heard this in a dance club like our local Copa or Sparkles...maybe because it was just a little too industrial techno. It was just the excerpt that I got from the radio and that was it during the prehistoric age before the Internet and YouTube.
So, two stints in Japan plus most of the last decade later, hearing that song on the audio tape when I wanted to feel nostalgic, I did punch in those above lyrics along with the words "dance remix" into the now-existent YouTube and other search engines, and what do you know? My mystery was solved.
This is "New York, New York" from 1987 by the German techno outfit Microchip League or MCL, and nope, it doesn't really have anything to do with the Frank Sinatra trademark tune aside from a cute little toodle of that melody at the very end of the cool and ominous melodic odyssey. I always thought that "New York, New York" could have made for a great theme march for Rick Deckard if he had been magically transported back in time to the 1980s to track down some errant time-traveling replicants. Of course, there would have been a scene where he and the androids had to run through a Manhattan disco where Harrison Ford would have been just as awkward with his moves as Baron Zemo in "Falcon and the Winter Soldier".
I couldn't find out much about MCL itself aside from the fact that the members had been a part of another electronic dance band called Moskwa TV. Supposedly MCL itself had a brief time of it...just between 1986 and 1990.
Unfortunately, I couldn't track down in which month of that year "New York, New York" was released so I'll just be whimsical and decide to show what was at No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 on Oricon in the month of May.
I was slightly caught off-guard last night just when "Uta Con"（うたコン）was signing off for another week when the concierge Shosuke Tanihara（谷原章介）quickly rapped off about a saishuukai（最終回）. Well, saishuukai means final episode so did that mean that "Uta Con" was wrapping up things after a 5-year run? As it turns out, I think that I am mistaken and that probably the saishuukai was in reference to the current NHK morning serial "Ochoyan"（おちょやん）, although I'm also surprised that it's finishing its run since it just seemed to speed by. Plus, I don't think that I ever heard of any Japanese television show suddenly cutting out less than a month after the new fiscal year kicks in. If "Uta Con" had ended its run, it would have been at the end of March, not April.
One segment on last night's episode involved showcasing four of the young Turks in the enka/new kayoworld, including Ikuzo Yoshi's（吉幾三）protégé, enka singer Naoki Sanada（真田ナオキ）. I first wrote about him back in 2018 with his "Yoi no Blues"（酔いのブルース）and since then, he seems to be doing his old master proud.
Well, Sanada has come back with his latest single from February 2021, "Maji de Horeta" (Really Fallen In Love). Naturally, written and composed by Yoshi, the Saitama Prefecture-born singer brings out a lot of gravelly and boisterous brio in his vocals, something that has probably also been cultivated by Yoshi since he's also got a similarly rumble in his delivery when it comes to his songs. "Maji de Horeta" has quite the grandeur and I'm sure that the karaoke folks will love tackling the undulating first line in each verse. I just think that the end is a little too abrupt.
I think that there is something quite Tadao Ando（安藤忠雄）in the building in the shortened video where Sanada is singing. But aside from that, I think young Sanada is beginning to show a few of his own characteristic physical flourishes during his performances...kinda like Hiroshi Itsuki（五木ひろし）."Maji de Horeta" hasn't done too shabbily, either, by peaking at No. 6.
Another passing that I have to note, unfortunately. I was checking my Mixi account this morning when I came across the news that TV and film composer Shunsuke Kikuchi（菊池俊輔）had passed a few days ago on April 24th at the age of 89. Kikuchi was responsible for the music behind a number of anime, tokusatsu and cop series including the very first tokusatsu series that I'd ever seen "Chojin Barom-1"（超人バロム・1...Superman Barom-1）and the police series "G-MEN★75". He also came up with Meiko Kaji's（梶芽衣子）"Urami Bushi"（怨み節）, a kayo ballad that had also got into Quentin Tarentino's"Kill Bill".
Looking at his Wikipedia biography, a newspaper in his native Aomori Prefecture noted that if Kikuchi ever got onto a project, it would always be a success, and that same newspaper moreover stated that he was responsible for the pattern of having a heroic theme for the opening of an anime and a melancholy ballad at the end.
There are many of a certain age, including myself, who remember the "Force Five" collection of mecha anime which hit North American shores in the late 1970s, just before "Robotech", aka "Macross", did. The second entry in the series was "Danguard Ace" whose theme song had originally been recorded by the legend Isao Sasaki（ささきいさお）and composed by Kikuchi.
Well, Sasaki and Kikuchi were also together when they worked on the fifth entry in "Force Five", "Daikū Maryū Gaiking"(Divine Demon-Dragon Gaiking). Now, when it comes to the theme songs, the ones that I remember are the theme for the first "Starvengers", aka "Getter Robo G" in Japan (I'll have to do that one soon) and the one for "Gaiking".
Simply titled "Daikū Maryū Gaiking", Kikuchi's theme was heroic and slightly disco at the same time, not surprising since the show premiered in April 1976. And it reflected the awesome concept of a gigantic airborne carrier shaped like a dragon which could spit out parts to create the mighty Gaiking. Now that was something worth waking up early for!
The "Force Five" shows didn't have the sung versions of the theme songs during the opening credits so all we got for "Gaiking" was the empty karaoke version and even then it was plenty epic. Yet, there is no one like having the original with the golden tones of veteran anison singer Isao Sasaki and the Columbia Yurikago Kai（コロムビアゆりかご会）at the mike. I'm sure that whenever Gaiking kicked major mecha butt, the theme would come roaring on and kids would be jumping up and down. Kougo Hotomi（保富康午）provided the lyrics with Kikuchi handling music and arrangement.
I guess when it comes to applying the Big Band sheen onto kayo kyoku/J-Pop from the early 1980s onwards, the rhythm from Elbow Bones and the Racketeers' 1983"A Night in New York" must have been the go-to thing. Mind you, that song really did provide for a melodically sumptuous evening in the Big Apple.
Singer-songwriter Masamichi Sugi（杉真理）has dipped into the jazz genre from time to time with songs like "Whiskey ga O-Suki deshou?" (ウィスキーが、お好きでしょ）for Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）. Plus, he apparently has given himself his own Big Band treatment with "Happy Ending", the final track on his December 1990 11th album"Wonderful Life".
With words and music by Sugi, that "A Night in New York" sensation is in "Happy Ending" and according to his lyrics, it looks like Christmas is present as well so I've put in that genre in Labels, too. That's all good since I've always thought that jazz and the Yuletide go well together. Aside from the lack of a synthpop aspect, there is something about "Happy Ending" that reminds me of what Kazuhiro Nishimatsu（西松一博）was doing on his "Bouekifu Monogatari"（貿易風物語）in 1985.
Midnight routine? That means my shower and tooth-brushing before either hitting the hay or indulging in some YouTube viewing, although I've been trying to tone it down a little as far as the latter is concerned. At times, I've gone a little overboard with the various videos, and yet there is something to be said about enjoying some quiet time in front of the computer.
Back in 2019, I discovered this fellow by the name of Mega Shinnosuke and his form of neo City Pop called "Togenkyo to Taxi"（桃源郷とタクシー）. I also noted that the Fukuoka-born singer-songwriter has delved into City Pop, rock/funk and synthpop, and this time, his September 2020 digital single, "Midnight Routine" sounds a little different.
"Midnight Routine" actually goes more into some of that indies rock character, perhaps even shoegaze/dream pop, although I can additionally pick up on a bit of ol' Flipper's Guitar Shibuya-kei and a little synthpop. I'd say that it does transcend the genres. It's all quite hazy and breezy in a way mindful of enjoying that after-hours taxi ride home with the backseat windows all the way down one summer night.
I've written about a couple of Tomoyo Harada（原田知世）tunes when she was an 80s aidoru,"Tengoku ni Ichiban Chikai Shima"（天国にいちばん近い島）and "Motto Sunao ni..."（もっと素直に…）, both of which appear on her 2nd album"Nadeshiko Junjou" (Innocence of a Sweet Girl). The album was released on November 28th 1984 which just happened to be the date of Harada's 17th birthday and there was a small ritual of having some of her albums released on her birthday including her debut effort, unsurprisingly titled "Birthday Album" which came out in 1983.
But that point of trivia wasn't the trigger for me to cover "Nadeshiko Junjou". It was actually the fact that it was produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）and it's been SOP for me to immediately look at any album which has been organized by the Oscar winner and the Yellow Magic Orchestra musician, especially if it comes from the 1980s. Knowing about his work on Mari Iijima's（飯島真理）1983 album"Rose" and of course, the early 1980s albums by Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）such as "Romantique", I was fully expecting that "Nadeshiko Junjou" would have some of that classy and synthy arrangements, thanks to the Professor.
(16:20)
Unlike those two above albums, though, I unfortunately have yet to own "Nadeshiko Junjou" but I do have to follow that SOP, so allow me to go into this album which peaked at No. 2 on Oricon. The album is actually more of a mini-album since the original version only had three songs on each side.
The second song on Side B is "Clara Kibun"（クララ気分...Feeling Like Clara） which was written by Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）and composed by Yoshitaka Minami（南佳孝）. Sakamoto arranged this one (as he did for the first five songs on the album), and that synthpop and slightly Asian vibe pretty much gives the game away. To be honest, looking through Kisugi's lyrics, I couldn't quite get what the story was all about; it just seemed more of a conceptual ride through happiness, but I gather that it's a pretty refined aidoru song by Harada and that it must be great to be Clara.
Sakamoto actually composed "Lycéenne"（リセエンヌ）which starts off Side B. At first, I couldn't quite understand what the katakana was all about but thanks to the search engines, I did figure out that it was the French word for "schoolgirl". Harada and veteran lyricist Chinfa Kan（康珍化）provided the words for "Lycéenne" that seem to take the aidoru into the future and have her reminisce about her and her classmates' time as 17-year-olds. The Professor's introspective melody displays that classical side that he has also illustrated in his later solo works.
For the rest of the songs, I have to refer to this one video which has the entire album (snazzy cover of Harada, if I may add). As soon as I heard Track 1"Hoshizora Engata no Gekijo"（星空の円型劇場...Amphitheater Under the Stars）, I knew that it was a Taeko Ohnuki creation. There is just that cute and fantastical arrangement with her and Sakamoto, and Harada even sounds as if she's emulating Ohnuki herself. The lyrics seem to describe the joy of performing on the stage as a kid for the kids. However, the sax solo is a bit jarring and I thought it was more appropriate for a Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）tune, but perhaps it's just the first-listen jitters.
The one other song from this video is Track 2 at 4:00, "Happy Yes". Written and composed by drummer Tetsuro Kashibuchi（橿渕哲郎）, this is also another adorable number about young Tomoyo gushing about that guy she's fallen for. Honestly speaking, part of me was gushing at how the lass pronounced the words "surprise" and the title in the lyrics.
(cover version)
The one song that had been added to the original album when it was put onto CD is "Aishiteru"（愛してる...I Love You） which was the B-side to the single version of "Tengoku ni Ichiban Chikai Shima". As with that A-side, "Aishiteru" was created by lyricist Kan and composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）, and it does stand out from the Sakamoto-produced synthpop with its gentle and soothing summer sounds. Harada's vocals come across as even more whispery here. For both the A and B sides, Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）took care of the arrangement.
If I can still get "Nadeshiko Junjou" at a reasonable price, I wouldn't mind plunking down the yen for the fact that it's got that Sakamoto touch in there.
Oh, boy... Mariko Nagai. I can’t help but frequently revisit her albums. The singer always managed to deliver catchy and upbeat pieces that felt as if taken straight out of anime shows of the 1980s. In this post, I would like to take a closer look at her rock/pop song “Time ~ Song for GUNHED” and its cinematic connection.
The story of the song begins with a Tokusatsu movie simply called GUNHED (1989). I have already went into great details about the behind-the-scenes history of the film in my blog editorial, but let me recapitulate here that the production was initially supposed to be a Godzilla flick when the Toho Studios decided to turn the screenplay into a cyberpunk spectacle but without the King of the Monsters.
All in all, the film is a guilty pleasure which enjoys a modern cult following (even James Cameron proclaimed himself as a fan of the film). Well, the special effects and Blade Runner-like production design are definitely the main advantages of the motion picture, but the screenplay and editing are a major disappointment. Basically, the plotline of this movie is Ripley and Hicks from Aliens (1986) trying to stop Skynet from The Terminator (1984). I think that the best way to describe this film is to call it a compilation of live-action cutscenes from a cancelled PS1 game. They do not work well together at all, but they please the eye.
Groovy music score was composed by Toshiyuki Honda and Takayuki Baba, but it was Mariko Nagai who was given the job of providing the song for the end credits of the film. Unfortunately, the song is only featured in the Japanese version of GUNHED, so if you have an old, English DVD release of the film, then you won’t be able to hear “Time”.
In my opinion, “Time” does not fit the tone of the movie at all. GUNHED tries to be a gritty science-fiction tale, whereas the song seems to be just yet another theme proposal for Patlabor: The Mobile Police anime.
This is not to say that I dislike “Time”. To me, it is a cracker. Fast beats and Mariko’s powerful voice (especially when she’s singing “twenty hundred plus one!” and “20 seiki koete” lines) make this song truly epic. It’s just better to listen to it on its own, without the contextual burden of a movie that led to its creation.
The song was released on Mariko’s albums Miracle Girl and Zutto: Everlasting Collection. There was also a separate single edition. In addition, some hardcore fan made a music video coupling the song with GUNHED clips. You can find both full screen as well as widescreen version of the video on Youtube.
I remember our time in the JCSA back at University of Toronto when we had our Monday night movie showings in Sigmund Samuel Library, ostensibly to help some of our members from Japan with their English comprehension. One of the flicks that we showed was Joel Schumacher's"Falling Down" starring Michael Douglas as an already wound-up citizen of Los Angeles who finally cracks and goes on a personal rampage. It was plenty of fun to watch.
Luckily, this "Fallin' Down" (without the formal g at the end of the first word) is far more jovial than Douglas' D-Fens character. A February 2015 single by technopop group Denki Groove（電気グルーヴ）, it's a simple and happy little synth-ditty by Takkyu Ishino and Pierre Taki（石野卓球・ピエール瀧）, and anchored by that bass synthesizer, the gang and the other synths take us listeners for a little march through the sky. Nice slightly Dadaist music video, too, with those soaring sky-flyers.
"Fallin' Down" peaked at No. 24 on Oricon and it's also a track on Denki Groove's March 2017 studio album "Tropical Groove" which went as high as No. 7. The song was also used as a theme for the TV Tokyo horror-comedy "Kaiki Ren'ai Sakusen"（怪奇恋愛作戦...Spooky Romantics） that was also broadcast in early 2015.
With the many bands of different stripes emerging onto the J-Pop zeitgeist in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it can be easy to overlook the fact that there was also a plethora of female singers of refined and mellow pop songs during that time as well. I'm thinking of ladies such as Miki Imai（今井美樹）, Midori Karashima（辛島美登里）and Kaori Kuno（久野かおり）.
I discovered another such singer recently. Her name is Hiromi Asai（淺井ひろみ）although over the last decade or so, she's been going just by her first name in all caps, HIROMI. Hailing from Ehime Prefecture, she started out in 1981 by winning a contest sponsored by the Yamaha Music Foundation and from that point, Asai was helping out the hit duo Chage and Aska in the recording booth. Later in 1988, she made her first solo single and album, and in the following year, she was invited by Chage to join him in a new band called Multi Max.
"White Snow" made its first appearance in her November 1993 3rd (mini-)album"Dear Friends", and it was given lyrics by Eriko Wakiya（脇屋恵理子）and composed by Hiroto "Kanji" Ishikawa（石川寛門）with veteran Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, another long associate of the Yamaha Music Foundation, arranging everything. "White Snow" is truly a soothing and uplifting ballad with a sweeping melody and an arm-in-arm background chorus at the end for that sentimental touch. I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been used as the theme song or even as an insert song for some drama. Considering the title and the release date of "Dear Friends", perhaps it may even be a Holiday tune of sorts. According to her J-Wiki biography, the song was released as a single in November 1996.
Hokkaido-born Ryoko Sakaguchi（坂口良子）was an actress and a TV personality who appeared in movies and TV programs ranging from the iconic 70s cop show "Taiyo ni Hoero!"（太陽にほえろ!）to a second series real-life adaptation of the manga "Sign wa V"（サインはV）and a numbers of variety shows. Tragically, she left this mortal coil prematurely at the age of 57 in March 2013 from pneumonia and cancer. YouTube channel makotosaito put up the above video of some of her commercials as a tribute to her just a couple of days after her passing.
(Unfortunately the video has been taken down.)
Sakaguchi also put out her fair share of singles from the early 1970s but only one full album and one mini-album were released by her. The full album was "Kajitsushu"（果実酒...Fruit Wine） which came out in March 1979. One track is "Shitsuren Collage" (Heartbreak Collage), a pretty funky number by lyricist Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）and composer Ken Sato（佐藤健）, although I'm not sure whether it would fall into the City Pop category although that underlying rhythm and honky-tonk piano are making me think about that. However, I've categorized it as New Music for now. Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）arranged all of the tracks on "Kajitsushu".
However, I have to say that the arrangement for her "Persona" is good for that City Pop tag. A track from that May 1982 mini-album"Silky"（シルキー）, this was written by Ryo Shoji（東海林良）and composed by Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）, and it's got that touch of class, thanks to some moody strings, jazzy instruments, dreamy keyboards and Sakaguchi's even breathier vocals. I'd be inclined to check out "Silky" over "Kajitsushu" at this point, but both albums have gotten me to go "Hmmm....".
There isn't a separate J-Wiki article for Misia's song "Ashita e" (Toward Tomorrow), a track on her April 2011 10th studio album"Soul Quest", but Wikipedia does have an English-language article on the song.
"Ashita e" was created by the singer and Toshiaki Matsumoto（松本俊明）as a song of support and hope after the March 11th 2011 Tohoku Earthquake which had occurred several weeks earlier. As usual, her voice and the arrangements by Matsumoto (who was also on the piano and synthesizer) hit "Ashita e" out of the park, and perhaps on second thought, there is really no need to put up anything huge on the online encyclopedia or here. Just listening to the song is nourishment enough. However, I will add that Misia made her first appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen on NHK with this song at the end of 2012. "Soul Quest" itself peaked at No. 7 on Oricon.
Unfortunately, I was given the news that another famous person in Japan succumbed to COVID-19 earlier this morning at the age of 81. He wasn't a comedian or an actor but actually a chef named Toshiro Kandagawa（神田川俊郎）. I hadn't heard from him for years but back in the 1990s when Fuji-TV's original "Ryori no Tetsujin"（料理の鉄人...The Iron Chefs） was captivating viewers within and outside of Japan, Kandagawa was a fairly frequent guest and gadfly who bumped heads and philosophies with the Iron Chefs themselves and even beat them in the Kitchen Stadium.
As I remember him, he was a feisty competitor known for his strict adherence to classic Japanese cooking styles according to his Wikipedia entry, and I was struck by the commentary that he had been seen as the equivalent of the heel in wrestling matches. Still, I'm hoping that much of the boisterous competition that was shown between Kandagawa and Iron Japanese Chef Rokusaburo Michiba（道場六三郎）was kept within the Stadium and that they were friendly in real life. I can only imagine what Kandagawa's feelings about Dragon Rolls and some of that neo sushi must have been, though (I'm perfectly fine with those).
I couldn't find anything on his J-Wikipedia article about anything that he liked in kayo kyoku, but in tribute to him and also to a new friend I made on Discord earlier today who has a liking for enka and Mood Kayo, I decided to find something appropriate. Of course, I'm uncertain whether Kandagawa was a Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）fan, but I have discovered "Edokko Sushi", which, honestly speaking, I only became aware of today.
A 1958 single written by Yaso Saijo（西條八十）and composed by Gento Uehara（上原げんと）, it's lightly sung in the higher register by Misora as she talks about the joy of making the sushi for the regulars in the restaurant, presumably Tokyo because of that first word in the title: Edokko. According to the Wikipedia entry, Edokko can be defined in two ways:
1) One who was born and raised in Edo/Tokyo to parents who both were also born and raised in Edo/Tokyo. (If one parent was not born and raised in Edo/Tokyo, then the child would not be a true Edokko, and was called madara ["mottled"].)
2) One who was born and raised in Edo/Tokyo to a family lineage spanning back three or four generations in Edo/Tokyo.
In any case, I would like to make certain that Kandagawa was actually born in Kyoto, the other former capital of Japan. My condolences to his family.
This act will most likely go down as one of the more unusual bands to make its way onto "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for reasons that will soon become evident.
I actually first heard about these guys when one of them appeared on an NHK variety show several weeks ago. The program was "Dame Jiman ~ Minna ga Deru Terebi ~"（NHKだめ自慢 〜みんながでるテレビ〜...Boasting of Failures ~ TV that Anyone Can Join） and it has regular people show up talking about some of their most hilarious failures in front of a panel of discriminating tarento. On one episode, a Buddhist priest (from Tokyo, I believe) came on to talk about a major goof that he ended up perpetrating but that wasn't the thing that I remembered from his turn on the stage. It was actually the fact that he and a few of his fellow priests had their own rock band.
Yep, you read that correctly. There is a rock-funk band called VOWZBAND（坊主バンド...Buddhist Priest Band） which has their own website and even their own YouTube channel. Apparently, they started things off fairly quietly in 2010 but then got their own gigs at live houses which turned into music videos and so far, they even have their own self-titled album.
Looking at some of their videos, I think that VOWZBAND has got a good sense of humour about it which is another revelatory observation since up to now, I had only thought of Buddhist priests as being very serious, humourless and not particularly interested in rock. Well, I was absolutely wrong on all counts. Anyways, I'm not sure when this particular song came into being, but the above video of the priests has it being uploaded in 2016 so that's how I will date it.
"Bonnou Funk" (Funk of Worldly Desires), although the vocalist in the video seemed to have pronounced it a bit more profanely (but that can't be so), comes across as a comical piece of old-style funk from the 60s or 70s. That guy on the far right even has what I would describe as an electro-shakuhachi...and he's shredding it! These guys can do Vegas if they wanted.
When I first saw the title for this song "Jouki no Tatsu Machi"(Steamy Town), my memories brought up the city of Beppu in Oita Prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu. Back in the summer of 1991 when I was taking a tour of the area just before heading back to Toronto, I did go through Beppu but didn't really see the steam; I take it the rising white columns are more of a winter phenomenon. Unfortunately, I didn't get to partake in the onsen there, something that is nationally famous about the city.
As for "Jouki no Tatsu Machi", this was a track on singer-songwriter Saeko Suzuki's（鈴木さえ子）1983 debut album, "I wish it could be Christmas everyday", and I've already spoken about the synthpop title track. In comparison, though, "Jouki no Tatsu Machi" may have those synthesizers in play but I think it's overall more of a quirky mix of French pop and New Wave. In fact, I'd say that it is something rather reminiscent of Miharu Koshi（コシミハル）at around the same time when that singer was moving into that avant-garde New Wave field herself.
While Suzuki took care of the melody, Hirobumi Suzuki（鈴木博文）provided the lyrics. Suzuki is one of the more common names in Japan so it's probably no surprise that there is no familial relationship between Saeko and Hirobumi, but the latter is the brother of Moonriders' leader, Keiichi Suzuki（鈴木慶一）, who has had a long friendship with the singer.
Another nice and relaxing ballad by singer-songwriter Tatsuhiko Yamamoto（山本達彦）who I think is one of the relatively hidden treasures for J-AOR and City Pop. I believe that I've noted this before but his delivery seems to mix in some of the vocals of his contemporaries, Junichi Inagaki（稲垣潤一）and Yasuhiro Abe（安部恭弘）.
From his February 1982 album"I Love You So" is the final track "Matenro Blues" (Skyscraper Blues) which indeed has that bluesy feel replete with soft keyboards, harmonica and of course Yamamoto's soothing voice. Accompanying his melody is Masami Sugiyama's（杉山政美）lyrics which are happily not a downer at all and actually show an emerging romance in the big city. Perhaps in reflection of the title, the couple is up at the top of those tall buildings in the West Shinjuku area during the evening.
The video below is a live performance of "Matenro Blues" by Yamamoto from his 1987 album"Alive and Well". Hopefully, all of you are, too.
The crazy thing about "People!", the final track on PAZZ's 1987"Bananafish" album, is that despite its nearly 6 minutes of song, it doesn't wear out its welcome at all and I'm surprised that it just breezes by as quickly as it does.
I've already written about much of this pretty fine album with the weird name by the one-off band, and certainly I would love to get my hands on my own copy of "Bananafish" once all this COVID stuff is behind me and mail delivery is stabilized once more. But in the meantime, I'll be more than happy to settle for what I can find on YouTube, and with the finale of the album being "People!", I get a warm and soulful mid-tempo song created by lyricist Ichiko Takehana（竹花いち子）and composer/vocalist Masayuki Iwata（岩田雅之）.
There are some nice honeyed synth-horns and a rhythm that hints at a comfortable afternoon drive along the coast. Then at the end, there is even a hopeful get-together collection of voices and claps which hints at some gospel and perhaps some Stevie Wonder. Although I wonder how much better "People!" would have been with real horns, it's a nice way to end "Bananafish".
Time to go from the optimistic and breezy morning side of City Pop into the sexier and more jaded night, so let us go with some Junko Yagami（八神純子）in her downtown R&B phase of the late 1980s.
Her "Thank You for the Party", the first track for her 11th studio album"Truth Hurts" from November 1987, is a frenetically-paced dancing R&B number from Los Angeles. The singer-songwriter's lyrics can pretty much describe some of the feelings that Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）was putting forth in her late 1970s hits through her seen-it-all, done-it-all persona, except that it's probably on the other side of the Pacific. Lasting romance doesn't really exist in the City of Angels; it's all a series of mutually beneficial one-night stands starting from the various discos in town...and apparently, it's all good.
Perhaps the story is somewhat cynical but I can't deny Yagami's music and those reliably wonderful vocals of hers. Her husband, John Stanley, is having fun on percussion, and I guess those are synthesizers masquerading as the tight horns according to the liner notes on "Truth Hurts". The 80s must have been one heck of a time down in California.
Once again, my doctor would probably tsk-tsk me to Cholesterol Prison but the above breakfast is a most wonderful thing for me. In all fairness to me, though, I only have something this fatty "just" once a week.
However, there is also something to be said about a gorgeous sunny sky greeting someone in the morning. Meteorological and melodic are just as important as gastronomical, so to start off this Friday in the City Pop department, I give you MIO's "Morning Bell", the first track from her first album in 1984, "Starlight Shower".
It has a very cheerful beat and some notable string action (of course, the sax is also in there) that greet my ears like a relentlessly optimistic cruise director hailing passengers on a ship, and it must have been some wonderful early hours that inspired the creation of "Morning Bell". Lyricist Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）and composer Yuuichiro Oda（小田裕一郎）were responsible for the song, and they are the same team behind a number of Seiko Matsuda's（松田聖子）early songs such as her big 1980 hit "Aoi Sangoshou"（青い珊瑚礁）.
Actually, the Tokyo-born and Tottori Prefecture-raised MIO is more well known as an anison singer and has been known as MIQ since around 2001. On top of that, she's probably even more famous to the public at large for her jazzy rendition of the Yodobashi Camera jingle, but in the beginning of her career (according to her Wikipedia profile, it started in 1982) just judging from "Morning Bell", her vocals were a bit breezier but the soul was already intact.
Well, we may be done with winter but I guess that winter was not quite done with us yet...despite the fact that we are one month into spring! Indeed, we had 5 cm of snow dumped onto us yesterday but as is typically the case for Toronto, next week will see us having 22-degree days once more. But as my anime buddy has often told me, no one here changes their winter tires back to summer tires until May.
In yet another case of KKP forgetfulness, I wrote, all the way back in September 2018, about the short-lived band Zariba's（ザリバ）"Aru Hi"（或る日）which had a virtually unrecognizable vocal performance by a teenage Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）. At the time, I had just received "Tsutsumi Kyohei: Jisen Sakuhinshuu"（筒美京平自選作品集...Kyohei Tsutsumi's Personal Selection）, an amassing of the late great composer's many works for many artists of which "Aru Hi" was one. In that same article, I mentioned that I would also write about Tsutsumi's contribution for the folk-pop band Off-Course（オフ・コース）, "Wasure Yuki" (Snow For Forgetting). Well, let's leap ahead more than 2 years later...😞
Right now, perhaps a lot of relatively new and even veteran Off-Course fans may be a little boggle-eyed at the revelation that someone else had composed a song for the band when the usual assumption is that keyboardist Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）and/or guitarist Yasuhiro Suzuki（鈴木康博）would take care of the songwriting. Ah, but such was not the case for "Wasure Yuki" which was Off-Course's 6th single released in October 1974. In fact, it was the hitmaking combination of Tsutsumi and lyricist Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）that came up with the song since I gather that the band was still considered to be too green and at the record company Express/Toshiba EMI's insistence, a couple of relative vets were to come up with the next Off-Course song.
Also, according to the J-Wiki article on "Wasure Yuki", no one in Off-Course was happy with the results...either with the A-side or the B-side "Mizuirazu no Gogo"（水いらずの午後...An Afternoon Alone）, some thing that, knowing my impressions of Oda over the decades, didn't surprise me one bit. Oda doesn't sing other people's songs (even those by Tsutsumi and Matsumoto); he almost always sings his own group's creations, and with the conclusion that these weren't the songs that they had been hoping for, after the single had been put out on sale that October, Off-Course never bothered to sing them live ever. Still, I guess all involved chalked it up to experience and were good enough sports about the situation because the band would continue their recording relationship with Toshiba EMI for several more years.
But in all honesty, although I have to admit that "Wasure Yuki" doesn't sound quite like an Off-Course song, it's not a badly-done song at all. It has quite the beautiful waltz-like arrangement and the sung harmonies are lovely. Plus, the comments underneath the video have also been rather praiseworthy. Neither the A-side or B-side were placed onto an original album by the band and the single was left to lapse into haiban status, but they did eventually find their way onto a March 1998 Off-Course BEST compilation"OFF COURSE Singles".
This is my fifth article for today and usually I would stop at four but seeing my lapse in memory, I did have to make amends, and then on reading the story behind "Wasure Yuki", I just had to get this one done under the wire.
No, there's nothing wrong with your eyesight although perhaps things might improve with the image if you have any 3D glasses in the house. That was just me at Yamashita Park in Yokohama one night trying to take a regular shot with my old now-defunct Casio after having a little too much to drink in Chinatown. Still, I had a very nice time at the buffet table.
(29:12)
But seeing that this video has footage of romantic nighttime Yokohama (it's been taken down), I thought that the top photo would be rather nice as a thumbnail for the topic of this article, Yuuko Iwasaki's（いわさきゆうこ）"One Night". Now, for those who don't know Iwasaki, I actually wrote about her last November for her one and only single "Ikusenman no Yoru wo Koete"（幾千万の夜をこえて）. However, the surprising thing is that she's better known as songwriter Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂）who has created a ton of tunes for other singers since that 1980 single.
"Ikusenman no Yoru wo Koete" was more of a New Music number with some AOR and country, but "One Night", a track mate of that song on Iwasaki/Iwasato's one and only 1980 album "Magical Liqueur"（マジカル・リキュール）, takes things into a more City Pop direction with a touch of bossa nova. As I mentioned in that other article, the lady has a pleasantly light and smoky voice, and the whole song reminds me of Keiko Maruyama（丸山圭子）, Junko Yagami（八神純子）and even Miharu Koshi（越美晴）in her early years. It's perfect cocktail music and if I can also mention an actual song that it reminds me of, it would be Leon Russell's 1972"This Masquerade" that has since been covered by the Carpenters and George Benson.
First off, I have to make a long-needed correction. Back in the early days of "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I wrote about "Watashi wa Piano"（私はピアノ）which was first recorded by Mizue Takada（高田みづえ）and then it was covered by the scintillating salsa band Orquesta De La Luz（オルケスタ・デ・ラ・ルス）. For the longest time, I'd assumed that Orquesta De La Luz was Japan's first group dedicated to the genre of salsa but actually I was wrong about that. In all truth, that honour goes to Orquesta Del Sol (オルケスタデルソル...Orchestra of the Sun) that first formed in 1978 compared to Orquesta De La Luz's birth in 1984.
In fact, one of the percussionists involved in Orquesta Del Sol, Gen Ogimi（大儀見元）, would become the leader of Orquesta De La Luz. According to Tower Records, other members of Orquesta Del Sol included percussionist Pecker（ペッカー）, pianist Ken Morimura（森村献）and bassist Getao Takahashi（高橋ゲタ夫）. A number of albums were released by the band but their debut record was "Rainbow Love" in 1981. And here is the title track which is as fun and percolating as any salsa song deserves to be. Unfortunately, I couldn't find out who is the lead vocalist here.
Orquesta Del Sol doesn't have a J-Wiki entry but it does have a presence on Facebook at least.
The above video by YouTube channel Fix69130 is of Japan Railways' Keihin-Tohoku train in Tokyo characterized by those light blue stripes. I always used to see it on one side of the platform opposite the the other side for the Yamanote Line which was the loop around inner Tokyo.
The reason that I mention one of my old familiar urban sights is because of this song "Namida no Dai San Keihin" (The Tearful No. 3 Keihin). At first, I'd thought that the song had something to do with the train itself but then looking up J-Wiki, I realized that the title is actually referring to the Daisan Keihin Douro（第三京浜道路...The No. 3 Keihin Road）, a segment of National Highway No. 466 spanning from the Tamagawa Interchange in Tokyo to the Hodogaya Interchange in Yokohama.
Lily（りりぃ）, the late singer-songwriter most famous for her 1974 hit single, "Watashi ga Naiteimasu"（わたしが泣いています）, created and recorded "Namida no Dai San Keihin" as her November 1980 single. With a mix of eerie and suspenseful, her lyrics relate a story of a woman trying desperately to contact a (former?) paramour without success. Meanwhile, her music has that relentless guitar chugging away like a revving car engine, and there is something in the arrangement that reminds me of songs that I used to hear from the New Wave rock band The Fixx.
The video below shows the actual Daisan Keihin Douro by hiros. tv channel on YouTube and the ride seems more relaxing and less urgent than the images from the actual song. But from 3:15, the video accelerates to four times the speed, so if you are inclined, you can cut the happy audio here and then play "Namida no Dai San Keihin" over it to get that suspense feeling. Regrettably, not ever having getting a driver's license, I can only drive vicariously through this video.
Well, with all of the folks that I've brought onto the Reminiscings of Youth series over the past several months, I just had to once again bring on the Piano Man himself, Billy Joel, after introducing him onto the pages of this blog with "Rosalinda's Eyes" back in December 2020. He and his songs were regular parts of my radio-listening regimen as a kid and of course there are so many of them that I can feature as a ROY article.
However, I think for the Japanese, and perhaps especially for the karaoke fans in Japan, Joel's "Honesty" has been the most popular song for some reason. Maybe it's the gut-wrenching message that the brutal truth is more necessary than comforting words to prop up a relationship, and in a country where heartrending melodramas have thrived for decades, "Honesty" has just been the perfect Joel tonic. In any case, many was a time that this May 1979 single was performed in front of me at karaoke joints, and I've even given it a try.
The one other Joel song that got a lot of karaoke time was "My Life", and both it and "Honesty" were tracks on his October 1978 album"52nd Street". I always enjoyed telling the students that "My Life" was used as the theme song for "Bosom Buddies", the sitcom featuring a very young Tom Hanks (but that'll be a different article).
In any case, I've loved "Honesty" for those melancholy piano chords that start it off and then those strings that back up Billy when the refrain comes in. The arrangement is just so lush and although my interpretation may be wrong, the song might be reflecting a relationship in crisis but there's hope at the end that after taking in some of that bitter medicine that the romance or friendship will come out stronger. The US Billboard Hot 100 had "Honesty" peaking at No. 24 while it reached its highest point at No. 9 on the Adult Contemporary chart for the same company. Meanwhile in Canada where it also got plenty of airplay, the single got as high as No. 16.
So, according to "Showa Pops", which singles were coming out in May 1979? And once again, there is some discrepancy between J-Wiki and that site about release dates for two of the songs here.
